Judith Henderson has been linked to Ziggy Marley for 30 years by way of an unlikely hit they both had a hand in.
She was a jingle writer for hire in the mid-1990s, when the now-defunct Montreal children’s TV production company Cinar put out a call for a theme song for a show it was developing for PBS called Arthur.
They chose Believe in Yourself, a lilting tune penned by Henderson with arrangements by guitarist and fellow Montrealer Jerry De Villiers Jr.
“Every day when you’re walking down the street / Everybody that you meet / has an original point of view / And I say hey / What a wonderful kind of day / If we can learn to work and play / and get along with each other,” go the lyrics.
“I wanted to say everyone comes from a different path, with a different way of approaching things,” Henderson told The Gazette recently. “It doesn’t matter who you are, you need to believe in yourself.”
To boost her chances of being selected, she submitted three versions of the song. Cinar producers picked a reggae-tinged one, then scored a coup by getting Marley to sing it. A team went down to Jamaica to meet with the son of Bob, and the infectious ditty was recorded at Tuff Gong studios.
The series was a huge success, lasting 25 seasons, with the song Henderson wrote providing the soundtrack.
“In a way, this is my legacy,” said the Westmount resident. “It’s probably the most enduring thing I’ve ever written, and I’ve written a lot of things. Whenever people find out I wrote it with Jerry, they go, ‘No kidding!’ I can’t believe the reaction to it. It’s really ingrained in our culture.”
Believe in Yourself was performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2017 in a segment featuring Marley, Jon Batiste and Chance the Rapper with a giddy cameo by Colbert. More recently, Marley was asked about Believe in Yourself on The Zach Sang Show, with the host calling it “the most powerful and impactful television theme song of all time.”
Marley replied that he is only beginning to realize the tune’s power. “A lot of people didn’t know I sing the song,” he said.
He shared the segment on Instagram, where it was viewed over 130,000 times. The singer-songwriter has a new album out, Brightside, and Henderson heard he is considering re-recording Believe in Yourself, given its enduring popularity.
Judith Henderson with her first book as an author-illustrator, I Told a Little Lie. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
That’s music to Henderson’s ears, though she has her hands full with other projects. Over the past eight years, she has pivoted to become a children’s book author. I Told a Little Lie, her first book as an author-illustrator, was published last month. It tells the story of a young girl with big hair who gets herself in a bit of a situation after finding a balloon, leading a crew of bunnies and ants to believe it’s her birthday. They expect cake.
“It’s the book I’m most proud of,” Henderson said.
Her 2024 graphic novel Willa and Wade and the Way-Up-There — about a friendship between an ostrich and a penguin who want to learn to fly, with illustrations by Sara Sarhangpour — has turned into a series, with a new instalment, Willa and Wade Are Definitely Not Spies!, due Sept. 1.
“Songwriting, book writing and illustrating are all part of the same gestalt,” Henderson said. “Maybe drawing isn’t exactly the same, but it has a rhythm — everything has a pulse.
“I think writing children’s books is almost a result of having written multiple jingles. A jingle is a song with a beginning, middle and end. Children’s books come from the same place. It’s now the part of my career I love the most.”