Tag: Song of the Week

It’s already Friday, and our Song of the Week feature is nigh on life support just under two weeks after its resurrection. In correcting course, it seems appropriate to run a series of Christmas songs to get back on track, and to get our readers into the Holiday mood.

The Christmas carol The Holly and the Ivy has been around almost as long as Christmas itself. Originating from the early, Druid songs and ceremonies of the British Isles, The Holly and the Ivy became a mainstay of Christmas hymnody during the 1400 and 1500s. 

The music is fairly simple as one might expect Druid music to be, but it commends a delicate grace toward the Christmas season. In its best form, as in the Bing Crosby version below, the music is light and festive. It’s not hard to envision carolers singing the song in a London pub, slogging back pints around the corner piano.

The lyrics, by contrast, are fairly austere. They invoke nearly every icon of the Christmas season, from the purity of Marry in Bethlehem to the blood of Christ at Calvary.

But the mix works. While it’s true that the Christian faith is sometimes called cheerless, and even dreary by some, the overarching theme of the music and of Christmas itself is one of great joy – all made possible by Jesus’s birth.

With that bit of introduction, please enjoy these initial sounds of the season brought to you courtesy of the Pax Plena Song of the Week, The Holly and the Ivy. The Bing Crosby version begins at the 2:09 mark, while Cambridge University’s King’s College Choir performs the song in full below.

King’s College

The Holly and the Ivy

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown

Chorus:
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Saviour

Chorus

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good

Chorus

The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.

Chorus

The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.

Chorus

Of late, I have seldom been inclined to publish a ‘Christian’ song of the week. For whatever reason, the embers of faith have not necessarily been burning bright, and to be perfectly honest, I’ve found my time more valuably spent watching my abysmal Dallas Cowboys than sitting through a weekly church service.

But on this Thanksgiving Day, I cannot help but slip into old habits, and reflect a bit upon the things for which I am thankful this past year. Though we spend the holiday here in Indiana, a veritable world away from our place in Tucson and my home on Oklahoma’s plains, the essence of my thankfulness this past year is largely tied to a profound appreciation for my family – both the small one in Tucson with my loving wife Gwyn, our dog Alexas, and our fish Maestro, and our bigger ones here and in Oklahoma. Rather than posting the lone Shaker hymn on ‘thanks’ in the hymnal, I thought the song below by contemporary Christian musician Andrew Peterson was much more on point.

The Pax Plena Song of the Week is called Dancing in the Minefield, and as noted features the superb vocals of Andrew Peterson. I ran across Andrew Peteron’s music several months ago from the blog DonMillerIs.com. While I was already a fan of Donald Miller, over time I have come to appreciate his penchant for picking a good tune. When he recommended Andrew Peterson, I immediately consulted YouTube and was not disappointed. What struck me most by Andrew Peterson’s music was its honesty, and style. Musically, the song is both minimalist and acoustic, à la The Fray circa 2005. But what The Fray lacks in ability, Peterson compensates for in spades.

To wit, Peterson’s voice is as clear as the guitar he strums, and he doesn’t have nearly the same teen angst that artistically limits The Fray’s appeal. In a word, the music is substantive. Peterson’s acoustic guitar deftly unpacks a lifetime of reflection, while the sparse keyboard supplements Peterson’s vocals as well as a back up singer might do in a larger arrangement. Unlike many a sad song, Dancing in the Minefields is mostly upbeat. By my reckoning, the song’s most popular chord is the “C” chord, which keeps the sound optimistic and thankful rather than sullen and brooding. 

And it is exactly this sort of upbeat sound that is necessary to balance the serious themes being discussed in the lyrics. Dancing in Minefields tells the story of a lifetime spent together, breaking down marriage, its joys, and its complications. Unlike much of the cloying glamorization of love coming out of the Christian music industry, Peterson approaches the institution honestly. He analyzes the difficulty of marriage, specifically, rather than romanticizing it to meet a particular, Christian stereo-type of happiness. The singer opens by reflecting upon the mistake of marrying  too early, and contrasting that decision with the magnitude of committing one’s life to another. The poetic, eponymous conclusion is that marriage is like dancing in a minefield – which in many respects it is.

But the singer’s conclusion is far from fatalistic. The point seems to be that faith in the commitment, and faith in the mutual sacrifice of a marriage is what makes it worthwhile. In other words, the song challenges the proverbial us to get out of our own neuroses, and experience life by living for others.

And really this is the point of Thanksgiving: that we have individuals in our lives whom we can serve in quiet ways – perhaps in ways that only we can understand. Such simplicities make dancing in the minefields a joy, and give our otherwise troubled existence meaning. And for this, we can all give thanks.

Please enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, Andrew Peterson’s Dancing in the Minefields.

The Pax Plena song of the week has long been a favorite of yours truly. Harkening from the cold nights of my formative years, Michael Bublé’s Kissing a Fool impacted the way I listened to music in a very fundamental way. Perhaps more than any other song, Bublé’s Kissing a Fool taught me the importance of not only hearing music but feeling it. (So much so that I wrote a similar review of the song back in 2007. Though I am not normally one to repeat material, what I wrote then really did not do justice to the music of the song, and the way I perceive it now. Funny how time has a way of providing perspective.)

Like any good song, Kissing a Fool tells a compelling story. The song recounts the plight of a love-struck bard, reeling from the loss of his one and only. The singer’s reflections on the relationship-gone-bad are a mixture of sadness and marvel at what might have been, and the strength required to throw it all away. Naturally, the music melds seamlessly. Written by George Michael in 1988, this should come as little surprise. In addition to his penchant for cannabis, George Michael, in his prime, wielded an uncanny musical range, and still enjoys a legendary music career – one that somehow survived the train-wreck that was Wham!, leading to much more impressive works like Kissing a Fool.

The song’s music has been described as minimalist in nature, which really places the entire burden of the performance on the vocalist. Like its author, the feel of the song is at times brooding and at times soaring, which underscores the impressive vocal range necessary to perform the song well. In the Michael Bublé version, this broad range flows without effort and without interruption. When the song begins, a smooth jazz piano line, and the soft touch of the cymbal usher in the performance. But there is only a moment to enjoy the neo-jazz sound as listeners are immediately carried away into the relationship’s sad demise by Bublé’s voice .

Midway through, the thoughts of the vocalist become more pronounced, and as the song gains strength. A slight brass accompaniment drives home the power of the singer’s thoughts of futility and betrayal. But no sooner does the crooner sound bitter, than the music returns to the sober introspection that first introduced the song to listeners. As in life, the emotions seem mixed. Not long after the song hits an eerie quiet, it erupts with sound as the singer thinks about the couple’s lost future. At its zenith, the entire brass band joins with the percussion and the piano as the singer fathoms the thought of his love with ‘another man.’

Naturally, the singer is not one to deny reality. The remainder of the song is a quiet reflection marked most poignantly by the jazz piano. In a way, this only underscores how truly far away the lost love is. As the keyboard trails off, so too does the singer who is left only to conclude that his love was, indeed, kissing a fool all this time.

What gives the song its staying power – few songs that are twenty-plus years old are as popular – is its ability to tap into the raw emotions performed. Nearly everyone has loved and lost. Kissing a Fool taps into that small pain and sets that feeling to music in such a way that it transcends the particular circumstance of one’s life. Whether one is still searching for love, enjoying Mr. / Ms. Right Now, or enjoying the love to last a lifetime, most people can relate to the thoughts expressed by George Michael’s timeless work.

With that, please enjoy the Pax Plena Song of the Week, Kissing a Fool as performed by Michael Bublé. Lyrics follow after the jump.

I’ve never been to Rome. But after listening to Dean Martin’s On An Evening in Roma I sometimes feel as if I have. 

When the Pax Plena Song of the Week, On An Evening in Roma, was released in 1959, Fidel Castro had just assumed power in Cuba, the Barbie Doll made its debut, and the Dali Lama made his initial flee from Tibet. Though the world was surely going through trying times, Dean Martin’s easy singing style helped the world forget. By the time On An Evening in Roma was released, Martin had already been on the American music scene for more than ten years. In that span, he released the much heralded That’s Amore, and the eventual No. 1 hit Memories Are Made of This.

By contrast, On An Evening in Roma never even cracked the top 50 songs on the American charts and fared even worse over seas.

But what makes the song a classic is its singer. Martin, perhaps more than any crooner of his era, masterfully uses his voice to tell a story. The music proceeds languidly, as  the faux Italian sound dictates that it should, while listeners detect a hint of mischief as Dino describes the couples of Rome wandering off. But above all, it is Martin’s warbling voice, explaining the mysterious, arbitrary role of the espresso in the grander scheme of love that makes the song ‘perfetto’. 

The song has seen a bit of a resurgence of late, appearing on soundtracks in a number of movies, some related to Rome, and others not. I suspect this is attributable to both Martin and the song’s lyrics. What Dean Martin does that other versions of the song do not is use his low-tenor voice to playfully describe the scene listeners hear – from Rome’s street lamps, to its starry skies. Dino flat makes Rome come alive.  And everyone loves a good love story, right?

In some ways, there is only so much that the written word will do to describe the ability of Dean Martin. Without further delay, please enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, On An Evening Roma, as performed by the legendary Dean Martin. 

On An Evening In Roma Lyrics

by Dean Martin

Como e’ bella ce’ la luna brille e’ strette
strette como e’ tutta bella a passeggiare
Sotto il cielo di Roma

Down each avenue or via, street or strata
You can see ’em disappearing two by two
On an evening in Roma

Do they take ’em for espresso
Yeah, I guess so
On each lover’s arm a girl I wish I knew
On an evning in Roma

Though there’s grining and mandolining in sunny Italy
The beginning has just begun when the sun goes down

So please meet me in the plaza near your casa
I am only one and one is much too few
On an evening in Roma

Don’t know what the country’s coming to
But in Rome do as the Romans do
Will you on an evening in Roma

Como e’ bella ce’ la luna brille e’ strette
strette como e’ tutta bella a passeggiare
Sotto il cielo di Roma

Don’t know what the country’s coming to
But in Rome do as the Romans do
Will you on an evening in Roma

Sott’er celo de Roma
On an evening in Roma

The Pax Plena Song of the Week made its way across my radar late this spring while watching a disturbingly funny movie called (500) Days of Summer. In fact, readers may recall a separate clip that we featured, which remains one of the funniest movie lines of the year.

The song of the week enters the film after the chronically depressed character Tom Hansen (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finally scores with love interest Summer Finn (played by Zooey Deschanel). Upon exiting her apartment, a dance sequence ensues featuring You Make My Dreams.

There really isn’t much more to the song than this, but it has been a welcomed addition to my ‘happy songs’ playlist – a particularly useful list given that I have been studying for the bar exam all summer.

And it’s hard not to smile while watching the scene from the film. It makes me wonder what life would be like if dance sequences randomly occurred while walking through a city park. One can dream, I suppose…

With that, please enjoy, the Pax Plena song of the week, Hall and Oates’ You Make My Dreams. The film clip featuring the song appears directly below, followed by the song in full, and lyrics.

And just for the record, the movie itself is quite the film as well. It will doubtless hit close to home for anyone who has loved, or loved and lost. Enjoy!

The actual performance of the song by Hall and Oates:

You Make My Dreams

by Hall and Oates

What I want, you’ve got
And it might be hard to handle
But like the flame that burns the candle
The candle feeds the flame
What I’ve got’s full stock of thoughts
and dreams that scatter
You pull them all together
And how, I can’t explain
But You make my dreams come true
On a night when bad dreams become a screamer
When they’re messin’ with the dreamer
I can laugh it in the face
Twist and shout my way out
And wrape yourself around me
‘Cause I ain’t the way that you found me
I’ll never be the same
‘Cause You make my dreams come true
I’m down on the daydream
That sleepwalk should be over by now
I know that You make my dreams come true”