I’ve been working on learning the song “Three Ways,” by Jakob Dylan/the Wallflowers. I think the song is really about making choices in life, and how one choice effects the next. This song really reflects what I’ve been thinking about my church recently, so I’ve been working on it and hope to sing it at one of our last services of the year.
On that same note, this reminded me that I had a recording of our music service from about a month ago, and my performance of Spirit of Life was in it. I opened up the file and found it. It was not very clear, but I edited it out and uploaded it.
In case you don’t know it, it is hymn 123 from the UU hymnal, “Singing the Living Tradition.” Words and music by Carolyn McDade, and if you can’t hear the words on the recording, they are:
Spirit of Life, come unto me. Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion. Blow in the wind, rise in the sea; move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice. Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.
And here is the recording: Spirit of Life MP3
Even with temperatures today about 10 degrees above average (in the 50s) and the snow melting, the men of the UCMH chorus finally got our chance to sing, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” from Robert Frost/Randall Thompson’s, “Frostiana.” The men consist of me on the top, my buddy Avi in the middle and Bob on bass, and of course Marge on piano. Normally I would just edit this into the UCMH podcast, but I thought I’d call special attention to this here.
(hint – certain people should download this and burn on a CD so mom can listen to it)
After church I took my daughter out for a bike ride. The rail trail was still covered with slushy ice, but we managed to go down part of it, took roads for the rest of the ride. We met our friends and their daughter and had a nice ride finishing up with some home-made hot cocoa.
Recently my friends have been sharing new music with me, and it has reminded me of the music I used to listen to. I used to really like stuff that was harder – rather than the adult-contemporary, light-beer, bubble-gum that my family has me listening to (when we aren’t exposing our kids to classical). I would put John Mayer, Sarah McLachlan in this category – although I really dig all their music, I don’t think I’ve heard anything bad by either of them, just have to be in the right mood.
Scott showed me Three Days Grace, currently my favorite. Got me looking for my Vertical Horizon CD, which I can’t find. Carl (through Brent) got me a little into Killswitch Engage, a little too angry sounding for me though. Also on my current list now are: Blue Man Group – The Complex, Chemical Brothers, Matchbox 20 (bordering on that adult-contemporary edge), Live, Marcy Playground, Evanescense and Moby.
I’ve also started recently to listen to the words (gasp!). I’ve never been very good with lyrics, just listening to the groove of a song. Here’s some Three Days Grace (On My Own – One-X):
Standing on my own
Remembering the one I left at home
Forget about the life I used to know
Forget about the one I left at home
So now I’m standing here alone
I’m learning how to live life on my own
And some Matchbox 20 (Stop – Mad Season):
You’d better stop, stop, stop
Using me up
You’d better stop
Cuz I’ve had enough
And I’m ready to forget the reasons
That keep me here
I’m starting to research some wordpress plugins to list my current playlist and/or my current song. I do most of my listening at work, so this will probably only be updated between 9-5 M-F. Although I just wrote a Perl script to sync my playlist with my iRiver, so I’ll probably start listening outside of work now.
I thought I’d dig up some of my old music. I haven’t written or recorded anything in about 10 years now – but I used to have a lot of fun putting together songs mostly by myself.
This track is my take on Bob Dylan’s, “Knockin On Heaven’s Door.” I recorded this in the back bedroom of my parents apartment in the summer of 1995. Recorded on a 4-track cassette recorder, mastered to cassette and dubbed to PC when I got my first burner (around 1998?). I played all parts, except of course the “sampled” crowd noise and the quote from Woodstock.
Knockin On Heaven’s Door
I’ve got a bunch of other tracks that I recorded, I’ll post them up slowly. You can look forward to such classics as, “Aunt Peggy’s Peanut Butter Balls,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and, “Furry Furry in a Hurry.”
