I’m having intermittent connection problems with my internet. Took me more than an hour to post last night. Maybe I can hang on long enough to share this lovely video, featuring the divine Sissel in her youth. I think I’ve posted a video of this Faeroese hymn before, but not this one, which features some impressive Faeroese scenery.
Tag Archives: Sissel
“Now a Thousand Christmas Lights are Lit.”
Tonight, another Norwegian Christmas song you can’t understand, from Sissel. Because it’s good for your education.
“Nå tennes tusen julelys,” is the name of the song. It means “Now a thousand Christmas lights are lit.” It paints a picture of Christmas lights being kindled all around the world. It goes on to talk of the Christmas star, and then moves on to a hope that the light of Christmas will bring peace to the world. I think it’s very beautiful.
Happy St. Stephen’s Day. And Boxing Day.
“My heart always returns”
What shall I blog about on the evenings when I haven’t got a recently finished book to review? That’s going to be my personal dilemma for a while. I picked up a book on the Inklings. It’s excellent and full of points of interest, but it’s about as long as The Lord of the Rings, I think (that’s one of the interesting aspects of reading on a Kindle. Sometimes you’re surprised by the length of a book you bought, an occurrence that never occurs in bookstores). Anyway, I’ll have to actually talk to you until I’ve finished this book. Which means I’ll have to think.
I thought I wouldn’t have to do that anymore, now that I had a master’s.
Anyway, it’s Advent, so a Christmas song from Sissel is always in order. I’ve probably posted some version of this before, but I think I’ve run out of new Sissel Christmas stuff. She bears repetition. This is one she’s recorded and performed many times. The title, “Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker” means, “My heart always returns.” The singer is saying she constantly turns her thoughts back to Christ and His birth. I like this arrangement, which incorporates a theme from Edvard Grieg in the bridge. This recording was done in Iceland.
Skenandoa
I got to thinking about the old song, “Oh Shenandoah,” this weekend, for no important reason. It’s one of The Divine Sissel’s favorite numbers (as witness the video above). She says she learned it from a Norwegian sea captain, which is no surprise, since one of its many permutations over the years has been its service as a sea shanty. It’s certainly one of America’s most beautiful native songs, and also one of its most versatile and mysterious.
In fact, one has to ask, “What in Burl Ives’ name is the song about, anyway?” It addresses Shenandoah, which we all know to be a river and a valley in Virginia, but then it talks about “the wide Missouri,” thousands of miles away. This is the question I set out to answer, sparing no expense in consulting a sophisticated new technology called Wikipedia.
Well. Turns out it’s not about the Shenandoah Valley (or river) at all. There was a guy named Shenandoah. Continue reading Skenandoa
“What Child is This?”
It’s Sissel. It’s “What Child is This?” She does the words right. Merry Christmas.
“Silent Night” from Sissel, plus some nonsense
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