Tag: Music

George Strait has proven to be the best medicine for the gloom of finals. I can’t say why but there’s really just something about his brand of country music that delivers a great back drop for studying.

It’s kind of like being at home in Oklahoma, but not really.

Anyway, for the musically inclined but academically afflicted, the Pax Plena song of the week delivers the perfect ambiance while cracking the books. For the deep southerners, it might even remind you of a night on the bayou.

In terms of lyrics, I won’t belabor what should rightfully be listened to, but I will quickly add that the lyrics tell a fun if not morose story. It goes to show, one never knows what to expect on a ‘six pack high’ and a full moon.

Direct from George Strait’s top country album in 2006, It Just Comes Natural, please enjoy the Pax Plena Song of the Week, Come on Joe.

Lyrics and goodies follow after the jump.

Come on Joe
by George Strait

Well, it’s a long, hot night
And the stars are shining kinda extra bright
Sitting on the back porch glidin’
Whetting my appetite

Well, I’m a six-pack high
And start missing the light of my baby’s eyes
Wasn’t it beautiful, the kind of a soul they said would never die

Well, it’s muggy in the shack
And the backwoods are black
‘Cause the clouds hid the moon away
The light from my cigarette flickers in the dark
The only way she knows I’m here
Then suddenly the sounds of the fiddles and accordions
Sweetly begin to play and I can almost hear her sweet voice say

Chorus:
Come on Joe, just count to ten
Pull yourself together again
And come on Joe, you gotta get hold of this mood you’re in
Come on Joe, you gotta be strong
You’re still young and life goes on to carry on
‘Til we’re together again

Hey, I know she’s right
But it’s hard to fight when you’re hurtin’ so
I tried to walk out of that door before but I just can’t go
With the tears and the laughter in every rafter in every room
Wasn’t it beautiful
Wasn’t it the kind of happiness and glow

Chorus

Come on Joe
Hey, come on Joe
To carry on ’til we’re together again

Addendum: If you need a bit of hilarity on your Wednesday, check out the country line dance video to the Pax Plena song of the week below. Aside from the first thirty seconds where the instructor stands there awkwardly, it’s really not a bad lesson.

What’s the catch? This “muziek” video is in Dutch so it could be a drop difficult to understand! Country line dancing in Amsterdam? Fair enough. I guess they’re no worse at dancing in Amsterdam than the beginners are back in Dallas.

With the crush of finals looming, blogging may be scarce. But certainly no more so than the Pax Plena Song of the week.

Regardless I see the error of my ways.

This week’s song has made many a hot afternoon in Tucson pass with a hint of western swing. The lyrics tell a classic country tale of loss and unrequited love. Who knew country music could be so Petrarchan? You can almost hear the jukebox playing the tune at your local watering hole or in the radio of a dusty pick-up.

Then again, we would expect nothing less from the reigning king of country music George Strait.

Direct off his 2006 album “It Just Comes Natural”, our song of the week Wrapped is Strait’s 55th #1 hit on the country billboards. Please excuse the video but do enjoy! Lyrics follow after the jump.

Wrapped
by George Strait

I didn’t have to turn my head whenever you walked in
The only one to let these chills roll down my skin
My heart beats faster, I hear your name
I feel my confidence slippin’ away

Chorus:
I thought I was doin’ fine
‘Bout to get you off my mind
I see your face and then I’m
Wrapped around your pretty little finger again

It feels like ages since you laid down in my arms
I see no good reason but still I’m tangled in your charms
My God, you’re smilin’ and you catch my eye
My heart is pounding deep inside

Chorus

Ain’t gonna let no man go down without a fight
‘Cause my stalls and walls look better in the bright day light
My heart beats faster, I call your name
I feel my confidence slippin’ away

Chorus

Your pretty little finger
Baby, I’m wrapped around your pretty little finger
Pretty little finger

The Pax Plena song of the comes to you, admittedly, a bit late. I blame it on the irregularity of selecting songs from my iTunes library. While the process yields variety, it takes a while before one song strikes me with an unexpected trip down memory lane. Only those eliciting such reactions make the cut.

Nevertheless, a few weeks ago we featured Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning and billed it as a gospel hymn to romance. If Sinatra is the gold standard of his milieu, then Brad Paisley’s I Wish You’d Stay is its country equivalent.

Released in 2001 on Paisley’s second country album, I Wish You’d Stay tells the story of romance gone wrong. It speaks artfully to the complex emotions that seem to go hand in hand with unrequited love.

What makes it a powerful piece despite its traditional country pastiche is the universality of emotion conveyed in the lyrics. Simply put, we’ve all been there before. Love slips away. Nights grow cold. We want a mulligan. But it is not to be. The vividness of feeling is captured by Paisley’s singing style and aptly demonstrates this complexity through verse. And in so doing, Paisley creates a song that all but says what we would like to say, if only we could find the strength.

Naturally, the song has some special meaning to yours truly. Specific references are made to Sallisaw, Oklahoma for the faithful reading back home. References also abound to Tennessee- a state not without some faint impression in my lost annals of mind. But the application could well be made by anyone who has ever loved and lost.

So, to those burning the midnight oils, traveling the information superhighway, and to those lost in wistful memories of what might have been, please enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, I Wish You’d Stay.

The song appears below courtesy of Songza.com for your immediate listening gratification. For those interested, the video lacked an embedding function (blast you BMG Records), but it can be seen here.

http://songza.com/e/listen

I Wish You’d Stay

I talked to my sister in Memphis
And I told her you were movin’ to town
Here’s her number
She said she’d be glad to show you around
I left a map on your front seat
Just in case you lose your way
But don’t worry, once you reach Sallisaw
It’s all interstate

I know you need to go
But before you do I want you to know, that I

Wish you the best
And I wish you nothing less
Than every thing you’ve ever dreamed of
And I hope that you find love along the way
But most of all
I wish you’d stay

I figure right about sundown
You’ll be in West Tennessee
And by then
Maybe I’ll understand why you had to leave

I know that you’ve done some changin’
And I know there’s no changin’ your mind
And yes I know
We’ve been through this a thousand times

I’m sorry for still holdin’ on
I’ll try to let go and I’ll try to be strong, and I’ll

Wish you the best
And I wish you nothing less
Than every thing you’ve ever dreamed of
And I hope that you find love along the way
But most of all
I wish you’d stay

Yeah, everything you’ve ever dreamed of
And I hope that you’ll find love along the way
But most of all
I wish you’d stay
I wish you’d stay

Having been up the better part of the past 24 hours this Pax Plena song of the week seems only appropriate. Last week we featured southern gospel. This week a gospel of romance. If that were so, Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning would easily be among the hymns. Nary has there been a time when such simple lyrics were so profound.

Sinatra has long been considered the gold standard of the crooner era. But what makes this recording especially unique is that it was recorded in just three days during a lengthy session in March of 1954. It would go on to become Ol’ Blue Eyes first full 12-inch LP, and the first concept album ever released. The album itself consisted primarily of ballads; it’s theme according to wikipedia “organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love.”

There’s really no describing what ought to be listened to so I will simply add that the song is absolutely as billed above. For those who have loved and lost, for those who have embraced the early hours of twilight, for those who have merely wondered from afar, this song is for you. Please enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, Sinatra’s own In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

In the wee small hours of the morning,
While the whole wide world is fast asleep,
You lie awake and think about the girl,
And never ever think of counting sheep.

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson,
You’d be hers if only she would call.
In the wee small hours of the morning,
Thats the time you miss her most of all.

My favorite guilty pleasure in posting the Pax Plena Song of the Week segment is the quiet aside I get to spend traipsing among memories past, listening to the songs I select.

For many who grew up and attended church in the south, I suspect this song of the week will surely bring an abundance of memories all their own. Written during the golden age of itinerant preaching, Ira F. Stanphill’s 1950 hymn I Know Who Holds Tomorrow melds the delicate lyrics of contemplation with a soft melody that grows in strength and truth.

The legend behind the hymn according to a religious blog is that Stanphill wrote I Know Who Holds Tomorrow during the dissolution of his marriage. According to acquaintances, Stanphill’s wife grew tired of his ministry during its zenith and left him to pursue a career of her own in entertainment. Sadly, she was killed in a car crash sometime thereafter. The lyrics aptly convey the emotions of listlessness and doubt Ira Stanphill encountered while going through such a difficult period in life.

What makes the song especially meaningful to yours truly is that it so accurately reflects the present nature of life’s spatial plane. For the recovering poets among us, Stanphill’s song may bring to mind of Yeats’ reflections on autumn:

“Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us with a kiss and a tear on they drooping brow.”

If Yeats reminds us that seasons of passion and love are perennially moving targets, then Stanphill simply extends the metaphor a bit further to say that all of life is a moving target; and the only certainty we have is vested in the One Who Holds Tomorrow.

The conclusion, then, for twenty-somethings, is that the most steadfast, bedrock, take-it-to-the-bank promise of life is uncertainty. Or to put it more abstractly, uncertainty is our only certitude. And it is exactly this certitude that is so beautifully captured in song by Stanphill. The lesson of I Know Who Holds Tomorrow is that even inasmuch as we try to figure it all out, we cannot know which course is the best in life until hindsight blinds us by the force of its illumination. The song simply communicates that this is as it should be, for all of life is trial and error.

Given my present circumstance, the reality of uncertainty as embodied in the Stanphill song is intriguing. So often, I try to micro-manage my life even down to the quarter-hour. But the reality is that I’m not guaranteed the next second much less the next 15 minutes, half-hour, or day – much less tomorrow. This is not to say that the particular message of the song is that we are without choice. Even while we may feel subject to the fates, we are in control of the choices we make between hither and yon. Indeed, it is somewhat reassuring in the song that we have been in control all along. What the song does is reassure us that this moment is not all there is, even though it is all we have been given.

The broader point of the song, then, is that we can never know what tomorrow holds for our lives unfold in a series of moments. And the Giver of Moments stands by, holds our hand, and tells us, ‘this uncertainty is, ok.’

With this in mind, please enjoy the robust baritone of Gospel Music Hall of fame legend George Younce as he sings Ira Stanphill’s I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.

I Know Who Holds Tomorrow
By Ira F. Stanphill

I don’t know about tomorrow;
I just live from day to day.
I don’t borrow from its sunshine
For its skies may turn to grey.

I don’t worry o’er the future,
For I know what Jesus said.
And today I’ll walk beside Him,
For He knows what is ahead.

Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

Every step is getting brighter
As the golden stairs I climb;
Every burden’s getting lighter,
Every cloud is silver-lined.

There the sun is always shining,
There no tear will dim the eye;
At the ending of the rainbow
Where the mountains touch the sky.

Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

I don’t know about tomorrow;
It may bring me poverty.
But the one who feeds the sparrow,
Is the one who stands by me.

And the path that is my portion
May be through the flame or flood;
But His presence goes before me
And I’m covered with His blood.

Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand…