Category: music

I have two favorite traditional hymns.

This is one of them, called “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The version below is modernized and known as “The Wonderful Cross.” The verses are the same as they were originally written in 1707 by Isaac Watts, but a chorus — which I love — has been added by Chris Tomlin. I’ve been listening to this non-stop since our “second Sunday” a few days ago.

Because when people are too much, too insensitive, too unaware, too blind ….. any kind of “too” that leaves you weeping and scared …… there’s always the wonderful cross.

I’d rather weep over that.

(Honestly, I do find this video a bit aesthetically annoying — but I don’t watch it; I just listen. Headphones make it so much better. The song could be a tiny bit faster, if you ask me, but you didn’t, so uhm, chill out, Tracey. Just listen.)

Lyrics below. I love the lyrics.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride

See from his head, his hands, his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown

O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live
O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
All who gather here by grace draw near and bless Your name

Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all

“I’ll Write a Song for You,” by Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Yes, it is Earth, Wind, and Fire. Yes, over the years, they have regularly costumed themselves as if they were starring in some appalling Disney hybrid of Aladdin and The Lion King. Yes, sometimes their lyrics are airy-fairy incomprehensible New Age twaddle, but, yamahama, Crackie, sometimes, SOMETIMES they do things to me.

I probably came to EWF later than everyone else because, well, I came to all popular music later than everyone else because I am basically Amish as I’ve stated here umpteen times before. I don’t like everything they’ve done — I’m probably not even familiar with everything they’ve done — but this song …… ohhhh, this song ….. yes, I’m very familiar with this song even though it’s one of their more obscure songs, was never a big hit. Uhm, to the best of my minimal knowledge.

It’s one of my all-time favorites. For various reasons.

It’s just in my blood.

And, okay, all Amish aside, pippa? I’m not going to lie: This song is pure liquid sex. I dare you to listen to it and think otherwise.

This song. IS sex.

Listen to the lyrics. Listen to the progression of the song. Everything starts so hushed and delicate, plucking, strumming, a slow sweet foreplay tugging at you, taking its time, everything so gentle, a low-level pound, until ….. 3:09 when, if you listen closely, Philip Bailey takes a breath that changes the entire song. Everything is joined, builds, becomes more and more urgent, sometimes soaring, sometimes gasping, until …. 4:54 when he hits that note, the note you cannot believe, the note that makes you want to weep for its beauty and purity, the breathless climax, and, well, honestly, you’ll be hitting it, too.

I mean, YAmaHAma. It’s perfect. He’s perfect. His voice is perfect. That’s a high B or C he’s hitting at the climax of the song. Swoooooon. Forget what I said before about loving the beauty of imperfection, blahdie blah blah. I mean, cram all that, peaches.

I love the beauty of perfection!

Problem is I will basically rip off my clothes should someone start to play this song. It’s true. It’s a problem. It’s a guarantee. Any time. Anywhere.

Play it in line at the DMV? Tracey rips her clothes off.

A muzak version plays during visiting hours at the old folks’ home? Tracey rips her clothes off.

Someone’s listening to it in the church parking lot? Uhm, Tracey rips her clothes off and is escorted off the premises by elders with their clothes on.

HUGE, MASSIVE interpersonal problem I have. I would have this song on continuous play on my iPod, but it would seriously impede my ability to function in the world and stay out of jail.

Please listen and try to keep your clothes on. Don’t be like me, I implore you.

We’re …. we’re on a spinning top ….

(Lyrics below)

I thirst but never quench
I know the consequence, feeling as I do
We’re in a spinning top
Where, tell me, will it stop
And what am I to say
Open our music book, that only few can look
And I’ll write a song for you

Love is a symphony, hearts in one melody
‘Cause I write a song for you
Sounds never dissipate, they only recreate
In another place
There in your silent night
Joy of a song’s delight
‘Cause I’ll write a song for you
You’ll write a song for me
We’ll write a song of love … of love

My magical mystique, finding it all complete
In your lovely face, feelings we try to chase
Memories that won’t erase, stay forever new
We have a magic box in which is never locked
‘Cause I write a song for you
You write a song for me
We’ll write a song of love ….. of love

I don’t know how many people will actually listen to the entire song posted below, but if anyone happens to be, oh, standing around in their underwear, flossing their teeth, wondering, “Hm. I can’t help but wonder which modern Christian worship song in the frequent rubbish heap of modern Christian worship music is Tracey’s favorite, the one that stands out as the pony in the poo pile, the one that best expresses how she feels inside about her entire faith, the one that rips her open but also lets her soar and whatnot, etc.,” I would tell that person — once they put some clothes on, thank you, I mean we don’t want any more awkward moments than this blog already creates — the song below, “Phenomenon” by Rita Springer.

And, yes, I’m sure you are all standing around in your underwear, flossing your teeth, wondering just what the answer is to this pivotal point.

Tsk tsk. The ego on me.

Drunken slattern.

I just love Rita Springer. She’s raw, man. She pounds those keyboards. She wails. She’s got a kind of Melissa Etheridge sound. Her voice is not necessarily pretty, but it packs a punch. It’s gravelly, raw — almost as if she just doesn’t care what it sounds like, she needs to get the words out. It’s that quality, the unprettiness of her voice, that makes it more beautiful to me. She uses it, lets her heart blaze through all that. Some people won’t like that, but sometimes I really prefer the beauty of imperfection.

And I love her lyrics, too. Love the images here.

The piano and lyrics at 3:05? Okay. Just tear me open.

Oh, and this is just a static image — no video to watch. I think I’ve expressed my, uhm, contempt? disdain? for many of the homemade YouTube videos. The ones that take the lyrics too literally? Yeah, those. So I’m going with this one — no lame distracting images that make me wanna punch someone. (Uhm …. just kidding, Jesus. I am always in control of myself as these fine people can attest.)

Oh, just listen to the song, okay? With headphones, if you can, so you can turn it up. Some cool drums in this song. (Lyrics below.)

I am not here just to see a phenomenon
I am not here for experiential bliss
I simply come to the feet of the God I serve,
The one that I love

I am not here for the sake of the people’s praise
I have not come to see the thunder and rain
I simply come to court of the King above
The one that I praise

And I want to find the way to his chambers
I want to be in the presence of the Lord
I am in need of his mercy and favor
Forever more

I am not here for the sake of a miracle
I am not here just to see the dead raised
Yes, I believe in power supernatural
But that’s not way I’m saved

I’ve had enough of this life of a Pharisee
I want to know this Jesus who’s been loving me
I’m running into the temple now just to see
The one that I love

And I want to find the way to his chambers
I want to be in the presence of the Lord
I am in need of his mercy and favor
Forever more

I give my heart to the one they call Jesus
Seeking out first the very kingdom of God
You are the way and the truth, I believe it
You are my phenomenon

You can move mountains whenever you want to
You can speak to the sea whenever it pleases you

Forgive me oh Lord if I’ve been a market place
And turn me upside down so I will seek your face
If your presence comes right here into this place
So will the thunder and the rain

While I try to reconstruct The Lost Post, I am cheering myself up with my swift and violent weekend crush on Timothy B. Schmit, sexy bass player for the Eagles. Uhm, yes, I understand that it’s Tuesday, but the weekend crush just applied for an extension and has — hooray! — been approved.

If you find yourself alone, spouse out of town, I highly recommend the weekend crush on famous people you will never actually encounter.

MB will roll his eyes over this whole dealio. He’s not threatened by Timothy B. Schmit, sexy bass player for the Eagles. I told him over the phone about my emerging tsunami of swoon and he remained unruffled.

Pffft to that, peaches. You know, I need me some ruffling. I mean, what? I ain’t worth no ruffling??

Okay. Just wait, babe. Someday Timothy B. Schmit show up at our door crooning “I Can’t Tell You Why” to me in his feathery tenor and I will go weak at the knees and be completely undone. He’ll want to whisk me away — naturally, because this is my little fantasy here — and then, my friend, well, you’re going to have to decide, aren’t you?

You will be in a pretty pickle.

A pretty pickle, I say.

Actually, I can see it now. The more likely scenario: MB literally begging Timothy B. Schmit, “Take her, man! Take her away, for the love of God!” And Timothy B. Schmit taking my hand, pulling me away with a whatevs shrug.

I engage in random obsessive behaviors, I guess, when I’m by myself. Like eating Cheerios all weekend and trampolining all willy-nilly and watching Eagles videos on YouTube and watching Eagles videos on YouTube while trampolining all willy-nilly. So, yeah, that was my weekend. That, and planning “romantic weekends in Oregon” with SarahK.

Here’s the truth: Growing up, I never knew what Timothy B. Schmit looked like. Nope. Never laid eyes on him until this weekend. When it comes to popular music — rock, pop, whatever — I came to everything late. Oh, so very latelatelate. We didn’t grow up being allowed to listen to “that kind of music.” When Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” is one of the few acceptable listening choices, well, you get a little skewed in the head. It messes you up. You become slightly nutso — and, as a bonus, you forever hate that song. We had a stereo in the hall closet controlled solely by my parents. They listened to Perry Como or The Ray Coniff Singers or Robert Goulet. Basically, my parents listened to the music of their parents which means I grew up on the music of my grandparents. I was a real swinger. We didn’t buy albums or cassettes or whatever. We weren’t given them as presents. Asking for them was out of the question. I simply didn’t have these things in my possession. Things that other kids might have had. Things like albums with photos of sexy bass players, for instance. I mean, sure, a few things trickled down through my friends, but my pop/rock musical knowledge was completely stunted.

Things changed when I went away to college. Oh, did they change. I had a lot of musical catching up to do.

And let’s just say I married the man who introduced me to Aerosmith. So there you go.

But this weekend, I finally realized the upside to all the compulsory Robert Goulet listening: It saved me from becoming Timothy B. Schmit’s crazed stalker which is what I surely would have become had I ever had the slightest idea of what he looked like. Or the slightest idea of his dead sexy fingers. Or the slightest idea of his glorious mane of hair. I may have been force-fed Perry Como, but things were definitely a’brewin’ inside. I mean, I wasn’t dead.

Well, only in your basic repressive soul-crushing way, not in an I-am-unaware-of-my-fancy-place kind of way. Oh, no. I was a secretly fiery little Baptist minx.

And, come on. “I Can’t Tell You Why”? Even I, the Baptist Nun, was aware that things happened when people heard that song. I didn’t know what kind of things they were. Maybe people heard it and baked banana bread or re-tiled the tub. I’m a complete innocent on every issue, as we all know. All I’d heard was it caused people to do these things. I’ve watched this video repeatedly now this weekend and I can vouch for its effect. I have both baked banana bread and re-tiled the tub. Because of this song and the things it makes you do.

Please watch and fall in love with Timothy B. Schmit and his dead sexy fingers and his gorgeous mane of hair and his perfect feathery tenor and don’t blame me if you bake banana bread. I am not responsible.

Furthermore: Completely ignore Glenn Frey. I do.

Furthermore: Please watch Don Felder’s guitar solo and imagine that you are that guitar. No, wait. I didn’t say that. Don’t do that. Re-tile the tub instead.

Furthermore: At 4:53, Don Felder does a little “chucka” move on his gorgeous guitar. (Cullen, please help me. Tell me what that’s called. Save me from myself and this post.) Anyhoo. Watch him right after he does that. His impish little grin. He’s very pleased with himself. Frankly, I’m a little twitterpated over him, too. His guitar is like honey. You heard me. Put THAT on your banana bread, pippa.

Okay. Calm down, Trace. “Got to keep your head little girl.”

You’re all thinking “too late,” aren’t you?

So there’s this thing called mash-ups and, apparently, everyone’s doing them. Or rather, has been doing them for quite some time now and I’ve only just recently heard of it, but, whatevs, who cares, I’m still hip or cool or whatever the word is these days.

A mash-up is a new “song” created by blending two songs together and I found this one mashing together Beyonce’s Single Ladies and, ahem, Fleet Foxes’ Ragged Wood, which I believe I wrote about at great pointless length here. The “mash” makes great use of the “whoaaa-oh-ohh” — which I still want as background music to everything I do, because, well, I really think I’ve earned it — and the whole “new” song is just really fun.

Yes, fun and silly and … dope? Cool? Rad? Bad? Chill? Fly? Tight? Sweet? Sick? Which IS it??

I’m so old.

Comfort me.

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime

The video to this song — embedded below — is simply gorgeous. Genius. Please watch it; you won’t be sorry. The song itself is haunting. The lyrics are beautiful and …. grim; they make you shiver a bit, don’t they? Sean Pecknold, brother to Fleet Foxes lead singer Robin Pecknold, directed the video and created the claymation here. I love how he didn’t try to interpret those lyrics literally. I mean, who would really want to see whatever happened to poor Michael?

A side note: That’s one of the things that both annoys me and cracks me up when YouTubers try to make their own videos to famous songs. How freakin’ literal they are. Such slaves to the lyrics. They’ll take a song like, oh, say, Dan Fogelberg’s Run For The Roses and do this:

And it’s a run (someone running)
for the roses (bouquet of roses)
as fast as you can (a can)
Your fate is delivered (mailman with envelope that says “fate”)
your moment’s at hand (uhm … a hand)

Stop it, YouTubers! Stop it now. I do not want to play Charades with you.

Pecknold, thankfully, knows better. Understands how to interpret the emotion, the feeling, the mood, of the song. Here, he visually interprets what the song is doing musically. The tune itself, just the music, is basically a round. Pecknold takes the circular pattern of a musical round and creates a circular video. Life itself, turning back the wheel of time, not being able to control that, life inexorably coming ’round to itself again. The circle. The circle. Ah, it makes me cry. And the emotion in the faces of his little clay characters. They are clay and yet, I feel what they are feeling. I get chills at the 40-second mark. Watch the old man turning the crank of time, how he gets younger, how they all get younger. The eagle setting his prey back on the branch. Time giving a second chance. Then watch, as the old man loses control of the crank of time — that moment! Just the lighting in this video is a little visual miracle. And the man in the red jacket at the end, rediscovering his beard, his face as he strokes it, the turn of his head … ah, there it is again … the implied sigh …. the second chance is gone.

A breathtaking piece.

I’m now somewhat obsessed with the Seattle indie folk band Fleet Foxes. When I’m not listening JCS these days — working on my upcoming post — I’m listening to Fleet Foxes. And first of all, isn’t that a perfect name for a band? It shoots straight to my heart for some reason; it tugs at me, speaks of freedom, almost invisibility: Fleet Foxes. It may seem bizarre, but I just knew I would like them when I first heard that name. (So I’m a weirdo with dreams of being a feral canine. Whatevs. I thought we all knew this.) All the guys in the band seem filthy and smelly and overly bearded and, well, in truth it disturbs me that I find it all rather hot. But it’s not about the hygiene, is it? It’s about the music. You know, they’re sort of magical and weird in their woodsy hirsuteness. The melodies are ethereal and the lyrics — I don’t know — they make you yearn, pine for things, too many things, that you can’t necessarily even place or articulate. Or at least they do for me. Maybe it’s my own Seattle connection. Maybe it brings all that back. The lead singer — and hairiest of the bunch — Robin Pecknold has an odd, wonderful voice. I have a classically trained voice — admittedly out of practice now — but I do so love a quirky voice, a strange timbre, a peculiar pronunciation. I appreciate the “perfect” voice, but I relate more to the imperfect voice and Pecknold has that — the ragged beauty of imperfection. With him, I feel as if he’s just sitting down with his guitar and improvising. That he’s never rehearsed it. That he’s channeling this music right now. There’s that feel of raw spontaneity to him. But, if you listen to the music, it’s actually quite complex and layered. And the harmonies! They’re gorgeous. Oh, how I love a bunch of dudes sitting around harmonizing! Basically, give me a barber shop quartet and I will rip my clothes off.

The song embedded (way below) is called “Ragged Wood.” Another great name. A song about missing a love, longing for her, pleading with her to come home. Oh, it gets me. I have to mention a couple of things before you click play, because it pleases me to do so:

~ Uhm, the very opening of the song. The whhhoa-oh-ohhhh. The minute I heard that, I was hooked. I don’t even know why exactly. And now I want to walk around with Fleet Foxes singing whhhhoa-oh-ohhhh as accompaniment to everything I say and do in life.

I need to go to the store.

Whhhhhoa-oh-ohhhhh

I’m making dinner.

Whhhhoa-oh-ohhhh

I have to pee.

Whhhoa-oh-ohhhh

Let’s have sex.

Whhhoa-oh-ohhhh

See how nice that would be? Alas, with Fleet Foxes currently unavailable to accommodate my wish, I am forced to sing it to myself everywhere I go.

~ The lyric Settle down with me by the fire of my yearning Uhm, yes, please. Sold! Plus, the way he says yearning as yearniuhh. I love you and I’m very sorry for the fire of your yearniuhh. You really should get that checked.

~ You run through the forest, settle before the sun. I love how he says sun like sone. Basically, he has some kind of sexy speech impediment and the siren’s song of his disability is almost too much for me to bear.

~ Darling, I can barely remember you beside me. RIPS my heart out. And any song that uses the word darling — well, I am helpless against its power. I turn to mush. That word isn’t used enough anymore. I’m not talking about darlin’. I mean darling. Say it to me! Call me that! Mean it! Sing it to me in a barber shop quartet and there is just NO TELLING what will happen! I cannot be held responsible.

~ And Johnathinnnn and Evelinnnn get tired. Again, I am basically swooning and I’m not entirely sure why. As Ralph on The Simpsons would say: “I’m bembarrassed for you.”

~ Lie to me if you will at the top of Beringer Hill/ Tell me anything you want, any old lie will do/Call me back to you I can’t even talk about these lyrics. Heartwrenching.

~ Finally, at the 2:30 mark, Vishnu has a 20-second guitar solo. Whatevs, Vish. Do NOT let it dissuade you from continuing.

Here are the lyrics so you can follow along:

Whoa-oh-oh

Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long
The spring is upon us, follow my only song
Settle down with me by the fire of my yearning
You should come back home, back on your own now

The world is alive now, in and outside our home
You run through the forest, settle before the sun
Darling, I can barely remember you beside me
You should come back home, back on your own now

And even in the light, when the woman of the woods came by
To give to you the word of the old man
In the morning tide when the sparrow and the seagull fly
And Johnathan and Evelyn get tired

Lie to me if you will at the top of Beringer Hill
Tell me anything you want, any old lie will do
Call me back to you

Back to you

Basically on continuous play for me right now.

The Jesus Christ Superstar posts that have been banging around in my head for a while.

My obsession with Jesus Christ Superstar, which I’ve mentioned somewhere here before, started years ago when my mom, an English teacher, started teaching a class called “The Bible as Literature,” and somehow managed to work Jesus Christ Superstar into the whole mix. (Hahahaha, mom, you minx.) Because of this, we had — and I think still have, somewhere — an original 1970 concept album of JCS. THE one. The brown one with the seraphim on the cover. The gold standard of JCS, in my opinion. The one that my brother and I, when home alone, would put on the turntable and play AT FULL BLAST, writhing and screaming to it like banshees and then scurry to put away and act completely innocent of its existence the moment we heard parents pulling up in the driveway. We. were NOT. allowed. to listen. to that type of music. But, man, that album! It raced like poison through our naughty blood but never showed on our perfectly posed faces.

Still makes me shiver. That original concept album.

And, you know, that’s how Jesus Christ Superstar started out — just a bunch of singers and musicians in the studio trying to work it out, trying to figure OUT just what the heck Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice had created here. It was different for them. They’d collaborated before, on a shortened version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, if I remember correctly, but JCS was different. Not feel-good tunes, country tunes, Elvis-y tunes, as in Joseph. Nothing catchy in that friendly, non-threatening way Joseph has, but rather, galvanizing, blood-pumping, shocking in an “Oh, no, they di’int” kind of way. And the whole album has that feel. It’s raw; there are mistakes, the occasional wrong note. Things are sometimes … just askew. Nothing feels set or polished, really. I love that. It’s brilliant. Ian Gillan from Deep Purple is Jesus. Murray Head (before his “One Night in Bangkok” hit, remember that?) is Judas. And, I’m telling you, these guys are raw nerves, on the edge of an abyss or something, as if the whole time they’re thinking, “What the hell am I doing? I just gotta get through this song! I just gotta SURVIVE this song!” The whole thing feels like a runaway train to me and that’s what’s so great about it. Seriously. That’s a huge part of its genius, because there’s a sense that at any moment, the whole thing could entirely jump the tracks. You listen to it and you feel that you’re there, at the moment of creation, at the birth of something huge, you are IN on it. That kind of thing just gets me. I love being in on any painful creative birth. Mine. Others’. Anyone’s. That, I’m convinced, has been in my blood since birth. Please: Create! Spew! Cry! Fail! Rally! Wail! Triumph! Do it all again! My heart is pounding at the thought just writing this. To me, there is true beauty in the mess of creation. I love how this album feels you’re listening to the raging howl of those birth pangs.

Genius.

So, first up, a comparison of Judases: Murray Head (1970 concept album) and Carl Anderson (1973 movie).

In the next post ….

Oh, I’m just so sad about this. So sad. Too young to be gone. I wrote about him briefly here. How his soaring music was the soundtrack to a certain phase of my life.

“Scarecrow’s Dream”

Seldom seen
A scarecrow’s dream
I hang in the hopes of replacement
Castles tall
I built them all
But I dream that I’m trapped in
the basement.

And if you ever hear me calling out
And if you’ve been by paupers crowned
Between the worlds of men and make-believe
I can be found.

Plans I’ve made
A masquerade
Fading in fear of the coming day
Heroes’ tales
Like nightingales
Wrestle the wind as they run away.

And if you ever hear them calling out
And if you’ve been by paupers crowned
Between the worlds of men and make-believe
I can be found.

Garden gate
An empty plate
Waiting for someone to come and fill
Scarecrow’s dreams
Like frozen streams
Thirst for the fall
But they’re running still.

And if you ever hear me calling out
And if you’ve been by paupers crowned
Between the worlds of men and make-believe
I can be found.

Farewell, Scarecrow. Thank you for your music.