With this new format on this site, I’m experimenting more with Featured Images and such to make the front page a bit easier to follow…but anyway, I don’t have a lot of time because we’re off in a few minutes to go see a REALLY BIG TRAIN. So in keeping with that, here is my favorite train song of all time. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
As I continue working through this site’s new look and functionality on the back end, I suppose it’s time to figure out how posting music looks and works here. I haven’t listened to this in quite a while, but it’s always a delight to come back to: the ballet “Dance of the Hours” from Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda. The opera is one that to this day I’ve never heard, but it’s still a mainstay on the international repertoire, even though full stagings are infrequent because the opera’s complexity and scale makes it expensive to do. Ponchielli is almost entirely knownDown the rabbit hole….
Jessie Montgomery’s atmospheric and cyclical work “Rounds” is up this week. The piece, for piano and strings, takes inspiration from poet TS Eliot: Rounds for solo piano and string orchestra is inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets. Early in the first poem, Burnt Norton, we find these evocative lines : At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,Neither ascent nor decline.Down the rabbit hole….
One of my favorite James Bond theme songs is Gladys Knight’s title tune for 1989’s Licence to Kill. Both the film and the song tend to be underrated, but I think both are fantastic. The Licence to Kill song starts with the same horn riff that opened the song to Goldfinger, an homage which necessitated royalty payments to that song’s creators. But Gladys Knight’s singing is the real star of the show here. She has one of those big voices that can fill whichever room she’s in, and fill it here she does. This is one of the best of all Bond songs.Down the rabbit hole….
Here’s something fascinating: an entire album comprising a ballet written by a prominent rapper! RZA is the leader of Wu-Tang Clan, a hip-hop collective that has been around for over thirty years now. That is, I admit openly, the extent of my knowledge of RZA. Hip-hop has never been a musical genre to which I have paid much attention, though not out of dislike in any way. I’ve found, pretty consistently, that when I am exposed to hip-hop in any extended way, I find myself intrigued by it and respecting it. So why haven’t I explored it? Well…time, mainly. IDown the rabbit hole….
“Uhhh…Kelly? What is wrong with you today?” Why, nothing! This will explain everything. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
An incredibly hectic week is going on! The Wife had carpal tunnel surgery the other day, so I have to pick up the slack and actually do stuff around the house. Do you believe this crap? The horror!!! Also, at work I’m in the long-delayed, long-planned process of moving my work area from one part of The Store to another. This will be lovely when I’m done, but right now I’m in the “All my crap is where it’s going so now I have to move around piles of my crap while I try to organize it and put it where itDown the rabbit hole….
Does this amazing song need an introduction? No, not really. I find myself increasingly amazed by the lyrical approach to a lot of the great songs that I’ve never really paid close attention to before. The singer here isn’t the one taking the “Midnight Train to Georgia”…well, she is, actually, but she’s not the one whose turns of life have made taking that train necessary. It’s her man who went to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, dreams that didn’t pan out, and now he has to return home. He can’t even drive himself, having pawned everything–he “pawned his dreams andDown the rabbit hole….
I hope that worked, I’m always a bit nervous about embedding video playlists. Anyway: Carlos Simon is a composer who originally hails from Atlanta, GA. He completed doctoral work at the University of Michigan and has since enjoyed a varied career of composition and performance; according to his bio he is currently on the faculty at Georgetown University, and he served recently as Composer-in-Residence at what was the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I don’t know what Dr. Simon’s current status is regarding that, since the Kennedy Center has been one of many Grounds Zero for ourDown the rabbit hole….
I’m going to get back to my little series featuring Black Music From The 1970s soon, but this song has been living rent-free in my head of late, so that means it’s time to feature it here. It’s by Canadian singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr., and it was featured in the final episode of the first season of the amazing show Shoresy. The song seems to me to be about two people who are accepting of their own limitations and each others, and they love each other anyway. I love the delicate piano-and-voice minimalism of the song. Enjoy! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….