[1] Influenced by the civil rights and anti-war movements that he witnessed early in life, Murphy decided to devote himself to facilitating social change.
[1] In 2002, Murphy received an email from a former student of a friend, Eric Mulholland, who had just moved to the area and was seeking new connections.
Murphy's album Catch the Fire (1981), released on the Good Fairy Productions label, contained the original version of "Burning Times", later covered by Christy Moore and Roy Bailey.
The song "Burning Times" concerns the persecution of women accused of witchcraft in the Middle Ages and early modern periods.
Its chorus mentions several pagan female deities: Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali... Inanna.
He served as Cultural Coordinator and then as Training Director for the Earth Service Corps, a national youth environmental program run by the YMCA.
Murphy and Mulholland worked with PYE for several years, expanding its network to 15 countries and reaching millions of youth worldwide.