Category Archives: Music

Music, Religion

‘O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”

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A hymn tonight, as is so often my lazy default on Fridays. I’ve posted a different version of the one before, but it never gets old. I can’t find a composition or publication date for “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go, ” but Wikipedia reports that its author, Rev. George Matheson, wrote it on the evening of his sister’s wedding.  It must have been a poignant moment for him, as he’d gone blind as a young man, and his sister had been his caretaker since then.

He wrote, “I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.”

He himself had been engaged to be married once, but his fiancée broke it off when she learned he was losing his sight. In spite of his handicap, he became a very successful minister in the Scottish Presbyterian Church and a respected scholar, publishing several books and earning an LL.D. degree.

Matheson is also the author of my favorite hymn, “Make Me a Captive, Lord,” which I hardly ever sing anymore, because my church doesn’t seem to know about it, and everybody but me sings it wrong anyway.

Have a blessed weekend.

Music, Religion

How not to be a child

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Thing noticed this morning in devotions, as I work my way through Luke 18:

Surprise, surprise. The next section carries on the same theme (asking boldly vs. humility) developed in the previous sections:

The Rich Ruler

18And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” 21And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” 22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 23But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” 27But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” 28And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” 29And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothersb or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

What have we learned up to now?

That Christianity calls for a) boldness, but b) humility.

We further established that this pattern is embodied in children. Nobody will enter the Kingdom of God unless they become like children.

Now in comes the Rich Ruler (they always called him the Rich Young Ruler when I was a kid, but maybe that was in one of the synoptics).

The Rich Ruler is the opposite of a child. He thinks he’s got it all together. Has he kept the Law? You bet. Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.  What else do I need?

Jesus tells him he needs to sell everything he owns, give it to the poor, and follow Him.

The point, I’m convinced, is not that we earn salvation through poverty (though some Christian socialists seem to think so). It’s that the Rich Ruler needs to become a child again. He needs to put himself in a helpless, dependent position where Christ is all he has.

Which he can’t bring himself to do.

The answer he should have given was to say, “I can’t do that! Help me!”

Then he’d be a child. Then he’d be saved. We can hope he reached that point, later on.

Above, Sissel Kyrkjebø with the Oslo Gospel Choir, in a fairly awesome arrangement of a song appropriate to the topic.

Music, Religion

‘Heyr þú oss himnum á’

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Our friend Dale Nelson sent me the link to the Icelandic hymn above.

I have no idea what it says, but it’s really lovely. (I suspect the title means, ‘Hear Us From Heaven.’ I should probably check with Jackson Crawford.)

Have a good weekend.

Music, Religion

‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’

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I am bubbling with opinions on public issues in my state today, so I’ve decided to express none of them. I’m painfully aware that I’m actually fairly ignorant of a lot of things that have me upset, so I’ll do you (and my soul) the courtesy of just stifling myself. For the present, anyway.

Instead, I post the old American hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” Oddly, most of the videos of the hymn available on YouTube use the tune “Repton,” which the English churches prefer. But I like the American tune I’ve always sung, a tune called “Rest,” by Frederick Charles Maker.

The text is a superior one because, unlike so many hymn writers, its author, John Greenleaf Whittier, was an actual poet, and a good one. He was also a Quaker. The text is in fact an excerpt from a longer work called “The Brewing of Soma,” a poem about an ancient Indian custom of brewing a drink called Soma, on which worshippers got drunk in an effort to make contact with the divine. Whittier goes on to tell the reader that we ought to seek God through higher methods – peace and patience and rest in faith.

I’m not a great admirer of Quaker theology, but they have something to tell me.

Music

Edvard Grieg, killer composer

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Recently, it’s been my habit, during my morning writing sessions, to tune my TV to some kind of classical music collection from out of the great variety available on YouTube.

Edvard Grieg is always a good choice for me, and I’ve found a couple really weird Grieg collections lately. One of them is posted above. The quotations it features seem dubious to me, and the art was obviously created by AI. Yet the resulting dreamlike concoction seems to suit my so-called creative process.

If you take the time to watch this video, you’ll notice a couple odd images featuring large frogs. I did some web searches about “Grieg’s frog,” and discovered that the composer did, in fact, have a frog, which he kept in his pocket. It was (I was relieved to learn) not a living frog, but a toy frog (rubber, apparently). It was his good luck charm, and he liked to rub it before performing in public.

I learned of that fact in this article, which goes on to tell a truly bizarre story – one that seems to me absolutely too good to be true. I can’t find it mentioned anywhere else online, so I reserve the right to doubt it. But it goes like this (excerpted as published):

Once, the great Norwegian composer was giving a splendid concert in Oslo. In the beginning, he decided to make a programme including only his own compositions, but then he changed his mind and replaced the finishing number with a composition by Beethoven.

As it was usual, the following day, the concert reviews were published in newspapers. It should be remembered that Edvard Grieg, as many talented people, had a lot of ill-wising critics. And one of them, he had an especially strong dislike for Edvard Grieg’s music, wrote a humiliating critic article about the composer’s concert. The number which drew particular attention of the critic was the last one, he disliked that the most. The critic mentioned venomously that the composition was simply ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable.

Having read the critical article, Edvard Grieg called the critic on the phone and said:
– This is Beethoven’s spirit disturbing you. I should tell you that it was me who had composed the finishing composition of Edvard Grieg’s concert!

The disgraced critic felt far too awful as it was, and the joke became the last drop, he died from a heart attack. (Credit: CMuse)

It’s always sad when anyone dies, of course, but I don’t think any artist can help feeling a little wistful as he reads that anecdote.

Goofing, Music

New state anthem

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I suggested a new state anthem for Minnesota (lost to the internet now, alas) some years back. But that was in the quaint, distant, antebellum past. Today, as an embattled sovereign jurisdiction, we face circumstances calling for something a little more bellicose.

I posted about the popular southern song of the Civil War, “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” the other day.

I must have been off my game, because it didn’t occur to me at the time that our new, much-vaunted, progressive state flag (shown at the top) is indeed, a bonnie blue flag, bearing a single star.

It was for me the work of but a few hours to come up with the following new anthem for my beloved state, to which I vow eternal loyalty:

We are a band of siblings, we live on stolen soil, 
And when it starts to freeze outside, our blood begins to boil; 
So when our graft was threatened, we rallied to Omar, 
Hooray for the Bonnie Blue Flag, that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Gopher graft hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!
As long as good old Uncle Sam looked off the other way, 
Cheap labor and big money grants made public service pay. 
But now that pesky auditors have rushed in from afar 
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!
Hurrah! Hurrah! 
For Gopher graft hurrah! 
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!

Music

States’ rights and nullification!

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Apparently I now live in a state that no longer recognizes the priority of federal law. I post the song above out of a sense of prudence, so that I won’t be considered a traitor by my secessionist neighbors.

The lyrics to the song “The Bonnie Blue Flag” were written in 1861, by an entertainer named Harry McCarthy. The tune, like so many of our best tunes, was stolen from the Irish — the original song was called “The Irish Jaunting Car.”

The music in this clip comes from the 2003 movie, “Gods and Generals.” The visuals are a montage.

Music, Religion, Writing

‘Jerusalem’

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Above, a hymn much better known in England than on this side of the pond (though I doubt it’s sung much in schools there anymore), “Jerusalem,” a musical setting of William Blake’s poem. It’s been called England’s second national anthem.

It’s based on the legend (how ancient the legend is seems uncertain) that claims that the first Christian in Britain was none other than Joseph of Arimathea, the character from the gospels who gave up his tomb for Christ’s burial. According to the legend, Joseph was involved in the tin trade, with connections in Britain. Supposedly he was also Jesus’s uncle, and took Him along on one of his business trips to the barbarian island. Later, after the resurrection, he is supposed to have gone there as a missionary, founded the church at Glastonbury, and thrust his staff into the earth, where it budded to become the famous Glastonbury Thorn (which was, according to my reading, in fact a Middle Eastern variety of tree). We Protestants cut it down during the Reformation, but cuttings have been taken, and some survive.

(Another legend, by the way, says Aristobulus, St. Paul’s associate mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, was the first missionary to Britain.)

I’m studying Glastonbury right now, because it will play a part in my Haakon the Good book. It’s a matter of record that King Athelstan raised a number of foreign princes at his court; this is one of the facts that make the story of Haakon’s fosterage with Athelstan plausible.

And Athelstan was a strong patron of Glastonbury Abbey, promoting it as a center of learning. Among the clerics educated there was the famous St. Dunstan – whom I intend to incorporate into the story.

I also had a strange, stray thought this morning, which I managed to snag with my little metaphorical net before it flew away. I thought of a way to suggest that a character is an angel, without actually saying he is an angel. I think it’s kind of clever, though it will probably pass over most readers’ heads.

Now I’ll have to figure out a place for an angel in the story.

Music, Uncategorized

Happy New Year

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By a bizarre coincidence, New Year’s Eve falls on exactly the same date this year as last year. I think we’re in a rut. And I’m grateful for it.

Though we don’t get the solid, long-lasting, well-built years anymore that we had when I was boy. I clearly remember talking about the new year with my grandmother, in her little house. I think it was the end of 1956. Grandma said there would never be a year 1956 again, and I couldn’t see how that could be true. Still seems wrong to me.

Above, Sissel Kyrkjebø does Auld Lang Syne, in Scottish and Swedish. Wearing a butch men’s suit, just to annoy me, but in excellent voice.

I want to thank all our faithful readers for their loyalty (and patience) through another year. We do all this for you, and I hope you feel properly guilty about it.

Special thanks to Phil Wade, who – I should remind everyone, including myself – is the host of this hall.

I’ve had better years than 2025. I take comfort in the fact, much cited in the Middle Ages, that fortune is a wheel. If I’m down at the moment, the wheel should (probably) come around again. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m reading Njal’s Saga again. It’s a long saga, so I’ll probably be posting reading impressions for a few days, as I work my way through it.

Watch for that, if you can handle the excitement.

Now to celebrate New Year’s Eve in my own way, which is not at all.

Music, Religion

Sissel: ‘Mitt hjerte altid vanker’

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Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. My greeting to you (I probably won’t be posting tomorrow) is this number from Sissel, a Danish hymn by Hans Adolph Brorson. Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker has an earlier Danish melody, but this Swedish tune has become more popular, for reasons that will be apparent when you hear it.

It’s in Norwegian, of course, so I’ve gone to the trouble of translating the verses Sissel sings here for you. There are in fact 11 verses, but only 3 are used here. This version does a little mixing, combining lines from two different verses (and out of order too!) at the end.

But it works.

My heart is e’er returning
There where my Lord was born;
My thoughts forever yearning
In wonder at that morn:
My longing finds its home there,
My treasure gleaming bright --
My faith finds rest alone there,
That blessed Christmas night!
But ah! How to express it,
Things wisdom cannot know,
That God – no soul could guess it
Would e’er descend so low:
That He, the praise of Heaven,
The great eternal Word,
Into a stall was given
Our humble, infant Lord.

Oh come! My soul is sighing
Your work in me begin!
To Heaven’s heart I’m crying,
Come, Lord, and enter in! –
My heart, your blood has bought it,
It is no alien ground –
In flesh you came and sought it
Be here forever found!