Some favorite song quotes

She moved so easily all I could think of was sunlight.
- Paul Simon, "I Know What I Know," Graceland

She looks so lovely when she smiles out loud
- Peter Breinholt, "Say Your Name, Dear Jane," Live September

The fire in your eyes, may it never go out.
The sweetness of your tears make it feel like night.
- Oingo Boingo (Danny Elfman), "Not My Slave," Boi-ngo

Along come a young girl, she was pretty as a prayer book
Sweet as an apple on Christmas Day
I said "Good gracious! Can this be my luck?
If that's my prayer book, Lord let us pray."
- Paul Simon, "That Was Your Mother," Graceland

Let Peace Then Still the Strife

Not too long ago, I purchased a recording of Mack Wilberg's Requiem and Other Choral Works. It contains a piece entitled, "Let Peace Then Still the Strife." Recently, my Grandfather passed away. Music has affected me very deeply in my life and the combination of the text and the music struck a chord, as it were.

However, I tend to think in terms of how music might affect others, and I think of his widow after 47 years of marriage, and how she might take heart from the piece. She sang in choirs until her vision was impaired by a degenerative eye disease. Now 91, she still encourages me to continue singing, ya, ya (she is from Germany). She is not my natural Grandmother, but as a family we've adopted her as one of our own.

David Warner wrote these words that were set to music by Mack Wilberg:

Let peace then still the strife,
The loneliness and grief,
Come heal the piercing silence of passing.
And sweet familiar strains,
The voices lost in death,
Arise in songs of hope everlasting.
Then let the voices roll
As waves upon the sea;
Come forth and break upon us, refreshing.

And barren coves be filled,
O'erflow with reverie!
Let mem'ry salve as Gilead's caressing.
And though the balm be spread,
Let tender rifts remain
That breaking hearts not yield to forgetting.
For hearts rent wide at death,
Unfolded to our dead,
Hear singing from beyond sunlight's setting.

Then sing, beloved ones,
Reach o'er the summer sea.
Pour forth thy boundless love for us living!
Sweep into ev'ry soul,
Make music of our tears,
Turn all our songs to joy and thanksgiving!
And when we silent pass,
From far across the sea
Let praises ring for life's wond'rous blessing.

Then sing ye living souls!
Sing generations past,
Swell high the tide of life, us refreshing!
Sing forth as with one voice,
Bear silent grief away,
Resound with peace and hope everlasting!
And all who wait and sing
Sing on from earth and heav'n
And make our crossing forth joyful passing!
Amen!

Don Giovanni versus Speed Racer

On Friday night I went with a friend to see the movie Speed Racer. On Saturday night, I went with a friend to see Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. What really struck me as odd is how similar they are . . . from a certain point of view.

As soon as I heard that the Wachowski brothers were going to do a movie adaptation of the cartoon Speed Racer, I was intrigued. The trailers showed a brilliantly colorful world with creative cinematography. I was excited to see what they had done with it. Then, the week leading up to the opening, I started reading reviews for it. The general tenor of the reviews was that the movie, while innovative, artistic, and colorful seemed light on the plot and almost too much of that prismatic racing world. They also said that the film was much too long at 2 hours 15 minutes.

Fast forward to Don Giovanni. I didn't know much about the story until I read the synopsis. The music was brilliant; the costumes were amazing; and the singing was extraordinary. The story was . . . simple. Don Giovanni was embroiled in the consequences of his relentless womanizing and it finally caught up with him. The drama played out in song was playful and amusing. However, the opera, even without the intermission, was 3 hours long. It didn't help that I was continually concentrating to understand the Italian being sung, but in my opinion 3 hours is quite long for the amount of story being told.

I think the parallels are obvious - a longer than expected running time, a light plot, but a beautiful presentation.

It was just fascinating to me to see how expectation can have an effect on the experience. It reminds me of the times that I've drunk 7-Up expecting water or vice versa - with misaligned expectations, the whole experience can be unpleasant. If, for example, reviewers expected Speed Racer to be a simply written wildly artistic rendition of the old television show, maybe the reviews would have read differently. If I had expected Don Giovanni to have a story line as complex as The Matrix or The Bourne Identity, then I may have been disappointed.

In any case, comparing Don Giovanni to Speed Racer was just too funny a thing to pass up :-).