Category Archives: Music

Music

Christmastime: Let Us Be Merry; Put Sorrow Away

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In a week, we will be set upon by Christmas. I hope you, your friends, family, and neighbors will receive God’s transforming grace to know with confidence what the Lord has done by taking on flesh and living as one of us.

The Christmas carol in this video, “A Virgin Unspotted,” used to be very popular and can be found in many variations. The music, “Judea,” was written by William Billings in 1778.

Billings was a tanner who taught himself music and was friends with men you know from the American Revolution. Britannica states, “His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality, freshness, and straightforward harmonies.” That’s what I love about this song. The joyous chorus that dances round the room.

The words come derive from a 1661 carol called “In Bethlehem City,” which appears in many versions and was originally paired with a tune that has been lost. The writers of Hymns and Carols of Christmas state, “The carol has appeared in one form or another in most of the old collections of songs, and was a popular subject for the broadside trade. Interestingly, it almost never appears in hymnals.”

I came to know the song through The Rose Ensemble album, And Glory Shown Around.

Music

Some Children See Him like Themselves

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“Some children see him bronzed and brown,
The lord of heav’n to earth come down;
Some children see him bronzed and brown,
With dark and heavy hair.”

I appreciate artwork depicting Christ Jesus as someone in a different ethnic context than he lived. I suppose that should go without saying, since we tend to understand Jesus of Nazareth did not look like the Romanized figure we most recognize. If we depict him in a painting at all, we’re going to depict him as we are.

Alfred Burt wrote the music to this Christmas carol for his family Christmas card in 1951, a tradition his father started in 1922. Alfred wrote fifteen such carols, including “The Star Carol” and “Caroling, Caroling.” You can see all of the cards and songs on this tribute page.

The carols were known primarily to those who received the cards until Burt was invited to the King Family Christmas party and introduced a various Hollywood people. That emboldened him to get enough material together for an album, which was released in 1954.

The King family was something of a big deal last century. I haven’t heard of them, but they sang as an ever-growing family for decades and had their own variety show in the mid-60s. In 1967, they put together a live Christmas special that offered viewers this special moment of a son returning from Vietnam while she sang of him on stage.

Music, Religion

‘Det Lyser i Stille Grender’

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I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this number by Sissel here before (though not this performance, which conveniently includes subtitles). But it’s high on my list of Norwegian Christmas songs that deserve to be known outside the neighborhood.

According to this Norwegian account, the lyrics come from a poem by Jakob Sande. It was first published in 1931, but the author didn’t think much of it. When Lars Soraas, who was putting a Christmas songbook together in 1948, asked him for permission to use it, Sande had forgotten about it completely. Since then it’s become his best-known work.

Music, Religion

‘Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker’

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Wrote a sizeable chunk of text for the next Erling book last night, and today I’ve been working on what I think might be a clever piece for The American Spectator Online. Which left me little mental capacity for fresh ideas for posts. You know me well enough to guess what that means, especially during Advent: Sissel with a Christmas song:

This is one of Sissel’s most popular Christmas numbers, original a Danish song, done here in a concert in Iceland. The title means, “My heart always lingers,” and if you’re interested in an English translation, a kind soul in Norway has provided us with one here.

I note that the translator, judging by the coat of arms on his profile, seems to come from the island of Karmoy, my ancestral home.

Music

John Kanaka

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Apologies for not posting last night. I had a technical problem with Word Press, which has now been solved. Or worked around, anyway.

I can only post in haste just now; a big translation job fluttered in, to dominate my time for a few days. So, music.

The other day I reviewed the movie, Fisherman’s Friends, about the famed sea shanty group from Cornwall. The clip above is the real group (not the guys in the movie), singing a song that’s also in the film, John Kanaka.

No doubt the lyrics conceal some obscene meaning of which I am unaware. If so, don’t tell me about it. If I’m corrupting you, I’d rather not know about it.

Music, Reviews

FIlm review: ‘Fisherman’s Friends’

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For many years, I’ve declared Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero my favorite movie. There are other films I enjoy very much, and sometimes my moods change, but I tend to return in the end to Local Hero for its scenic Scottish setting, understated humor, gorgeous music, and fish out of water point of view.

Thanks to recommendations, I’ve found a movie that belongs next to Local Hero on the conceptual shelf. Fisherman’s Friends, a popular romantic comedy that a number of you have probably already seen. Still, a movie isn’t really complete until I’ve passed judgment on it, right?

The story is a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Fisherman’s Friends, an all-male folk singing group from Port Isaac, Cornwall that specializes in sea shanties (my kind of music, by the way).

As the film tells it, the story begins with a group of London music producer buddies who travel to Cornwall, where one of them is being married. They happen to hear this local shanty group, and our hero Danny Anderson (Daniel Mays) is challenged by his boss to sign the group to a recording contract. He’s not aware it’s all a gag, and when his buddies leave him high and dry in the town, he sets about getting the fishermen’s agreement – which is hard, because they cherish a dearly bought mistrust of outsiders. By the time Danny learns he’s been made a fool of, he has come to value the fishermen’s trust and is falling for a local girl, so he sets about making the big deal on his own.

The rest of the story is pretty much what you’d expect, and you’d be disappointed if it weren’t. It’s well done, and funny, and moving, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.

I saw a whole lot of references to Local Hero in this production – I can’t document it, but I strongly suspect they used it for a model – and they couldn’t have made a better choice.

When I’ve talked with people who don’t like Local Hero, I’ve often gotten the comment that they don’t like the ending. They find it a downer. I think at this point the difference may be one of experience. The ending of Local Hero is how things tend to end in my life; there’s a kind of sad comfort for me in it, a feeling that I’m not alone because Peter Riegert’s character is in the same place.

Most viewers will certainly prefer the very different ending of Fisherman’s Friends.

Music

‘Den Fineste Jinta’

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Roughly 3 days’ work, but I have finished my translation job and sent it winging off to Norway. I have the satisfaction of a job well done, plus the pleasure of a rare November day with sunshine and temperatures near 70. I did a couple hours of my work out on the porch, enjoying the remission.

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I happened to listen to an old musical cassette from long, long ago (still listenable). It was an album of a Norwegian folk group called Vandrerne (the Wanderers). They did a mixture of Norwegian folk songs, original music, retro popular songs, and Celtic folk. The number embedded below, “Den Fineste Jinta” (The Finest Girl), is an adaptation of a well-known Irish song, “Black Velvet Band.” It roughly follows the plot of the Irish song — the young man meets a bewitching young girl who wears her hair “tied up in a black velvet band.” She entices him into a scheme to steal jewelry. He is arrested and ends up being transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). Norwegian criminals didn’t generally get transported, so this guy’s fate is different. But I don’t understand the dialect well enough to tell you what it is.

Music

Sissel, and a short break

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=hijYMFrLYRw

I’m going to have to give you a little bit of Sissel tonight, and then I’ll be gone for a couple days. I have to go out of town tomorrow to do a lecture, and today I got a (relatively) big translating job I have to finish before I leave. So I must post and run.

The song is a Norwegian classic. The tune is by the violinist Ole Bull, a world celebrity in his time. The words are by Jorgen Moe. The title is “The Seter Girl’s Sunday.” A seter was a mountain pasture, where livestock were kept over the summer, so they could graze there and take pressure off the home meadows. Servant girls would be sent up with the animals, and would commonly spend long periods of time up there, sometimes in relative solitude.

The girl in the song is watching the sun, knowing that when it reaches a certain point above the mountains, the folks at home will be hearing the church bells and heading to church. It’s an important social time in a country community, and she is lonely.

Kind of like someone under lockdown.

Music

Playing with Marbles Takes on New Meaning

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Martin Molin, member of Swedish band Wintergatan, and his marble machine

A Swedish engineer and musician created this marble-driven music box a few years ago. I believe this is an early version or model, and Martin has since moved on to a larger, more complex marble machine.

Music

Friday Singing: Daisy Bell, Stop the Whistling

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Today I offer you this classic to set up the Irish-American song that mocks it. Mick Moloney says all the lads and lasses are singing, humming, or whistling “Daisy Bell,” and it’s driving him batty. No doubt that’s a short trip.