Category: Music
Rest in peace, MCA
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I’ll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It’s too soon to die.
Of course. Gotye has infected my ears as well.
We think life is endless
We fear the end
Infinity is comforting
Finitude is the mother of illimitability
Be here
Be now
Be you
Beautiful words from a wonderful song. This is one of my favorites from Mazzy Star.
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Well, in addition to the Arby-Q, this is a guilty pleasure of mine at the moment:
This is a short piece but what an incredible introduction to the music of a man described as the “Mozart of Madras.”
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I have yet to see the movie “Hanna” but I’ve listened to its soundtrack extensively.
Joe Levy over at The Hollywood Reporter makes a persuasive case for “I Will Always Love You” as Whitney Houston’s greatest hit.
As with so much pop music, it’s an enactment of American potential, an expression of an ideal of unity that is usually nothing more than that: an ideal. Except for the time it takes to listen to one song or to dance to another. Then it’s an ideal in action. Not for nothing was the other song consistently mentioned in the hours after Whitney’s passing her recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” from the 1991 Super Bowl, an African-American reclamation of the national anthem less audacious than Jimi Hendrix’s or Marvin Gaye’s but no less powerful.
I am inclined to agree. When the song came out in November 1992, I knew nothing of the movie “The Bodyguard” but that voice was impossible to ignore. My entire family gathered around the television when the music video aired and drank in the performance. My family that did not eat dinner around the table or have family reunions would seemingly in spontaneous fashion gravitate to the living room whenever that song came on. She and her music were that beautiful and wonderful. That will be my enduring memory of her.
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Rest in peace, Whitney. Here is one of my favorites from her.
Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou is an Ethiopian Orthodox nun living in Jerusalem who also happens to be a pianist of exquisitely beautiful talent. I hope you like this selection from a recent collection of her greatest pieces called Ethiopiques, vol. 21:
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I like to believe that all of us living are on our own unique pilgrimages. We know that it has an ending but know not of the final destination. And there is something awe-inspiring about the idea of seven billion pilgrims all on separate pilgrimages yet also making the journey together. For me at least it encapsulates the awful separateness of our individual existence which we at some time or another, successfully or not, overcome with that all too rare form of personal union we call love. I guess it is fitting that I would be thinking of things like a pilgrimage since I am about to begin another journey. The next few months are going to be packed with travel, academic obstacles (overcame hopefully), the joy of reacquainting with friends and family…and did I mention travel…with a couple of cats in tow? Starting in Montana in late February to Kentucky and then to Virginia in mid-March for an internship with the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants then back to Kentucky and finally to Budapest.
For this auditory definition I chose Enya’s song entitled “Pilgrim”. I first started listening to Enya sometime ago. This song in particular is indeed comforting like much of her oeuvre but it also inspires one to take comfort in the journey itself and not to become stuck on a singular event. The song evokes a familiar sentiment that I have held close to me on this journey, ‘my life is my prayer’. I think our lives are one continuous song or prayer in the work we do, the people we love and the ideals we cherish and the pilgrimage we undertake once completed can be considered the greatest testimony to our innate dignity.
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Here some excellent folk music from Sweden for what I hope is a relaxing Sunday for you. =)
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Besides the auditory definitions and the sunday music segments I usually don’t share music here on Nascence. But I ran across an interesting story over at Gawker re: Lana Del Rey’s recent performance on SNL. I had never heard of the singer until reading the Gawker article, and the story and later comments were brutal in response to what was clearly a performance marred by nerves. Now for me, being a naturally anxious person, this served as an endearing humanization of a celebrity and so I went to check her out on youtube performing the same song in a different venue. She was also clearly nervous again but also clearly excelled. She has a new fan in me. I hope you like her too.
