William Bolcom was invited to write "Vaslav's Song," for baritone and piano, for the AIDS Quilt Project of baritone and AIDS sufferer William Parker. Parker wanted to create a literature of composers' responses to AIDS that would form a literature which could be used to raise funds for a cure. Ethyl Eichelberger, an actor/playwright and a friend of Bolcom's wife, soprano Joan Morris, wrote the poem which Bolcom set. Bolcom casts the rhyming lyrics of "Vaslav's Song" in a blues idiom which seems to contain a few too many wrong notes. This gives the music and the words a bitterly sarcastic edge, as the singer seems to be trying to keep his cool while suppressing rage. Rage emerges, in fact, after the words "Of course I turned out wild," as the piano momentarily abandons the blues scale for a stormy, untamed chordal passage. The piece then regains its sangfroid, and stays in semi-blues form for its remainder. Bolcom's music brilliantly captures the mood of the poem.

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