61. I Love Paris. Jonathan & Darlene Edwards

This is appropriate for Halloween; it's pretty scary. It's actually an act; Jo Stafford and Paul Weston are real musicians who thought it would be funny to be awful. My dad loved this song and The Last Time I Saw Paris. He delighted in playing them for my mom, whose teeth were set on edge. When he knew he was on the way out, he made six mixed CDs (Dick's Curtain Call, volumes 1 to 6 - he had a good sense of humour) that were to be played at the party following his memorial service in the Reid Theatre at MUN. My mom, knowing his dangerous sense of humour, made my aunt listen to all six CDs prior to the event so that any songs with objectionable lyrics could be censored. However, she didn't tell my aunt to check for atrocious singing, so when we were setting up for the memorial service in the afternoon and testing the music/ speakers, all of a sudden we heard the familiar introduction to I Love Paris. "He didn't!" exclaimed my mother. Yep, he did.

62. Stumbling Through the Dark. The Jayhawks

This is from a CD I came across in the library: The Grass is Always Bluer. Apparently it's a collection of "nu-grass" artists, including Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams. I'd never heard of The Jayhawks before but I liked this song. I have no idea what the lyrics are about, but I like the part where they sing "the men who proceeded us here left only questions and fears." I picture the voyageurs or somebody like that exploring the wilds, and I sing along (fixing the grammar at the same time) "the men who preceded us here left only pretzels and beer."

63. It's a Raggy Waltz. The Dave Brubeck Quartet

Thanks to a CD buying trip in Winnipeg with L for starting my love affair with Dave Brubeck.
This is so cool; there's a part in it (almost six minutes in, I think) where he seems to be playing in one tempo and it turns into another tempo. Actually the liner notes include an interview with Dave Brubeck where he listens to the recording of the performance, and he says, "Frankly, I don't know what I'm doing here. At first I'm in 2/4 or maybe it's 4/4 within 3/4 and then I got into double time. I'm going to have to listen to this more carefully and figure out exactly what it is that I was doing here." At least now I don't feel so bad about not knowing what was going on. Liner notes from another CD I have (Dave Brubeck Jazz Collection, Columbia C2K 64160) say that Brubeck had a great ear as a child but bad eyesight, so when his mother taught him to play the piano, he pretended to be reading the music. In his senior year as a music major at College of the Pacific in California, they discovered that he couldn't read music. The dean told him that he wouldn't graduate, but the composition and counterpoint professors convinced the dean to allow it; the dean agreed as long as Brubeck promised never to teach music. The most famous Brubeck piece is Take Five (used to great effect in the soundtrack of the movie Pleasantville), but this live stuff is pretty exciting.

64. Get in the Car. Moxy Fruvous

Another good road trip song. We actually know one of the members of Moxy Fruvous: Mike Ford, who's married to a former colleague of Dr S's. He has a solo career now, and we like his song Stars Shone on Toronto (from the CD of the same name), which is about the blackout of August 2003. Moxy Fruvous has nice harmonies and funny songs. They're kind of a cross between Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants.

65. Wasn't That a Mighty Storm. Nanci Griffith and Friends

Dr S first heard Nanci Griffith on Morningside in the late 80s; then we heard her on a Chieftains Christmas tape; finally, Dr S went to Austin, Texas (Nanci Griffith's hometown) in 1993 and saw a bunch of her CDs in a music store. We've bought every NG CD since then. I have to say that sometimes I find her voice a little irritating, but overall I really enjoy her and the songs she sings - both the traditional and contemporary folk. We've even seen her in concert once. This is just one of many great songs, from a CD of classic folk songs. On this song, NG is joined by Odetta, Emmylou Harris, etc. It's about the hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900; this storm claimed the lives of between 6,000 and 12,000 people. (In comparison, Hurricane Katrina killed about 1,800 people.)

66. As Pants the Hart. Maddy Prior and The Carnival Band

I heard this on Jurgen Gothe's Disc Drive many, many years ago. It's a beautiful, simple setting of Psalm 42. This is on the CD Sing Lustily and With Good Courage: Gallery Hymns of the 18th and Early 19th Centuries, the title of which is from John Wesley's 1761 instructions for singing; Dr S takes this advice with varying results. The CD has some other great hymns on it, too. Also check out their Christmas CDs, A Tapestry of Carols and Carols & Capers - lots of good old Oxford Book of Carols stuff.

67. Mamie's Blues. Jelly Roll Morton

My dad put this song on many mixed tapes and CDs.

68. William Tell Overture. Spike Jones

At first I had The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald scheduled for today; it's a fantastic, moving song but you all know it. So I decided to feature Spike Jones' William Tell Overture instead. This post is dedicated to my oldest friend in the world, L - we used to listen to this at her house. I'm afraid you will have to listen to more Spike Jones before the year is over. I'm not really sorry - Spike Jones is hilarious, no matter what my mother thinks!



P.S. We used to call this song Beetlebaum (the horse), but some people seem to think the horse is Fetelbaum or Feitlebaum.

69. Grazing in the Grass. Hugh Masekela

Dr. S learned about Hugh Masekela from a colleague who had done a CUSO placement in Botswana in the 1980s during the anti-Apartheid struggle; he took music lessons from Hugh Masekela! Along with Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela is one of the most important black South African musicians and critics of Apartheid. He's great wherever he's from. This song is so mellow. I love it.

70. Marry Me. Dolly Parton

This is from the CD Little Sparrow, which is a return to bluegrass, less commercial fare, for Dolly Parton. I like this song because it's just plain funny.

71. Christ lag in Todesbanden. J.S. Bach, BWV 4

Another cantata our choir sang for a Sunday service. This is an Easter cantata, about how Christ conquered death. I find it a bit strange that it's in a minor key, but I guess it's not inappropriate because the subject is so heavy. Below are the words in German and English.

Christ lag in Todesbanden für unsre Sünd gegeben,
er ist wieder erstanden und hat uns bracht das Leben;
des wir sollen fröhlich sein, Gott loben und ihm dankbar sein
und singen halleluja, halleluja!

Christ lay in death's bonds, given over for our sins,
He has risen again and brought us life;
therefore we should be joyful, praise God and be thankful to Him
and sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

During the "des wir sollen fröhlich sein," the music gets a little cheerful to fit with the words. At the end, in the halleluja part, there's this thing called an alla breve, which means cut time - basically, all the hallelujas speed right up.



This other chorus is great too. If you ever hear it, listen for the words at the end: "wie ein Tod den andern fraß" - "how one death ate the other" - it's a great line. And when the choir sings "Ein Spott aus dem Tod ist worden," they almost spit it out.

Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg, da Tod und Leben rungen,
das Leben behielt den Sieg, es hat den Tod verschlungen.
Die Schrift hat verkündigt das, wie ein Tod den andern fraß,
Ein Spott aus dem Tod ist worden. Halleluja!

It was a strange battle that death and life waged;
life claimed the victory, it devoured death.
The scripture had prophesied this, how one death gobbled up the other,
a mockery has been made out of death. Hallelujah!

Dedicated to G, D, and H.

72. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out. Bessie Smith

I chose this song to follow Judy Henske because I was listening to it one day and thought that Judy Henske must have been at least partly inspired by Bessie Smith - she really belts it out just like Smith. Bessie Smith (1894-1937) was a popular blues singer of the 20s and 30s, and one of my dad's favourites.

73. Ballad of Little Romy. Judy Henske

Judy Henske is a singer we discovered by accident. My dad was searching for a recording of the Salvation Army Song ("put a nickel on the drum, feed another drunken bum") and we turned up the CD Judy Henske, recorded live in 1963. She introduces some songs with whacky patter - the patter, in fact, is half the experience on this album. This is a good example.

74. SOS. Agnetha Faltskog

Dr. S here. I think I was possibly the biggest ABBA fan ever in Newfoundland. S.O.S was always one of my favourite of their songs, because it was such a great example of the layered ABBA sound. I especially love the kind of burbling piano leading into the chorus, followed by a folky acoustic guitar, which gradually gives way to synthesizer and electric guitar. A music critic once wrote of ABBA's music that (lyrics aside) it was such a complex wall of sound that you could lie down on the floor in your headphones and get lost in it.

As well, this song was sung by my favourite band member, Agnetha (the blond). In fact, this version is not technically ABBA but rather Agnetha on her 1975 solo album, Elva Kvinnor i Ett Hus (Eleven Women in One House). However, that's really a technicality since Benny plays keyboards, Bjorn plays guitar, Anni-Frid sings backup, and all the usual ABBA musicians play the other instruments.



You may have noticed that it's in Swedish. I have a considerable collection of ABBA LPs in Swedish. Told you I was a big fan.

75. If I Had a Boat. Lyle Lovett

We heard this song on somebody else's mixed cd and liked it. It's sort of a weird cowboy meets sailor fantasy. My favourite line, of course, is "kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I'm going out to sea."

76. Je Ne Regrette Rien. Raquel Bitton

This is a song that my dad liked; it's usually associated with Edith Piaf, but this recording is by Raquel Bitton. I like the way she practically spits out "je ne regrette rien."

77. People Will Say We're In Love. From Oklahoma

A favourite song from a favourite musical, Oklahoma. This recording is from the motion picture and features Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. It's great for both the lyrics and the tune. The lyrics are clever with some nice internal rhyme; the best is "grantin' your wish, I carved our initials on the tree." The introduction to each verse is very complex, not easy to sing but neat to listen to, which gives way to a very pleasant tune. It's actually not easy to pick a favourite song from this musical, since there are so many good ones: Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (there's a really cool little punctuation thing that the trumpets do), Many a New Day (another one with a great tune and lyrics), etc. I will feature a more humorous song from this musical at a later date!

78. Sing Sing Sing. Benny Goodman

From Benny Goodman's live concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938, this recording is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. Where to begin? This is a very long piece; it was the last thing they played at the concert, apart from the encore. (Since it's so long, I'll give the approximate times as I describe what I'm hearing.) The piece starts with Gene Krupa on drums - the drums are the glue that holds the whole piece together. At the beginning, it's just another big band number - a great one, but not earth-shattering. Saxes and raunchy trumpets, then normal big band, then a clarinet solo. At 1:18, the drums lead us into another bit: this is actually the tune Christopher Columbus. More good big band. At 2:20, the drums lead us into another section. At 3:04, the drums are on their own again for a bit of a solo before the whole band joins in for what seems like a big finale, but a clarinet emerges from the applause at 3:55 and the music continues. At 5:21 the drums quietly introduce a trumpet solo by Harry James. At 7:35, another clarinet solo begins, punctuated by Krupa on every third beat. Goodman ends on a couple of really high notes (according to the liner notes, an A and a C). At 9:30, Jess Stacy's piano solo begins; he plays the main theme and then spins off into a couple of minutes of more reflective stuff. At 11:28, he tapers off, the audience applauds, and the drums come back. Four knocks on the cow bell herald the big finale and the piece is over!



This post is dedicated to my saxy cousin with her fancy new job!

79. Watermark. Mae Moore

Dragonfly, the album this song is from, was the flip side of the cassette we used to play first on road trips (see #80). When I hear anything from it, I see highway 12 in Michigan (on our first couple of road trips, we were too scared to drive the interstate), with all its picturesque little towns. Mae Moore is a BC singer who we first heard on CBC's Morningside with Peter Gzowski, both now long gone. Another great song of hers is Red Clay Hills, which I just learned is about PEI, where she lived for three years, and the threat people feared would be posed by the proposed fixed link to the mainland -- the present Confederation Bridge. As for me, I'd be scared about the dangers posed to self driving across a 13 km bridge!

80. Baby, Now That I've Found You. Alison Krauss & Union Station

This is from the CD of almost the same name (Now That I've Found You), which is the first CD we play whenever we go on a road trip - at first it was on a cassette, then a CD, and now it's an ipod playlist. Usually we start it as soon as we hit the 401. This CD is a compilation of some of Alison's earlier music. It includes stuff she did with the Cox Family, like Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven (But Nobody Wants To Die) - a very catchy number. Since we discovered Alison in the early 90s, she is one of our favourite musicians - although there was bluegrass next door to me when I was young, Alison's the one who opened the door to bluegrass for me in adulthood. Her voice is exceedingly pure and she's a good fiddle player, too. She's also very funny - check out this plug for Ken Burns' National Parks series.



P.S. From a certain standpoint, the lyrics of this song are kind of obsessive, kind of freaky-stalkerish. So just listen to the music and ignore the lyrics if you must.

81. Serenade for Strings in C Major, 1st movement. Tchaikovsky

I think I first heard this on CBC2 years ago, and I liked it so much I got this Decca 2-CD set (Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields) which also includes serenades by Wiren, Brahms, Dvorak, and Suk, all of which are great. The part I like the best in this piece is the opening (which is also the ending). In between there is some dramatic stuff and some quite cheerful stuff, but the opening and ending are incredibly rich and poignant.

82. Laughing in Rhythm. Slim Gaillard

Slim Gaillard did some weird stuff. Funny weird. I find the laughter on this one contagious. There's not too much to say about Slim Gaillard (1916-1991); the songs with their ridiculous lyrics speak for themselves. If you like this one, check out Potato Chips, Cement Mixer, and Chicken Rhythm, all available on itunes.

83. Pilate's Dream from Jesus Christ Superstar

I seem to be partial to musicals, and Jesus Christ Superstar is a favourite. My parents had the album back in the 70s; our babysitter Charmaine used to play it and it scared the bejeezus out of me - at least the part where they nail Jesus to the cross. In 1976 the movie came to town and I went to see it with an older friend or two. After I had seen it on the screen, it wasn't as scary. At some point it became a tradition for me to watch the movie every Easter Saturday, a tradition which continues to this day somewhat to Dr. S's chagrin (however, Dr. S feels a little different now that she's been to Jerusalem, and somehow we always find some new aspect of the movie to discuss). I know the whole movie pretty much by heart. It's fun to sing the Last Supper scene but (as with Bess, You Is My Woman Now) it's difficult to sing both parts when they overlap. This song is so short and sweet and simple, and Barry Dennen is great as Pontius Pilate.

84. La Fille dans le Bois / Reel a D'Idas Boudreault. Becky Tracy

Dr. S here, in the first of a limited number of guest appearances I have been granted. The musical half of the partnership is a pretty hard act to follow, but here goes...

These two tunes are from a friend of ours who, with her husband and an assortment of other talented folks in Vermont and Massachussetts, turns out an amazing assortment of music. American contra, traditional Scots, Irish, Breton, Newfoundland, Quebecois, and even Scandinavian fiddle tunes. There are many I could have picked from her repertoire, but I chose this combination because it showcases her fiddling so well, the first tune was written by her husband (our original friend in the pair), and it's got an addictive toe-tapping rhythm that gets me in the right frame of mind no matter what. It's frequent listening on the TTC!

The first tune was written about a fiddle student who lived in a cabin the woods, the second is a traditional Quebecois tune. I love what I think is the edgy, anticipatory bridge between the two beginning at about 1:14, and then the lilting reel that follows at about 1:30. And from then on, it's a beautiful mesmerizing dance!



Available for purchase at www.blackislemusic.com!

85. Misa Criolla: Credo. Ariel Ramirez

Ariel Ramirez, an Argentinian composer, wrote this folk mass in 1964; our choir sang it this spring. What I'm giving you today is the Credo, which has fantastic rhythms. Well, they're fantastic to listen to, but not so easy to sing. I think this is the part in the mass that actually has "quintuplets" (I guess that's what they're called!) - where the composer wants the singers to squish five notes into a space that's meant for four notes. More usual are triplets, where you make three notes fit into a four-note space. There are probably some of those in here, too. Anyway, all five parts of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) are available on itunes.

86. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Milton Douglas with Leo Reisman Orchestra

I don't know much about this singer or orchestra other than that they recorded this in 1932. The song will be familiar to most people as an anthem of the Depression. I like this version because it's so dramatic with the trumpets. The introduction got my attention and made me listen to the words more than I had before; it helps that Milton Douglas sings so clearly, too. It's quite a poignant song when you think about it.

87. Ill Wind. Flanders & Swann

Is there a name for a piece where they've set words to a piece that's instrumental? That's what this is. Flanders and Swann have taken the third movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 (perhaps you will find it familiar) and written a song about a guy (probably technically a bloke) who is an amateur French horn player. I love funny songs, and the words to this are very clever, full of internal rhymes, etc. The best line is "I found that horn - gone;" he manages to make "gone" rhyme with "horn."

89. John Doe No. 24. Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mainly I picked this song because of the first line: "I was standing on this sidewalk in 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois." Yesterday's song was about my dad's hometown, and this song starts in my mother's hometown. Jacksonville is in central Illinois; Hannibal, Missouri, where Mark Twain lived and got the inspiration for so many of his characters, is about an hour to the west, and Springfield, Illinois, the state capitol where Abe Lincoln got his political start, is about a half-hour to the east. Jacksonville is a very pretty town, home of Illinois College, which was founded in 1829 and from which both my parents got their BAs.

Apart from the subject matter, though, this song is a good example of Mary Chapin Carpenter's storytelling. It's about a teenager, blind, deaf, and unable to speak, who was found wandering in Jacksonville in 1945. He spent his life in various institutions and died at the age of 64. In the song, MCC imagines his thoughts going back to his childhood in New Orleans, although in reality nobody was ever able to ascertain where he was from.

90. Talking Centralia. Woody Guthrie

This song, which is actually spoken (hence the name), is about the Centralia mining disaster of 1947, in which 111 miners were killed. Centralia is where my dad grew up; it's in southern Illinois about an hour east of St. Louis, Missouri, and it's named for the Illinois Central Railroad. My dad would have been 12 when the mine exploded. My aunt says that the mine whistle blew long and loud to announce the emergency. My granddad was just arriving home from work at the Illinois Central Railroad, where he was an electrician, when he got a call to hurry down to the mine to help. A neighbour of theirs two doors down died in the mine. Apparently, on the day of the explosion (March 25) Woody Guthrie sat down and wrote three songs about the disaster.

91. Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir. J.S. Bach

In 2005, our church got involved with the annual International Bach Festival in Toronto (which seems to be no more). During the Festival in 2005, 2006, and 2007, there was a Sunday church service featuring a Bach cantata sung by our choir (with some ringers) and conducted by Helmuth Rilling, an internationally renowned Bach musician. Wir danken dir is the first one we did. I still remember the day; it was Thanksgiving Sunday and my parents were arriving later that day. When I went down to the laundry room before getting dressed in my special black cantata clothes, I discovered that the sewer had backed up. Good times.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about the music. I'm not an expert, so I checked out some of the following on the internet. Bach's cantatas were an integral part of the church service and followed the lectionary (the prescribed Old and New Testament readings for each Sunday of the year) -- I guess this is why there are so many Bach cantatas. The cantatas start with a chorus, which is a four-part fugue-y thing sung by the choir, followed by a few arias (solos or duets or whatever - there are some that are quite beautiful) and/or recitatives (which I find very boring), finishing with a chorale, which is basically a hymn in four-part harmony -- the congregation would sing along with this. The words to this chorale are: "Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir und verkundigen deine Wunder," which means: "We thank you, God, we thank you and proclaim your wonders."

P.S. For those of you wondering what's up with BWV, it stands for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, which means Bach-Works-Catalogue. This guy has over 1000 works, so it's just as well there's a numbering system to keep track of them all.

P.P.S. The photo is Lincoln Cathedral.

92. Americo. Carlos Guedes & Desvio

I really can't say much about this music except that I like it. It's catchy and happy and it's some kind of harp, which is nice. I heard it long long ago on a Disc Drive show that I taped and listened to over and over for many years. Perhaps it's just South American elevator music, but it's still nice.

93. Muddy Water. Eddi Reader

My acquaintance with this singer from Glasgow is thanks again to Peter Togni and Weekender. This is a contemporary song and although I know the words to it I'm not sure what it's about. Dr S is convinced it's about a woman who drowns her family in muddy water. In any case, I like the sound of it (the song, not drowning your family). This whole CD (see the end of the video) has other good stuff on it too. We liked it so much we bought a CD of Reader doing Robbie Burns songs. You will hear more of her before the decade is out.

94. Heaven. Tangle Eye

I was introduced to this song by Jurgen Gothe on his new show Farrago exactly one year ago! It's actually a remix of a field recording made by Alan Lomax in the 1930s or 1940s, during which time Lomax and his father made thousands of recordings of traditional American music for the Library
of Congress. Now you would find these original recordings under the Smithsonian Folkways label. About Tangle Eye I know nothing!

95. Dirge for Two Veterans. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Our choir sang Dona Nobis Pacem as a protest at the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. Vaughan Williams wrote this in the years before the Second World War. Of the six parts in it, two take their words from scripture, one from a speech delivered in the British House of Commons during the Crimean War, and three from the Civil War poetry of Walt Whitman. It's a very forceful work. This part is from Whitman. Great word-painting, as our choir director, B, would say: "And every blow of the great convulsive drums strikes me through and through" and "Two veterans, son and father, dropped together."

In fact, the combination of words and music was so powerful that I was moved almost to tears during one rehearsal. War is so abstract when you are not directly involved in it, and this music forces you to confront what it means. Now this song has an even greater significance as our nephew joins the Canadian Armed Forces.

The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.)

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd,
('Tis some mother's large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)

O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.



And now I must tell you about the photograph. It's a picture of the graveyard at the Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee, which was right in the middle of the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. During the 5-hour battle, about 10,000 soldiers were killed, injured, or went missing. The plantation owners gave up their home to be used as a hospital, keeping one room for themselves. Injured soldiers filled every room, every inch of floor, stair, and veranda, and spilled out onto the grounds. The dead were buried in a farmer's field. In 1866, when the farmer wanted to reclaim his field, the owners of the Carnton plantation gave up some of their land to re-bury the 1,481 soldiers. This whole thing was retold in Robert Hicks' The Widow of the South, which I intend to read someday.

96. Bess, You Is My Woman Now. George Gershwin

This is a beautiful duet from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, which I guess my dad used to play a lot. At first, Porgy and Bess go back and forth singing to each other, but then they sing together, two competing melodies which twine together. If I start out on the right note, I can actually sing both parts, which is quite fun until I get to the part where they sing together. That's not so easy.

97. Fairytale of New York, The Pogues

This is from the bad old days when Dr S and I were doing our masters at McMaster. Dr S's hippie office-mate Barb introduced us to this song one night after a bunch of scotch. It's a great story - whenever she played it, Barb would say, "You can tell they really loved each other!"

"You're a bum, you're a punk."
"You're an old slut on junk, living there almost dead on a drip in that bed."
"You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last."
Yeah, the love really shines through.



Actually, the whole album (If I Should Fall From Grace With God) is great. There's a song on it called Thousands Are Sailing - it really resonated with us after leaving Newfoundland for "Canada." I think our culture shock couldn't have been far behind what the Irish would have felt when they got to New York.

98. Jump! David Lee Roth with the David Jorgenson Bluegrass Band

Short entry today; I had choir practice after work. Back in the 80s, David Lee Roth was crazy in Van Halen's Jump. Now he's back with the David Jorgenson Bluegrass Band, having shorn his lovely locks from the 80s (there's a YouTube clip of him on the Jay Leno show). Dr S and I first heard this on the late, great Weekender on CBC2 with Peter Togni, so then I downloaded it from itunes. I don't think there's a better deal around than 99 cents for your own copy of a great song.

99. Alleluia. John Tavener

On September 22 on Q, Jian Ghomeshi informed us that there were 100 days left in the decade, and suggested that we do something for each of those remaining 100 days: learn a new origami, or write a page of a novella, or wear a different t-shirt, or put 100 bottles of beer on the wall and then take one down and pass it around. I thought I'd try a blog featuring a different song or piece of music, but since I worked late on September 22 and didn't have time to start it, I started on September 23 with 99, which I like better than 100 anyway.

This piece was performed at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 as her casket was carried out of Westminster Abbey. This is a very cool piece of music. Most of the text is from the Orthodox funeral service, with a couple of lines from Hamlet:

Alleluia. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Alleluia. Remember me, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.
Alleluia. Give rest, O Lord, to your handmaid, who has fallen asleep.
Alleluia. The choir of saints have found the well-spring of life and door of paradise.
Alleluia. Life: a shadow and a dream.
Alleluia. Weeping at the grave creates the song:
Alleluia. Come, enjoy rewards and crowns I have prepared for you.



The basses anchor the whole thing with a drone. Right around "Life: a shadow and a dream," you start to hear the shuffle of the pall-bearers. When they get to the last line, the choir sings fortissimo and goes into a totally major key, and the neat thing is that now the sopranos have a drone on top (I don't know if you call it a drone if it's high, but whatever). After a minute of silence, the recording ends with the bells of Westminster Abbey.

Tavener's stuff is hauntingly beautiful. Another one you should look out for is his setting of William Blake's The Lamb.