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 |  A blog about music from my unique perspective (also a spot for some poetry I’ve written) |
A blog, generally about music, usually for projects hosted by Jeff  . I may also write about the 48-Hour Media Prompt Challenge if I don't feel like writing a story or poem inspired by the given song. Other bits of poetry or different topics of discussion might end up here as well.![Merit Badge in WDC Media Prompt
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Track Three for "12 Days of "Christmas""  I've always liked Josh Turner's distinctive deep voice, and in fact I featured his Will You Go With Me in my February 2024 "The Soundtrack of Your Life" blog posts.It was last year, while thinking about Xmas songs and how to build my offline playlist, when I suddenly imagined Josh's voice in my head, singing The First Noel. And I was like "ooh, that sounds perfect!" And went to check if he really did sing it. He did, and it's just the way I expected it would sound. He treats it with the respect it's due (unlike his treatment of Joy to the World… see a screenshot of my personal music journal below.) I'm kind of fussy about songs, and oftentimes his discography is either too cheesy and secular for me, or else it's old-fashioned gospel music which I don't really have a connection to. (Long Black Train is a favorite, but that's another story…) I've always been familiar with The First Noel; I remember as a kid I had a little booklet of Christmas carol sheet music from the local newspaper, and I would examine all the songs and see which of them I thought were up to my poetic standards. Since we didn't actually listen to much Christmas music, I quite literally had no clue as to melody and went solely based on the lyrics, which resulted in some peculiarities as I memorized lyrics which turned out to sound entirely different from how I thought. Long story… These days, The First Noel is a song I look forward to by any artist on public airwaves. This particular version is the one I have in my playlist, alongside the Simply Three instrumental. Words: 294.  |
| We Three Kings is one Christmas song I've been familiar with from a child. My mom always liked it and had a couple of renditions she played which I can no longer remember the artists. I discovered Simply Three in 2018 when I listened to their famous cover of Avicii's Wake Me Up. They're a group of three string musicians: a violinist, a cellist and a bassist. (Not a bass guitar, rather a gigantic cello.) They do classical instrumental covers of pop songs and also compose their own works. Currently one member quit, so now they're Simply Two… S3 released a Christmas album in 2021 entitled Lux, an adventurous and even edgy exploration and reinterpretation of classic carols. Their rendition of We Three Kings is sweeping and dramatic. When I listen to it I picture the three kings plodding across the desert sands, braving fierce winds and unknown dangers, until they stand at the top of a rise and see Jerusalem spread… no, that doesn't make sense because Jerusalem is on a mountain  At any rate, it sounds like an epic fantasy  I like how their version goes off on its own, so to speak, striking a unique melodic path rather than treading the same time-honored route which would be assumed from standard sheet music, if that makes any sense. It's not a simple karaoke, but a complete reimagining. Words: 233. |
| My first track chosen for Jeff's "12 Days of "Christmas"" is Good King Wenceslas , by Loreena McKennit. This is beyond a doubt my favorite Christmas carol of all time. The uplifting story of a charitable king and his humble page who was granted a miracle so he could help carry out a good deed, combined with the wonderful melody, is really something special. This particular version captures the essence of what makes it so magical, with the lady's harmonious voice and a blending of strings, drums and bells which lend a medieval vibe. Even the cover art for her album is beautiful, showing a winter forest with animals gathered around. I have at least two stories behind this song. The first is how I discovered it at all. I noticed it years ago playing in a clothing store I shop at regularly. But whenever I heard it I didn't have my phone at the ready to capture a Shazam (in those days, I used Google Sound Search…) to be honest, I had a phone, but it wasn't online, and that particular clothing store never had WiFi. Long story… not only could I never get a Sound Search on it, but I could never understand any of the words to be able to look it up. Having no chorus, it didn't have a lyrical "hook" to grab onto. But I knew that was an extremely appealing classic melody I wanted to listen to better. So one day it played and I did something different: I recorded it. My recording was brief and muffled and indistinct, but I was determined to find that song. I went online and looked for a place where I could upload an audio file for identification. No automated software could recognize my sample (one site suggested weird Russian things…) Finally I found a French site called WatZatSong, where they crowdsource from a global community of music lovers to find and label song samples. From there it didn't take more than a couple days before someone told me it was Loreena McKennit's Good King Wenceslas. The next story is from 2020, when I suggested this specific track to my boss during the holiday season. I thought I'd like to hear it on his super duper sound system which he enjoyed using while we worked. Imagine my embarrassment when instead of the elegant, classy Loreena McKennit version, he blasted out some beery-voiced Irish bar doggerel recording of Good King Wenceslas! Turns out her version wasn't available on Spotify, and he didn't have the sense to pull it up on YouTube instead. It's the kind of thing that looking back on it is funny, but at the time I was getting close to a nervous breakdown from overwork and, in my tunnel vision, thought it was the worst thing that could've possibly happened. Ugh. Anyway, enjoy. This is my favorite rendition of it for good reason, trust me. I should perhaps take some time to explore her music… which reminds me, I did listen to one other track she made, but that's quite another story. Words: 521. |
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