Random music: Philmont Hymn

Crossposted from Dafydd's Random Music.

The internet is a strange place. The elder daughter is expressing an interest in Girl Scouts. I had been holding out until she was 14, so she could join Venture Scouts, the co-ed program run by the BSA. I have an ulterior motive. Venture Scout crews can go to Philmont. I went thrice as a Boy Scout, and want to go back, badly. If she goes, I can go. To entice the elder daughter I told her, again, about Philmont. To drive the point home I searched youtube for Philmont videos. It wasn't hard to find nice videos with slide shows of the scenery. I may have hooked her. Of course I ran across some videos that use the Philmont Hymn as a soundtrack. I like the Philmont Hymn, and a spent the better part of the evening singing it. (The younger daughter now hates it.) After my evening shower I had a brain fart on the lyrics, and looked them up via Google. A little bit if searching turned up an astonishing coincidence. The Philmont Hymn was written by a 16 year old Philmont Ranger in 1947, John Westfall. Mr. Westfall died this month after a good life aged 81. It turns out that he lived in town I now live in. His funeral was at the Episcopal Church down the street from my house, the church my family occasionally attends. His obituary describes as active in scouts and in his community throughout his life. He was a past member of the board of directors for the ballet company my daughter is in. I never met him, but throughout my life his song has meant a great deal to me. I never met him, but I miss him.

So far as I know, the Philmont Hymn has only bee professionally recorded once, by the US Air Force Academy choir. I used to own this version as a single.

The day the music died

Fifty years ago today, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P Richardson "The Big Bopper" boarded a small plane and flew into legend.

The intellectual rigor of ABBA

Last month I read The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. His thesis is that today's under-thirty crowd is the least intellectually developed generation in recent history. He blames this, in part, on the nature of the digital communications that generation uses; video games, text messaging, myspace, cell phones, etc. He argues that kids burn so much time with these forms of communication, that there is no time left for anything else. Another, more important, part of his argument, is that one reason kids burn their time away is because the previous generation allowed them to, or more accurately the guardians of our cultural heritage, teachers, scholars, writers, artists and the like, never convinced the current generation that there was anything of value in the World's cultural heritage worth pursuing.

I've also read a couple of blog posts recently by academics lamenting the unprepared minds they are expected to reach. One professor discusses in length the number of students who don't seem to understand that 800 BC came before 450 BC. There has been much talk about how even the best students view coursework and classes as mere obstacles to be overcome with the least amount of work.

All of which leads me to ABBA. Yes, the 70s Swedish pop group. I was discussing these ideas with my wife, and commented on the fact that in many universities, general history courses are often no longer required. Students don't have to know who Napoleon was in order to get degrees. I dramatized by say that one can go all the way through one's high school and college career without even hearing the word "Waterloo".

Now I challenge anyone over the age of 40. Can you hear the word Waterloo without the hearing somewhere in the back of your mind ABBA singing? Even if you are or were a die hard rocker or country fan, ABBA still seeped in and stayed there, because that's watch catchy song hooks do.

The interesting thing about this is that the ABBA song is not about the battle, but about a girl falling in love. But to get the song, you have to know the phrase "to meet one's Waterloo" meaning to come to a permanent, decisive surrender. The girl has surrendered to love, she has met her Waterloo. Of course the phrase is meaningless if you know nothing about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars. The phrase itself has slowly slid from the language over the last thirty years as fewer and fewer people understood the referent. Today it unlikely that any band would write a song that assumed that the listened would know what happened to Napoleon at Waterloo.

So this is where we are. We live in a culture in which ABBA songs are to intellectually rigorous for the mass market. God help us.

And since we are talking about music, here's a video. Don't hit play unless you want ABBA to be stuck in your head all day.

For unto us a child is born!

Merry Christmas!

On Christmas songs

Here is where I prove that I spend way too much thought on trivial matters.

We have reached the time of year when you can go nowhere without having Christmas music thrust at you. There is always at least one radio station playing nothing else. Invariably I will work with people who want to listen to it. Sometimes the Anglican in me wants to scream "IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS, IT'S ADVENT." For those of you who come from religious backgrounds that don't follow the liturgical year, Advent is the season that precedes Christmas. It is a season of preparation. It is a time for sober reflection and contemplation. And a daily piece of small candy. It is not a time for "Holly Jollies".

That rant aside, several years ago while listening to all of the Christmas music, I came to realize that "Christmas" music comes in several categories that can be arranged in order of decreasing relevance to the actual holiday of Christmas. I have inflicted this categorization on my family for several years, and now feel that it is time to inflict it on my readers. All three of you.

Category One: These are the true Christmas songs. Songs about the birth of the Christ, and all that attended it. If it's about the baby in the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, the star, the choruses of angels, or any mix of the above, it belongs in this category. Examples include "Silent Night", "Away in the Manger", "O Come, All Ye Faithful" and "We Three Kings". This category also includes songs that include events that are not in the Gospel accounts, but are still about the birth of Jesus, "The Little Drummer Boy", for example .

Category Two: These are songs about the secular trappings of Christmas; Santa Claus, his elves and reindeer, Christmas trees, presents, Caroling and the like. Example include "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "O Christmas Tree", and "Deck the Halls".

Category Three: This is a slippery category. It is for songs that are about Christmas, but not any particular aspect of it. They may rely on secular imagery such as Christmas trees, but they are there just to set the scene. The central message is "Gee isn't Christmas wonderful". Examples include "White Christmas", 'I'll Be Home for Christmas", and "Chestnuts roasting on an open Fire". One subset of these songs is the songs that use Christmas as backdrop for commentary on the singer's love life, "Blue Christmas", for example.

Category Four: These are Christian songs that are not about Christmas, that somehow have been attracted to Christmas. Examples include "Joy to the World"(a song celebrating the coming of the Saviour, but not about His birth.), "The Halleluia Chorus" (it's from the Easter cycle of The Messiah), "O Come, O Come Emanuel" (it's an Advent carol), and "Good King Wenceslaus" (it's about a Medieval Saint, but it mentions the Feast of St. Stephen, December 26).

Category Five: These are winter songs, they are not about Christmas at all, just winter. "Jingle Bells", "Let It Snow", "Winter Wonderland", etc.

Category Six: These are secular songs that have nothing at all to do with Christmas or winter that have somehow gotten attached to Christmas. The prime modern offender is "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music.

So there it is, my over analysis of Christmas music. Don't get me wrong though. I love Christmas music, or at least most of it. The unfortunate fact is that the majority of the Christmas music played on radio and in public places comes from categories five and three, with a smattering of of category two. Actual Christmas songs, those from category one, are largely banned and if they are found it is in instrumental versions. Oh well.

Random Music: Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

Cross posted from Dafydd's Random Music.

Leonard Cohen was one of these famous musicians I knew about, but whose music I didn't really know. I knew that he was widely regarded as a genius. I, of course, knew the song from the Judy Collins version. About six months ago, while coming home from work, I heard his version on a radio program that specializes in obscurities and was blown away. He is not a great singer, but his voice works well with the spareness of the lyric and melody. As fall fades into winter in my part of the world, this seems to be an appropriately melancholy song.

The irony of the internet.

On my music blog, I posted about a couple songs on shipwrecks, specifically "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot and the "The Sinking of the Reuben James" by Woody Guthrie. In light of the "What were their names, What were their names" chorus of the "Reuben James", I initially wanted to include list of the names of the men lost on both ships. However, a Google search failed to turn a list of the names of the men lost on the Reuben James, but it did turn up a list of the names of the men on U-Boat 552, the German submarine that sank the USS Reuben James.

Yet another blog.

I started yet another blog. This one is basically masturbatory exercise. (Not that any other blog isn't). This one will consist of links to and my commentary on music I like for various reasons. I don't expect anyone to be too interested. It is over there.

Songs of dead people 2.

One of the best songs ever, Kilkelly, Ireland.

This version sung by Maloney, O'Connell and Keane.



Total running time 13:06

Songs of dead people.

Years ago, I was an assistant scoutmaster for a scout troop in Tulsa. When I drove to camp-outs a few of the kids rode in my car. I had some mix tapes I had recorded of Celtic music that I played a lot. One trip, one thes kids asked "Does some one die in all of these songs?" As I realized he was right. Someone died in everyone of the songs on the tape.

My brother is compiling a list of songs to "scare normal people".

I thought I might try to recreate my long lost mix tape and compile a list of songs in which people die. Most of these songs will be Celtic or English folk. I'm looking for a running time of about 90 minutes.

To start with, here's a song to rip your heart out.



Total running time 6:25

Sorry Sammy

Between work and the Elder Daughter's lessons, I have to go to Tulsa 5 times a week. That's a 90-120 mile round trip, depending on where in Tulsa I need to go.

Gas cost today, $3.39.

I've always claimed that this was the great protest song of my generation.

Driving the speed limit can cut you gas mileage by as much as 20%.

I'm sorry Sammy, I can drive 55.

Sigh.

Pandora

I have found a new way to waste time. I recently started using Pandora.com. It is a site that streams "stations" at you that gives you some control over what you hear. They have several preloaded stations, but you can also create your station by entering the names of an artists or songs. As you song is played you can give it up a thumbs up or thumbs down. If you vote thumbs down, it bans the song form that station. If you vote thumbs p, it feeds you more songs like it. The idea is that, as you give more opinions, the station will learn your tastes and play more music that you like and less that you don't. The thumbs up and down only applies to the particular station you are listening to at the moment. That way if you have a blues station and jazz station, voting against a blues song on your jazz station won't keep it off your blues station.

It all works because they analyze each piece of music before they put it into their database. After analyzing it the tag each piece with attributes like "folk styling", "syncopated rhythms", "extensive vamping", "extensive use of the mandolin" and the like. The more attributes two songs have in common the more likely you will have a similar reaction to them both. It works pretty well, although it does tend to get stuck in a rut sometimes. Since it is mostly based on a what a piece sounds like rather than what it is, it can become difficult to build a station that plays only, say Irish traditional music. (I'm trying.) It seems that this system doesn't see a lot of difference between Irish music and bluegrass. However, if you thumbs down an artist twice, without giving them a thumbs up, it will ban them from the station forever. I've gotten rid of most of the obvious bluegrass players, but the system keeps throwing new, more obscure players at me.

Which leads me to a the next point, it is great at finding new things you never heard of, but wish you had. Case in point, I am a big fan of Sandy Denny, June Tabor, Maddy Prior and some of the other female singers from the British folk-rock scene and folk revival scene. Through Pandora, I've discovered Anne Briggs. She was enormously influential on all of the singers I like, but she only recorded about 30 songs over a few years and quit the music business at the age of 27. But in that amount of time she changed how all British female folk singers sang. She has since been eclipsed by Denny, Tabor and the rest.

Like I said, a great way to waste time.