Doing the LORD of the Rings… Again, this is one of my new favorite groups… Very inspiring. Check out their Youtube page here and subscribe.
The Piano Guys
2
Tag Archives: Music
New Addition to the Blog Roll
I added a new addition to my blog roll tonight: Galactic Slacker. It is where Jody thinks carefully about issues and allows us to think with him. Check it out.
This is my first addition to the blog roll in a long time. I think the last blog I added to it was Heath’s blog: Tides And Turning
Check both of them out and give me a full report in the morning.
Dave Brubeck Died on Wendesday
I didn’t realize that Dave Brubeck died on Wednesday, just a few days short of his 92nd birthday. Here is a bit of his bio:
Born Dec. 6, 1920, to a California ranching family, Brubeck’s religious sensibilities awakened during World War II when he served in Gen. George Patton’s famed 3rd Army. In an interview with Hedrick Smith for the PBS program Rediscovering Dave Brubeck, he said, “So many of my friends got killed in World War II. On the parachute landing on D-Day, one of my friends got shot in the air in his harness of his parachute.” Brubeck said he started asking himself, “Why am I here? Why did they get killed?” Initially, though, he said he turned not to God but to hard work. Brubeck resolved, “I’m alive and I’m gonna do as much as I can.”
And he did. His post-war productivity was remarkable. Not only did the poly-rhythms of such songs as “Take Six” and “Blue Rondo” capture America’s post-war energies, Brubeck’s output—as many as 250 concerts and four albums a year—turned him into a jazz superstar in the 1950s and ’60s.
Some musicians and critics resented Brubeck’s success, saying he capitalized on an audience that black musicians had built. Others dismissed Brubeck’s music as “West Coast Jazz” or “Cool Jazz” or even “White Man’s Jazz.” But the criticism faded after Brubeck canceled 23 of 25 concerts—many of them on college campuses in the South—when he discovered that his black bass player Eugene Wright would not be welcome. After that, Brubeck, Wright, and the rest of the band were welcomed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, N.Y., and at both black and white colleges throughout the country.
Read the rest here.
And here is one of his most famous numbers:
Top Ten Songs from Hell
I got this idea for this Top-10 List from from Comedian Tim Hawkins who posted on his Facebook page that the NAPA Knowhow song just broke into Hell’s Top 10 playlist. He has a point. That song is about as irritating as it can get. Most songs from radio commercials are irritating on one level or another. I believe that is because there is a course in advertising school that teaches people that if you cannot come up with a catchy, good tune or song for your commercial, then you should make it as irritating as possible. Since that is so much easier, it happens all the time.
For instance I can sing the song for Heritage for the Blind. It’s about donating your old junked up car so they can sell it and help the blind. The song is so terrible, so off key, so through the nose of the guy singing, that it’s unforgettable. You know it’s bad when I can discern that the song is flat, off-key and through the vocalist’s nose.
But I digress. This is about pop-culture songs that are straight from hell or about hell, or both. A song qualifies if it gets stuck in your head and… you hate it. A song also qualifies if it is about hell, or the devil or it’s so bad, it makes you want to go there to get away from the song. Therefore…
10. Bat Out of Hell — Meatloaf. Come on, it’s by a guy named Meatloaf! It has to make the list! Plus, I was introduced to this over-dramatic song by a teacher in high school while we were on a One-Act play trip to some place in central Texas. She kept playing it over and over again and I really wanted to send that bat right back to hell.
9. Call Me Maybe — This one qualifies because I’ve only heard it maybe five times, but it’s played inside the recesses of my brain at least a billion times. It went from being a cute song, to… a hellish song. I’ve only seen the artist who sings it in a video once. The other times had the US Olympic Swim team singing it and a bunch of Republicans from Chicago singing it (should we not consider the phrase Chicago Republicans a contradiction in terms?)
8. Sympathy for the Devil — by the Rolling Stones. This song has always given me the creeps and I can only attribute that to the fact that the Rolling Stones capture one aspect of Satan so well. Some writers have even suggested that this song inspired many other entertainers to try and entertain us about hell/Satan, etc. I just have one question for Mick Jaegger and the boys: “with a song like this, exactly where do you plan on spending eternity?”
7. Stairway to Heaven — I know, this seems like it should appear in the Top-Ten Songs for Heaven, but it actually is about a woman trying to buy a stairway to heaven all the while wearing a bustle in her hedgerow. Or something like that. I never have been able to discern much of what Robert Plant is actually saying in the songs he sings. Since this song actually opposes the gospel, it’s actually about getting into hell, in the sense that someone thinks they can buy their way into heaven. But that is probably far too deep for the average listener of Led Zepplin, even though many believe that Led Zepplin is actually really deep. How could one possibly know? You can’t understand half of what Robert Plant is actually saying.
BTW, I don’t believe that if you play Led Zepplin songs backwards, that you can hear Satan’s voice chanting some dirge to delude the people. I do believe you can hear Tiny Tim’s voice as he sings Tiptoe Through the Tulips… our number six enter.
6. Tiptoe Through the Tulips — by Tiny Tim. O what an abuse of the name Tim! Someone please hide the ukuleles.
5. Highway to Hell — AC/DC’s contribution to the list. Given that the lead singer of the band that sang this song died from choking on his own vomit, makes one wonder if he made his destination.
4. Running With the Devil — Van Halen’s contribution to the list.
3. Hotel California — this one rates at number three because it has caused countless millions to sing along without realizing they are singing about hell. The song comes from the apostate Don Henly. It is not really about hell, but about the “high-life” of LA… wait, isn’t that the same thing?
2. House of the Rising Sun — listen to this one too much and you get put on suicide watch. This folk song was popularized by the Animals back in 1964. It’s not just that the song is so utterly depressing, as Blues tends to be, but misguided Christians keep trying to co-opt the tune and put the words of Amazing Grace to it. This shows the unheavenly nature of the song and causes it to rise to such a high level of disdain.
1. Red Solo Cup — Straight from the Department of Monotony, this one is not only mind numblingly repetitive, but there is so little substance to it that it has become the national anthem for every frat boy in the country. Musically this song only rises to the level of the gutter vomit that it leads to in countless frat houses. May it depart from the recesses of my brain as quickly as the word “moderation” does at a keg party.
OK, you probably have your own list. Let me know in the comments section.
Roundup That Matters
“I Was Born in a Doomsday Cult” — Andie Redwine has written an excellent account of how she was raised in the Worldwide Church of God, which is a doomsday cult. She recounts of how she had to seek counseling in order to remove herself from the effects of spiritual abuse that came about from being in the cult. She has also help put together a movie called Paradise Recovered, which is about those who are in spiritual abuse. This movie has been very helpful to those who have seen it, since there seems to be so many who are in spiritual abuse by their church leaders. Here is a bit of what she wrote after her eyes were opened by the Spirit and she began reading the Bible:
I kept reading the Bible, but with different eyes and with a different voice in my head.I started really liking the stories that Jesus told. We didn’t spend so much time on these in the Worldwide Church of God. When I read them, Jesus emerged for me as a character with a quick wit, who was cunning but not deceitful, and who was overwhelmingly compassionate.In short, I found him miles more compelling that Herbert Armstrong.
Shai Linne Expository Preaching. “We need more expositors, not more comedians!” — I’m not much into rap, but this song is dead on for what the church needs today. It is about the need for more expository preachers, those who preach what the word of God says, not their opinions. You may not like rap, but please listen to the message. Make sure your church has a pastor that actually preaches the word of God, and not his own opinions.
What the World Truly Needs — From the department of the obvious, comes the following which I was unable to post this past Sunday:
In view of that, you can go here to listen to Sunday’s sermon, which I preached here at Redeemer Christian Fellowship of Roswell, NM. This was the first Sunday that we moved back into the sanctuary since my arrival. It was a truly wonderful service.
