Category: music

Do not ask me how I stumbled across this, I beg of you.

Anne Hathaway’s version of the 70s hit by Leo Sayer.

You know, this guy:

Wacky clown Jesus from Godspell!

Shudder, shudder, shudder.

Weird, but I fixate on only one thing in this disturbing-on-so-many-levels photo and I’ll bet it’s not what you think.

It’s this:

The GIANT YAWNING U’s between his fingers.

Look at them! LOOK at them, pippa! The arms of a starfish are closer together. They make me think of spiders. To get from one finger to another requires an exhausting trans-Atlantic flight. I don’t know. I’m really freaked out. I’m looking at my hands right now and I have nice pretty little V’s between my nice pretty little fingers. That’s normal, right? I’m sorry. I notice men’s hands. Kind of a thing of mine. I don’t like pretty hands on a man, nor do I like freaky yawning starfish hands. Honestly, I would never ever want this man ANYWHERE near me — definitely not my type and it’s not just the hands, shockingly — unless I came across a really stubborn mayonnaise jar. Then, yes, lose the suspenders, lose the hair, lose the t-shirt, lose the face, and get your wacky bag o’ jacks paws over here. And tout de suite on that, Crackie.

Good Lord, where was I?

Oh, the song. Yes. Please listen and don’t think about his hands, okay? And if you know the original, what do you think? Better? Worse?

Do you like her voice? Hate her voice? What?

I need thoughts.

Tell me things about this — anything — so I stop thinking about Starfish Hands.

Michael Franti.

This is not a deep song, but who cares? Yes, he rhymes “you” with “you” and then …..”you,” but, seriously, who cares?

It makes me happy.

And, really, the important thing to learn here is that he knows one thing, that he loves you. He loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

And that ain’t bad. Well, maybe for you fellas, but just roll with it, okay?

See for yourself.

Hey mama.

This song was featured at the end of “House” last night and I sat frozen from the second it started to the second it ended. Cuts right through me.

maybe someday, we will look back at this and we’ll smile, but right now i can’t bear ……

when we first met we were kids, we were wild, we were restless
and after a while, i grew coarse, i grew cold, i grew reckless
i hold this memory, hold you so close to me, whispered were we always happy

lately it feels like i’m asleep and i just can’t wake up
pacing the floor, want to call, but i can’t so i hang up
sharing a secret on the train with a lady who’s crying has ruined her make up

now i see just how young, how scared i was
eyes closed tight, throwing punch after punch at the world
sarah, is it ever gonna be the same
sarah, is it ever gonna be the same

said goodbye to all the places i used to go
said goodbye to all the faces i used to know
nothing lasts forever
i guess by now, i should know
i should know

there ain’t a thing i can say that will ever repair
and you, who had so much advice, and yet couldn’t share
maybe someday, we will look back on this and we’ll smile, but right now i can’t bear

now i see just how young, how scared i was
eyes closed tight, throwing punch after punch at the world
sarah, is it ever gonna be the same
sarah, is it ever gonna be the same

My other favorite traditional hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” This is a really cool version by Sufjan Stevens. I love it. Quirky and open and vulnerable.

I even like the video here. Although the images have nothing to do with the song, they’re gorgeous.

The lyrics below are the more modernized version. I prefer the original lyrics.

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

(An Ebenezer or Eben-Ezer, found in 1 Samuel 7:12, which says: Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” It’s a stone of remembrance and fresh beginnings, acknowledging God’s help. Pretty cool, huh?)

(Why did this post disappear? But I found it. Haha. Take THAT, you disappearing posts.)

Okay. Let’s go to a happier place, shall we?

I literally SCOURED YouTube recently, looking for this song. It’s called Montana and it’s my favorite Spanish worship song. Hey, I live in So. California. I was on worship teams for over ten years. I know a LOT of Spanish worship songs. This is a live recording of the worship team at a church called Shalom Hebraic Christian Congregation, and, you know, I gotta say: This worship team is TIGHT. They are GOOD. Holy COW. Few worship teams sound this good in person, this clean. Wow.

(You know, our “maybe” church could …. uhm …. take some lessons here …… uhm … just sayin’ …..)

Hm. Maybe I need to go to this church. Where are they located??

The song is based on this scripture from Matthew 17:20, where Jesus is speaking:

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

To the video.

Okay. I’m basically in love with everyone on this team. The leader has a kind of soaring purity to her voice. Not necessarily crazy about the vibrato that creeps into it, but there’s no denying its power.

The Howdy Doody guitar player is amazing. So casual. I mean I can testify from personal experience — yes, TESTIFY, Trace!! — that this song races along at breakneck speed. It’s very easy for the band to lose control of this song and this guy is just so nonchalant about it. Makes it look effortless. (Cullen, that guitar confuses me. Uhm, can you help me out? What am I looking at? Why does it look different?)

And do check out my new boyfriend — the keyboard player — starting at about the 2:22 mark. Oh, how I MISS being on a worship team with black people! Those people know how to worship — they will FORCE you to shake off any shackles you walk in with. They are completely unabashed about it. White churches need much much more of that spirit. Just look at him, groovin’ along there in his cool glasses. Check out his head bob. LOVE him!

Then the bass player. Okay. Just listen to the bass line in this song — it’s insane. But, again, no problem for this guy. He rocks that bass. Plus, his face is killing me. Joy, joy, joy.

There’s some old white guy on the conga drums off to the side there, but I can’t see him very well. GO old whitey!!

They sing the song in Spanish and English, but I prefer it in Spanish. Just more pleasing lyrically. Gets the feet moving. You WILL feel better about life after listening to this. I basically guarantee it.

Oh, she doesn’t start singing until about the 25 second mark. She’s testifyin’ first. Just go with it.

Spanish lyrics posted below the clip.

Si tuvieras fe
Como un grano de mostaza
Esto lo dice el Senor
Si tuvieras fe
Como un grano de mostaza
Esto lo dice el Senor
Tu le dirias a la montana muevete, muevete

Esa montana se movera, se movera, se movera
Esa montana se movera, se movera, se movera

Tu le dirias a la montana mueve te, mueve te

Esa montana se movera, se movera, se movera
Esa montana se movera, se movera, se movera

More on that later.

I am lying in bed with my laptop, struggling to keep my eyes open as I write this. It’s what? 7:30? So, whatevs. I am eight. Next year, I will be in third grade.

So for your consideration, before I drift off into my looming coma, the only — and I mean only — song of Bryan Adams’ that I like. Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman from “Don Juan De Marco.”

Actually, it’s one of my favorite songs.

But, look, Bryan Adams. I get that the whole mask thing ties into the movie, but I’m tired and it just makes me want to smack you. You need to LOSE that, Crackie. Leave that to Johnny Depp. Just sing.

Uhm, okay. The image this is frozen on …. I have no control over.

I remember watching this episode of Ally McBeal several years ago now — the episode the short clip below is from. You don’t really need a context, thank God, because I don’t remember enough of the episode to give you one.

The clip simply shows Ally sitting at her little upright piano in the final moments of the episode and plucking out the tune to Dulcinea from “Man of La Mancha” — a song her dad used to sing to her. His voice joins in and sings with her.

But when I saw it, it had a completely different context to me. The song of Dulcinea could just as easily be the song of the childless woman. That’s what I heard when I saw this episode. These are exactly the words you sing to the children you don’t have. The children you swear you know, the children you know you love, but still, the children who are not here. And the visual at the end of this clip — well, that’s the life of the childless woman, during the worst of it, when you want to die.

I put this clip up not for my sake, no, but for anyone you might know going through this right now. Mourning what doesn’t exist. Going crazy from it. Feeling haunted. Wondering if they’ll ever come out the other side. Pray for them, okay? Or just say a prayer in general for the childless, for the single who long for children, too.

Be forewarned: I don’t make it through this clip dry-eyed — ever — and you might not either.

There are so many people walking around mourning so much that people just don’t see, aren’t there?

(partial lyrics below)

I have dreamed thee too long,
Never seen thee or touched thee.
But known thee with all of my heart.
Half a prayer, half a song,
Thou hast always been with me,
Though we have been always apart.

Dulcinea… Dulcinea…
I have sought thee, sung thee,
Dreamed thee, Dulcinea!

And thy name is like a prayer
An angel whispers… Dulcinea… Dulcinea ….
Dulcinea …. Dulcinea ….

By JD Souther, from the movie Always. I actually like this better than the original version by The Platters. Nearly impossible song to sing — the highs and lows of it — but this is so beautiful and heartwrenching. I’ve always loved his voice. I just want to slow dance to this song, right now. Rips right through me.

(The image is static and annoying, but it’s the only version I could find of this. So, again, just listen.)