The Songs fol­lows Iz Her­zl, famed polit­i­cal activist and protest singer, who has always told his chil­dren that it is the future not the past they should con­cen­trate on. Now, at 80, an almost for­got­ten fig­ure, estranged from every­one who has ever loved him, his refusal to look back on his extra­or­di­nary life leaves his teenage chil­dren, the bril­liant Rose and her ail­ing younger broth­er, Hud­die, adrift in myths and uncer­tain­ty that cause them to retreat into a secret world of their own.

Iz’s oth­er child, Joseph, a fal­ter­ing Broad­way song­writer 40 years old­er than Rose and Hud­die, whose one dis­as­trous meet­ing as a child with his father has left him lost and alone, is on a shock­ing and vio­lent path to self-destruc­tion. When the dis­parate mem­bers of the Her­zl fam­i­ly begin to con­verge, the ambi­gu­i­ties at the heart of Iz Her­zl’s life begin to sur­face in a way that will change all of them.