The tale of my day is short and sweet. Quick translation job, under a deadline. Dedicated labor. Then a revision. Also, in the vacant spots, I did the laundry.
Here’s Sissel with something approaching the best arrangement of “Amazing Grace” ever recorded. I think it’s slightly different from a version, quite similar, which she recorded at a later date (arranged by Andre Crouch). Unless I’m mistaken.
Have a good weekend.
Today is Good Friday. One of my favorite songs about the Cross of Christ is “Near the Cross,” lyrics by Fanny Crosby. My old musical group used to sing this in harmony. I looked for a worthy arrangement to post, and this was the one I found that pleased me best. Done by three sisters of whom I know nothing at all. They’re not as good as my buddies and I were, but it will do.
The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare,
W. B. Yeats, “Red Hanrahan’s Song About Ireland”
For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air
We have storms in our region today. It’s been raining somewhat since Monday, gushing rain now. It will be flooding somewhere nearby. I’m thankful to have always lived on a hill.
I learned today that St. Patrick’s Day is not the unique in American holidays. We also have National Tartan’s Day on April 6. Maybe folks who attend Highland games knew that. I’ve only thought about attending those games, when I occasionally hear of them, so I didn’t know about Tartan’s Day.
I think most Americans couldn’t tell the difference between Irish and Scottish or Celtic and Gaelic cultural things unless clearly marked. As a trivial example, here’s my favorite Scottish reel, “The J.B. Reel,” arranged with a jig called “The Shepherdess.”
Note the stark contrast of this piece with the first of the Irish reels performed in this recording of Brendan P. Lynch.
That’s how you tell the difference, friends. Happy St. McPaddy’s Day.
It’s well known that we’re an extremely broadminded crew here at Brandywine Books. We offer an open forum for the expression of all political views. In that spirit, we present the above preview of the next State of the Union address.
A little historical vignette for you today, because I’m doing other things and don’t have a book to review tonight.
My maternal grandfather was born in the town of Hutchinson, Minnesota. Nice town, west of the Twin Cities. I’ve been there a few times.
I find the town’s history intriguing. It’s named after its founders, who as far as I know never lived there. They were the Hutchinson Family Singers. The HFS hold a unique place in American history, but are largely forgotten today.
In the 1830s, European singing groups began to tour in the United States, and became very popular. The Hutchinsons, New Englanders, originally brothers John, Asa, Jesse, and Judson, emulated them, and began giving public concerts in 1840. In time they would be the most popular musical group in the country. They were the first to popularize four-part harmony in the United States, so if you like gospel quartettes, thank the Hutchinsons. After brother Jesse dropped out to write songs and manage the group, he was replaced by sister Abby, and as the family grew, the act expanded (occasionally splitting up).
The times were like ours in many ways. Political causes were in the air, and the Hutchinsons were highly “woke” by the standards of their time. They were avid Abolitionists, Prohibitionists, and Women’s Suffragists (modern people find it hard to believe, but those causes were closely tied back then. It was always about ushering in the Kingdom of God through legislation). The Hutchinsons’ songs, whether performed by the group in concert or sung off sheet music in American parlors, helped to move public opinion toward Abolition. At one point they toured Europe with Frederick Douglass.
Hutchinson, Minnesota, was (as I understand it; I can’t find it plainly stated in an online search) founded as a model town, one in which vice would be prohibited, and women would have equal rights. I’m sure it would sadden them today to know that alcohol is available for purchase in Hutchnson. But I’m pretty sure slavery is still illegal, and I imagine women run the place, like everywhere else in America.
One of the drawbacks of political relevance is that it doesn’t tend to lead to enduring art. None of the Hutchinsons’ songs is remembered today, except by music scholars. But if you’d like to hear one of them, here’s a recreation of their number, “Get Off the Track.” The tune is almost familiar.
Postman Nathan Evans of Glascow, Scotland has spent several months or more posting music to YouTube and TikTok. He sings some of his own songs, covers of popular songs, and also traditional Scottish folk. On December 27, he posted a video to TikTok with him singing a New Zealand sea shanty called “Wellerman.”
That’s the song that has been copied and harmonized with a thousand times over to make international media outlets write articles on everyone on social media singing sea shanties. It’s incredible. C|Net has a run down of it with some examples.
Evans told them he is as surprised as anyone with his suddenly popularity, and in a TikTok video posted yesterday he reports he has a record deal to release Wellerman as a single.
He has been planning to do more sea shanties. Fans have offered their recommendations. I thought to suggest “Leave Her, Johnny” and “Bully in the Alley,” but I see he has done these already. (Though TikTok folks may want to dwell on Stan Rogers’s version of “Leave Her, Johnny,” for inspiration. Oh, and I see The Longest Johns have already put together social media choir of “Leave Her, Johnny” with a million views since 12/30.)
Stan Rogers wrote “Barrett’s Privateers” himself, as he says in this video. That’s one worthy of taking social media by storm, despite the swearing in the chorus. Another contender would be John Kanaka, as Lars posted earlier. Here’s another that would light some people up, “Bonnie Ship the Diamond,” sung at the pace a Gaelic storm.
What shall we say about the year that is passing? If you’re reading this, you and I are survivors. Our Lord bids us live in hope. Sufficient unto the year is the evil thereof.
Blessings to you and your family, from the highly trained professionals at Brandywine Books.
It’s a Christmas miracle... sort of. You know how the movie “White Christmas” goes, when they’re all in the ski lodge, hoping/praying for snow so they can save the business, and they get a big snowfall on Christmas Eve? That happened here, in the magic wonderland of Minnesota. We’d gotten some snow early this winter, but a long stretch of warm temperatures and dry weather left all nature naked and ashamed. But last night the blizzard came in pure Hollywood style, depositing 8 or 9 inches, I guess. Today you could film a Hallmark special here. Something for the kids, anyway. If they have to remember a premature year without the grandparents, they’ll at least have memories of sliding and snowballs. And, of course, of delayed presents because the Post Office is backed up like the Donner Party.
As you no doubt deduced, the video above is the one and only Sissel, singing “Glade Jul,” which is the Norwegian version of Silent Night. Pretty much the same idea in the lyrics, except that we replaced the words for “Silent Night” with ones for “Happy Christmas.” Because we could.
And Glade Jul to you, too.
“I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.” – Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole, the stage name of Nathaniel Adams Cole (1919-1965), has always been one of my favorite singers. He won a Grammy for “Midnight Flyer” and had 28 Top 40 hit songs. Mel Tormé and Bob Wells’s 1945 piece “The Christmas Song” is a Nat King Cole piece in my mind; I don’t care who else has sung it.
Cole also made famous a beautiful lullaby by Alfred Bryan and Larry Stock, “A Cradle in Bethlehem,” written in 1952.
John Rowe notes the musician whose 100th birthday was last year should be on someone’s list for well-produced biopics. He offers these reasons:
(via Lars Walker on Facebook)
This is the real meaning of Christmas: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 ESV).
This does not mean God posed as a man for a few years, casting an illusion on everyone in order to influence them with well-spoken sermons.
It does not mean God sent his spirit into a man for a time, having found someone who was sufficiently humble to indwell for divine purposes.
It does not mean that God actually is a man who lives eternally on another plane but for a season he came to Earth to do things.
It also does not mean that Jesus was only a man who connected dots like no one before him and introduced some darn good principles to Western civilization.
It does not mean that a uniquely spiritual man called on divine power to perform marvelous works and speak with wisdom beyond the scope of mortal reason.
Those ideas are a bit easier to understand. The truth is beyond us. Christ Jesus, born as a child to a poor, virgin woman, was the Word of God from the beginning, both with God and actually God. The invisible, eternal God became a mortal man. That doesn’t make complete sense to us, but it is the only hope for ourselves and all the world.
Merry Christmas.