From the cross uplifted high
Where the Savior deigns to die
What melodious sounds I hear
Bursting on my ravished ear
Love¹s redeeming work is done
Come and welcome, sinner, come.
Sprinkled now with blood the throne
Why beneath thy burdens groan
On my pierced body laid
Justice owns the ransom paid
Bow the knee and kiss the Son
Come and welcome, sinner, come.
Read more from this hymn by Thomas Haweis (1732-1820)
I don’t know what church did this, but apparently it’s in Texas, and this clip is pretty cool.
To our Jewish friends (we have at least one), greetings and best wishes.
Tip: Moe Lane at Red State, by way of Wizbang.
This is not the melody from Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances
For your St. Patrick’s Day enjoyment, one of my favorite Irish songs, done by my favorite Irish group, the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem.
I suspect I may have posted this clip before. I don’t care. It’s only once a year, and this song embodies one of my favorite aspects of Irish culture—the joyous hyperbole of Hibernian rhetoric. C.S. Lewis recalls in Surprised By Joy how his father (an Irishman, of course) used to launch into Ciceronian philippics denouncing the horrific misbehavior of his sons, to the point where sometimes they had to restrain themselves from laughing. One of my favorite stretches of my own writing was Father Aillil’s curse against Erling’s enemies, near the beginning of The Year of the Warrior. One of the reasons I enjoy inhabiting Aillil’s skull is the opportunity to declaim on the large scale, unrestrained by reason or good taste.
Ireland has opened the world’s first Leprechaun Museum. Judging from the story (which might, I’ll grant, provide an incomplete description) it seems to be primarily an exercise in feeling very small, walking around among giant-sized furniture. If that’s the idea, I’d say it misses the point of leprechauns entirely. Continue reading We're doing leprechauns wrong
Speaking of enjoying music, and in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday, I offer one of my own favorite Irish songs, one considered quaint today, but which I find deeply moving, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”
The lyrics were written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852), who also wrote “The Minstrel Boy” and “The Last Rose of Summer.” I believe there’s a story that Moore wrote it to reassure his wife, after she contracted a skin disease, but I don’t put a lot of faith in such tales. Let me know if you have verification.
The idea of life-long love seems to me to have fallen on hard times in the 21st Century. Does anybody write love songs anymore (as opposed to sex songs) outside of Country music? (Not that Country doesn’t count. I just find it remarkable that a large segment of popular music seems to be devoted to songs that aren’t devoted—songs about booty calls and hotness.)
The clip above isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it’s nice and the singer does both verses, with the words roughly right. I note that his last name is McLarsen. I wonder what the story behind that is. I know of a family named McCarlson, whose ancestor came to America and added a “Mc” to his name to a) differentiate himself from all the other Carlsons in a Norwegian town, and b) be more American. My own great-grandfather did something similar, but changed his last name altogether.
I heard Ken Myers talk to a guest about time and experience in what I believe was one of last year’s issues of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. He referred to the creation account in Genesis, saying that regardless of one’s interpretation of the days and events, we can’t deny that God took time to create everything. That must mean time has value, and the time it takes to do some things is good, even God-honoring. Music, for example, takes time to perform and enjoy. Solitude soaks in slowly over an afternoon. The love and loyalty of friends takes years to mature.
When we talk about an artwork, we often ask people who experienced it to summarize it for us. We ask them, or even ask ourselves, what the music or poetry or movie was about and what it meant. We ask what its point was. Sometimes understanding that point is a natural part of the work, but perhaps more often than not, summarizing an artwork down to its gist is impossible. To attempt to do so is to completely miss the value of the work.
Who asks for the point of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony? That’s ridiculous, because the music itself, all 40 minutes of it, is the point. Maybe a theme can be verbalized for it, but saying it’s about the wild beauty of America doesn’t capture anything of the music. This goes for good poetry too. A poem may be about the pain of betrayal or the wonder of a bird in flight, but if someone were to ask us for the gist of the poem, our best answer may be to encourage them to read it themselves.
A good work of art isn’t a vehicle for its gist. It is a man walking on his own feet. It may have plenty of themes or meanings which can be summarized and plenty of quotes with stand-alone value, but the work itself is something to experience over time.
Continue reading Some Things Can't Be SummarizedWith Saint Patrick’s Day coming up, we offer you a gorgeous Irish song by one of our favorite singers, Sissel Kyrkjebø. The song is one of departed love, which accounts for most Irish love songs.
I have another Sissel clip for you tonight! Amazing! What are the odds?
I used to do this one myself, as a solo, back when I sang. It always meant a lot to me.
I think I saw Sissel in this dress the first time I heard her live in Minot. So this is probably the same year. And the hair looks right.
As is my wont, I’ll give you a Christmas poem by G. K. Chesterton. (It’s odd, but I’ve never found any poet, no matter how great, who did Christmas better than he.)
A Christmas Carol
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)
The Christ-child stood at Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
A blessed Christmas to you and yours.
First of all, to set you up for the insult, I’ve got this clip (I think from the same concert as last night’s song), where the Divine Sissel, along with a guy named Odd Nordstoga (I’m guessing he’s Swedish, but can’t say for sure; no relation to Dean Koontz’ Odd Thomas) do the Norwegian version of “Silent Night.” For some reason, instead of mentioning the silence of the night, as the German and English versions do, the Norwegian translation just says, “Glade jul, hellige jul,” which means, “Merry Christmas, holy Christmas.” In any case, I think it’s a very nice arrangement. The country-sounding fiddle the guy in back is playing is actually the famous, double-strung Hardanger fiddle.
Continue reading “Silent Night” from Sissel, plus some nonsense
As we near the Christmas holiday, the weather forecast calls for increasing snow up to Christmas day, when we expect a blizzard.
Just about a classic Minnesota December.
Somewhere, I suspect there’s a climatologist desperately drafting a news release that will say, “The unsettling normality of this winter’s weather is a sure sign of catastrophic climate change.”
As a treat, because you’ve been good (except for Roy Jacobsen), I’ll share this video, only about a month old, of the Divine Sissel, singing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” in a concert in Oslo.