When I was attending college in Boulder, a friend of mine – a 21-year old reminiscing about her childhood long before in Colorado Springs – told me that when you look out at the scenery in Boulder you see the mountains; but when you look out in Colorado Springs you see the MOUNTAIN. And if you climb the MOUNTAIN and look back, you see America the Beautiful – which just happens to be the second song in our Colorado Songs series,.
THE MOUNTAIN – Pikes Peak as seen from Colorado Springs
The MOUNTAIN, of course, is Pikes Peak, which rises to 14,115 feet above sea level. Although it is only the 30th highest mountain in Colorado, it is more than 8,000 feet higher than Colorado Springs, which lies only 12 miles away. It is higher than any point in the United States that lies East of its longitude, so it is an imposing and impressive sight.
Nevertheless, it is not difficult to get to its summit. There is a steep, but fairly easy hiking trail; a paved auto road runs to the top; and there is a cog railroad. It was a little more difficult back on July 22, 1893, when Katherine Lee Bates, an English professor from Wellesley College who spent several weeks one summer teaching at Colorado College, went to the top. She described her ascent as follows:
One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pike’s Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.
While on the mountain, she began a poem in her notebook, writing, “O beautiful for halcyon skies . . .” That is probably not exactly the way you remember the words, but they have changed a bit over the years. Continue reading →
From time to time, I have commented in these pages on songs that pertain to Colorado – songs like “Get Out of Denver” and “Colorado Christmas” and “On the Natural.” As you know, there are hundreds of songs written and recorded about our state, and seemingly hundreds of people have compiled lists of the best or worst of those songs. I have decided to join them, and spend the next several weeks looking at what I consider some of the quintessential Colorado Songs. This post is the first installment, and I will begin with “Colorado Trail.”
Some of you may know the Colorado Trail as a 486 mile long hiking trail extending from Denver to Durango, at average elevation of over 10,000 feet; but that wasn’t completed
Major cattle trails
until 1987, and this song is much older. It seems that the trail referred to in the song was a spur of the Great Western Trail that ran from near San Antonio, Texas to Ogallala, Nebraska, and which ran roughly parallel to the more famous Chisolm Trail. The Colorado Trail was not well known or much used, but it extended all the way to Montana. All of these trails were used to move cattle to towns located on major rail lines, and all fell into disuse as railroads expanded their service into cattle country. The Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad (C.B.&Q.R.R.) essentially followed the Colorado Trail as it brought rail service to Greeley and Northeastern Colorado in 1887.
An interesting thing about this song is that its composers are usually listed as Carl Sandburg and Lee Hays. Today, we think of Carl Sandburg as the biographer of Abraham Lincoln and the poet who gave us “Chicago” as the “hog butcher for the world.” However, long before he ever published any book, Sandburg was a traveling salesman and political organizer who traveled across much of the country. Somewhere around 1910, he acquired a guitar and found that he could attract larger crowds by singing folk songs in addition to reciting poetry and plying his wares. Continue reading →
Have you guys out in cyberspace heard of this guy Donald Trump? If you haven’t, please count your blessings and continue your idyllic life. If you have heard of him, you might have heard that he came to Colorado last Friday (July 29th) and gave speeches in Colorado Springs and Denver.
Since I am in Colorado, I happened to hear about three minutes of what I think was the Colorado Springs speech. It was certainly an eventful three minutes. First, he said the Colorado Springs Fire Department “doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing” because the Fire Marshal had indicated that he would enforce the Fire Code during Trump’s event. Apparently, they don’t have fire codes where he comes from. The comment was even more mean-spirited than it sounds, however, because only a few minutes earlier that same fire department had rescued him form a stuck elevator at a local resort.1
Then, he said he was no longer going to be “Mr. Nice Guy” and that he was ready to “take off the gloves.” I am not sure, but apparently he wanted to make sure the material would not muffle his words when he cupped them around his mouth to yell bad names at Hillary Clinton across his imaginary playground. Oh well, it probably doesn’t require much effort to remove the gloves from those little hands of his.
He mentioned that he had just finished an interview “with the local paper – you know the one I mean.” Clearly, he could not remember the name of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Colorado Springs Gazette just minutes after he had spoken with its editors.
Next, he mentioned that retired USMC 4-star general John Allen was a “bad” and “failed general” because he would not support Trump. Now, I have previously said that I do not condemn Trump as a evil draft dodger for his efforts to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War. However, we must realize, and he should know, that he has no basis on which to judge a person like Gen. Allen who did choose to spend his career and risk his life in service to our country. Donnie, if you read this, I dare you to step away from your podium and say those things to John Allen’s face, or to anyone who has served under him.
Following that, he criticized two American Muslims, Khzir and Ghazala Khan, whose son, an Army captain and recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was killed while serving in Iraq – first, because they did not support him; and also because Ghazala, who was unable to speak through her tears, simply stood beside her husband who spoke critically of Trump. That action signaled to me that Donald Trump is as ethically and morally bankrupt as the businesses he has run into the ground and walked away from, leaving his creditors, suppliers and subcontractors to suffer the losses.
Finally, he said that Colorado is such an important state in this election that he will be back many times. “You are going to be sick of seeing me,” he said. I am not going to stand silently by in face of threats like that. I stopped watching after hearing that remark and decide to write this to let Deceitful Donnie know that we are already sick of seeing him. And I speak on behalf of every rational person in the state. It is not merely coincidental that Bob Seger’s song, “Get Out of Denver” has kept turning up since Friday.
“Get Out of Denver” was the opening track of Seger’s 1974 album, Seven. That was the first album he released with his Silver Bullet Band. It had only limited commercial success, never even breaking into the top 200 albums on Billboard’s rankings, but it was well crafted and exuded the energy that the public seemed to appreciate much more on his Night Moves and Live Bullet LPs that came out two years later, in 1976. “Get Out of Denver” was also included on Live Bullet.
I have not been able to find much information about this song, but I came across an old interview with Bob Seger that indicated it might more accurately be called “Get Out of Aspen.” It seems that his band had been playing a club in Aspen that had a large cover charge and a two drink minimum. Because of the cost to see a band that was only moderately popular at the time, the crowd was reduced to a couple of dozen people for the last few nights. Seger was dissatisfied by the whole experience so he wrote this song – but he thought “Denver” sounded better than “Aspen” in the lyrics. Of course, nothing in the lyrics matches that story, but I guess the sense of dissatisfaction is there.
He has also said that the song was written in about 15 minutes while his band was opening a series of shows for Bachman Turner Overdrive and was trying to come up with “powerhouse tunes the crowd would remember.” He said the lyrics didn’t mean that much and he often changed them as he used this song to close his sets.
I like the Aspen story better. I guess because I did attend a show at a club in
Aspen back in the 1970s. I saw the New Riders of the Purple Sage at a place that was overpriced, overcrowded, and filled with some of the rudest fans I have ever seen. I decided never to go back for another show as I “got out of Aspen.”
This has been sort of rambling, and I really don’t like spending too much time dealing with politics, so let me just quit now, and say: Deceitful Donnie Trump, this one is dedicated to you and your kind:
July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are the first humans to set foot on the the Moon. This occurred during NASA’s Apollo 11 expedition, and I have previously written a little bit about that.
July 20, 1976: NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft makes first soft landing on Mars.
July 20, 1969 (again): Singer-songwriter Tom Rapp composes the song, “Rocket Man.”
July 20, 2016: “Rocket Man” chosen as Song of the Week.
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Most people are familiar with Elton John’s song, “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be a Long, Long Time).” That is not the song featured here. This one came first, and apparently influenced the more famous hit by Elton John. Bernie Taupin, John’s lyricist and co-writer, once responded to the suggestion, by an interviewer for Billboard magazine, that his “Rocket Man” was influenced by David Bowie’s “Space Odditiy” by saying: “We didn’t steal that one from Bowie. We stole it from another guy, called Tom Rapp.”
So, who is this guy called Tom Rapp. If they have heard of him at all, a few people may recall that he was the moving force behind the late-1960s/early 1970’s avant garde psychedelic folk rock band, Pearls Before Swine. And most remember that band only because its album covers featured allegorical paintings by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Pearls Before Swine was formed in Florida in 1965 by Tom Rapp and two of his high school buddies. Tom had been interested in music since he was given his first guitar at the age of six. His desire to write songs and perform was kindled when he first heard Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
That may not have been the first time that Dylan had crossed his path. When Tom was eight years old and living in Minnesota, he had entered a talent contest in Rochester, MN, in which he played a ukelele and finished in third place. The program listed another contestant who was a couple of years older – a boy named Bobby Zimmerman from Hibbing, who came in fifth. The contest was won by a little girl in a sequined suit who twirled a baton.
Pearls Before Swine made some interesting music, but never became popular enough to generate even a cult following. One of the reasons may have been the name. It seemed a bit smug to insinuate that the band’s musical pearls were being offered to the swine comprising the audience. That type of smugness was reinforced by songs like “Miss Morse” on their first album in which an obscenity was repeatedly spelled out in Morse code, implicitly saying, “see how clever we are.”1.
The original band stayed for the first three albums, after which Rapp’s high school friends sought real jobs. The later albums were the work of Rapp, his first wife and studio musicians. The fourth album, which was the first that was basically a Tom Rapp solo, was called The Use of Ashes and released in 1970. The album title was taken from one of his songs called “The Jeweler,” which tells of a man who knew the “use of ashes” as he worked into the night using them to polish old coins. Although that song was not too popular at the time, it became a minor hit for the group The Mortal Coil some 20 years later.
The Use of Ashes also included “Rocket Man,” which Rapp was inspired to write after watching the first moon landing. The song is based on a 1951 short story by Ray Bradbury, entitled “The Rocket Man.” That story, like this song, is written from the point of view of a young boy whose astronaut father is killed by a solar flare. Since it was the Sun which took the father’s life, the boy and his mother decide never to look upon the Sun again. A good summary of the story can be read on thebestnotes.com.2.
By 1973, Tom Rapp had released three more albums as Pearls Before Swine and two (including a collection of demos, Familiar Songs, released by the record company without his approval or knowledge, which is actually one of the best collections of some of his most impressive songs.) None of those enjoyed any more commercial success than had the earlier works, so Tom, like his high school buddies, dropped out of the music business. Like most old rock and rollers, he went on to law school.3.
Rapp’s legal career was mainly focused on civil rights and employment discrimination cases, first in private practice in Philadelphia and then as a county attorney for Charlotte County, Florida. That latter job was terminated in 2008, but he used his skills to sue the county for age discrimination. The case was settled, and soon thereafter he retired to have more time to care for his second wife, who was in failing health.
The version of “Rocket Man” here is not the original one from The Use of Ashes. Instead, it seems to be a remastered version of the one found on Familiar Songs.
Sometimes the Song of the Week is one that is a bit obscure, one that not everyone may know. Sometimes it is a popular song from long ago – say, back in the ’60s. This week is different. This week’s song was written in 2013, and it has been viewed on YouTube more than 600 MILLION times since then.
So, why was “What Does the Fox Say?” chosen for this honor? Because it seems that it is currently the favorite song of my grandson, Ryder, who is 2-1/2 years old. His 8-month old sister, Leila, seems to like it, too (but she doesn’t talk yet).
The song was written as a “teaser” for a Norwegian television show featuring a comedy duo called “Ylvis” (“I kveld med Ylvis – or, as we English speakers would rather say, “Tonight With Ylvis.”) and posted on YouTube, where it immediately went viral.
It really doesn’t require much explanation.The song starts by telling us that the “Dog goes ‘woof’/Cat goes ‘meow’/Bird goes ‘tweet’/ And mouse goes ‘squeak.'” Other animals sounds are noted, leading to the ultimate question which is, “What Does the Fox Say?”.
It sounds like the lyrics were stolen from a children’s book, but the book actually came later. The book was published in December of 2013, about three months after the song was released. It was an obvious marketing ploy to take advantage of the viral video, but the book is still in the Top 100 in the children’s poetry category on Amazon, and it is one of Ryder’s favorite stories.
Without any further ado, let us get to the song. “What Does the Fox Say?”
By the way, I sort of identify with the old guy sitting in the chair and reading to the child during the dance scene on the video.
Also be aware that at the very end of the video we do learn what the fox says, but everyone is too wrapped up in the song to notice.
This has been a tragic week for many people. In addition to the usual, continuing brutality in places like Syria and Iraq, we have experienced a deranged gunman killing and wounding more than 100 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fl. Also in Orlando, barely 24 hours earlier, YouTube star Christina Grimmie was killed by a crazed fan. Later in the week, a 2-year old child was killed by an alligator at Disney World, also in Orlando. Two days after that, British MP Jo Cox was murdered as she left a meeting with constituents. Of course there were other tragedies that did not receive as much news coverage, but these are sufficiently shocking.
How has the world responded? Some have called for stricter gun control and others for stricter control of immigration. We have heard trumpery accusing the FBI of negligence and even accusing President Obama of complicity with terrorists. Many regular law-abiding citizens have expressed extreme anger, and others extreme fear.
One thing we observe at times like this is that is that what comes out of a person in response to adversity can be nothing more or less than what is inside that person. Even under these most somber circumstances, the most common responses have been love, compassion and sympathy for those affected. We thank God that those qualities are within so many.
Turning now to the Song of the Week, “One Too Many Mornings,” it is fair to ask how a ballad about Bob Dylan breaking up with his girlfriend could relate to the grim events mentioned above. My answer is that Dylan often played with words and wrote songs with double (or more) meanings. I believe that in this song he is also talking about the tragic circumstances that cause us and our society to suffer “one too any mournings.”
Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo
Bob Dylan was not involved in the civil rights movement until he moved to New York City in 1961, at the age of 19. He came East to visit his idol, Woody Guthrie in the hospital, but he also quickly found himself a girlfriend. She was a 17-year old named Suze Rotolo, whose communist parents had raised her in an environment of social activism, and who was working as a secretary at the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) office. Dylan quickly became interested in those issues and began performing what would be called protest songs he had written himself, rather than the traditional folk songs found on his first album.
At that time, the civil rights movement was trying to accomplish its goals through non-violent means, but was often confronted with violence; and Bob Dylan responded to that violence in his songs. The last question asked in “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the song that brought him national attention, is “how many deaths will it take ’til he knows that too many people have died?” The song he wrote hoping to be asked to perform at a CORE benefit, “The Ballad of Emmett Till,” was the story of a 14-year old black youth who had been killed for whistling at a white woman.
“One Too Many Mornings” is on Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ album that was recorded in late 1963 and released in January 1964. Just before its recording civil rights leader Medgar Evers had been murdered and three young “freedom riders” had been killed by Ku Klux Klan members for participating in a voter registration drive. Dylan accompanied other musicians such as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez to perform in Mississippi and assist in registering Black voters. He had also performed at the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. This activism augmented his stature as a vibrant voice of a new generation of Americans.
Other songs on The Times They Are A-Changin’ include “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” telling of a farmer killing his whole family because he couldn’t bear to watch them starve; the anti-war anthem, “With God on Our Side”; “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” which told of the Medgar Evers murder; and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” the story of a black hotel barmaid who died after being struck by a wealthy white man.
A few weeks before the album was released, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
It was a time for mourning in America (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan).
Also in 1963, Dylan broke up with Suze Rotolo. Two of the songs on The Times They Are A-Changin”, “One Too Many Mornings” and “Boots of Spanish Leather,” refer to that break-up. I acknowledge that, but sometimes words or sounds have more than one meaning. The album examines so many tragedies that it certainly tells the listener there have been too many mournings.
The version of the song used here is by Joan Baez. That seems appropriate because she was a very dynamic voice in the protest movement, she accompanied Bob to the voter registration drive in Mississippi, and part of the reason for Dylan parting with Rotolo is that Suze was not happy with the relationship between Bob and Joan.
I would have liked to have used Bob Dylan’s version of the song, but he is very protective of his intellectual property rights and does not permit recordings for which he holds the copyright to be posted on the internet. I respect that position, though I find it ironic.
The majority of the “original” songs “written” by Dylan during this early period of his career were really adaptations of tunes and lyrics from earlier songs. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” for instance, was written to the tune of “No More Auction Block.” On The Times They Are A-Changin’ album, “Restless Farewell” uses the tune and some of the lyrics of the traditional Irish song, “The Parting Glass”; “With God on Our Side” is strongly influenced by “The Patriot Game,” a song with the melody of an Irish-English folk song and lyrics by Dominic Behan; “Boots of Spanish Leather” is based on “Scarborough Fair”; and an Australian folk song called “The Banks of the Condamine” seems to have worked its way into “One Too Many Mornings.”
How was a kid like Bob Dylan able to learn so many of the old songs? Well, back in 1960, while living in Denver, he did steal a number of records from local musicians Walt Conley and Dave Hamil, which were retrieved when the police were called to Dylan’s motel room.
Bob Dylan has given us more than half a century of music and has had a tremendous influence on American culture. He is entitled to protect his works. He is certainly aware that there are people who would steal it and use it for commercial gain. As mentioned above, the responses that come out of a person can only be what that person held inside – we hope that is love and compassion, for the most part.
This Song of the Week is an instrumental version of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” played by Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. I’m not going to say much about them. I assume that anyone who is drawn to this post already knows who they are. For those who don’t, I’m afraid that I would need a whole lot more space than this to even try to do these men justice.
Let me briefly explain how I came to choose the song, though. After mentioning guitarists like Mark Knopfler and Chitarrista Misterioso in last week’s post, I spent some time listening to some of Knopfler’s recordings and I came across a video of him playing “I’ll See You in My Dreams” with Chet Atkins. That reminded me of a version I had heard a long time ago played by Atkins and Merle Travis.
That made me think that it would be nice to write about one of the songs written by Merle, like “Dark as a Dungeon” or “Sixteen Tons.” However, I listened again to Merle and Chet playing “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and decided it sounds so downright pleasant that I should post it here.
For those of you who are into musical history, you know that Merle Travis and Chet Atkins have influenced the way the guitar is played and understood in country music, and ultimately rock music, more than anyone else you can name. This duet is a good example of why that is.
As for the song, the tune of “I’ll See You in My Dreams” was written by a band leader named Isham Jones in 1924. It was on the charts for four months back then, and was the Number One song in the country for seven weeks. In the years since, it has been recorded by the likes of Al Jolson, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Andy Williams, Bob Wills and many others; and has been featured in several motion pictures. The version below is probably one of the best.
Sometimes – and usually it only lasts until my wife sets me straight – but too often – I start to think that I am more clever than I really am. Recently, I thought it might be clever to write something contrasting Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger, with Donald Trump, the Deceitful Draft Dodger. It wasn’t long before I realized that the idea would not go over well because there are just too many people who have attended “schools” like Trump University and who don’t even know who Charles Dickens is – or was.
I also realized it would be disingenuous of me because at about the same time Mr. Trump was not serving his country in Vietnam, I was not serving my country there, either. For a lot of that period of non-service, our excuses were the same: we were attending college and entitled to student deferments.
My next idea was to post Phil Ochs’ “Draft Dodger Rag” as a Song of the Week. However, doing so would be unfair because I would still imply that Mr. Trump was just a “draft dodger,” as his critics have said; and not recognize that he may have held strong convictions about the injustice of the Vietnam War and the draft that cycled 18-, 19- and 20-year old boys and men to die by the thousands and accomplish very little. I had such convictions, and Trump may have, too.
Instead, I decided to post Ochs’ song, “I Ain’t Marching Anymore.” This piece, first released on the 1965 album of the same name, is thematically similar to compositions like Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier” and “Masters of War” and “With God on Our Side” by Bob Dylan in showing that throughout history the conscript, the foot soldier, the one who had no personal political power at home has been sacrificed to benefit those who did hold power. “It’s always the old who lead us to the war, always the young to fall,” Ochs sings. Then he recognizes that the same young men who are being sent to die hold power to stop the killing by simply refusing to participate. I purposely chose not to participate and perhaps my compadre, Donald, did the same.
While he was attending Ohio State University, Phil Ochs’ roommate, Jim Glover, taught him to play guitar and introduced him to folk music and leftist politics. Ochs was a sergeant in the ROTC at the time, but he learned well and quickly. He dropped out of college after his junior year and moved to Greenwich Village where he wrote “protest songs” and performed in the coffee houses.
He was a good songwriter and delivered his message with such passion that he soon became a leading spokesman for the anti-war movement. He had moderate commercial success for a few years, while continuing his political involvement through things like his performing for the protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention and then testifying (and reciting the words to “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”) at the trial of the Chicago Seven.
However, throughout his whole career he seemed to be in the shadow of Bob Dylan. From what I have read, Phil Ochs idolized Dylan; but Dylan “toyed with that idolatry and kept Ochs at arms length,” as one commentator has said. Nevertheless, he did perform several times with Dylan, and was a part of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review in 1974.
By the mid-1970s, Ochs had begun to exhibit some serious mental and emotional problems. The quality of his song writing declined, he began performing dressed as an Elivis imitator, he suffered permanent vocal damage from a mugging in Tanzania, and he tragically took his own life in 1976.
There is so much more that could be said about Phil Ochs, but this is not the right post for that. A good, succinct remembrance by Richie Unterberger is available at allmusic.com.
My own memory of him goes back to August of 1966. During my very first week at the University of Colorado, Phil Ochs played a free concert on campus. It was a pretty informal setting, and I remember Phil walked out in front of the small crowd and began tuning his guitar. He did it magnificently. He was playing riffs that impressed me no end while turning the tuning pegs a bit here and there. I was just a kid. At that point I had never heard Jimi Hendrix or Mark Knopfler or Rudy Spano. Still, I had heard good guitarists before and knew how to play F, C, G and Am chords myself; and I could tell the guy had talent. He had a clear, melodious voice and he delivered his singing journalism with such conviction that I had to agree that I wasn’t marching anymore – and I had been in marching band throughout high school, so I knew about marching.
You know, there is probably much more that could be said about Donald Trump, too. I could even try to say something else nice about him, but no one would believe me. So, Donald, if you read this, I ain’t goose stepping any more. You have toadies for that.
For those of us temporally tied to the Gregorian Calendar, the new year of 2016 will begin in just a few days. This is the first of three posts leading to that event.
The whole world probably has some tie to that Gregorian Calendar today, but it was not always so. In earlier times, humans lived according to the broad changes of the seasons without much need to specify any single, particular day. However, the uniting of significant portions of the world under the Romans brought the administrative necessity for a common calendar. In the year we now call 46 B.C., Julius Caesar, after consulting the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes, decreed that the empire would use a calendar based on a solar year of 365 days, with an extra day added every fourth year.
Thus, the average year became 365.25 days. That became problematic, though, because the true solar year, based on the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, is really about 11 minutes shorter than was recognized by the calendar – and it changes by a second or two every few years. Consequently, the calendar became out of synch with the solstices and equinoxes by a whole day every 130 years or so. As the centuries passed, the celebration of Easter (as determined by the First Council of Nicaea) was moving closer to summer and the dates for the seasons had varied significantly.
The Catholic Church set up a committee of astronomers to study the matter. After many years of research, a papal bull was issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, changing the calculation for the celebration of Easter and modifying the old Julian Calendar. Under the new Gregorian Calendar, an extra day was added every fourth year, except no day is added to years that are divisible by 100, unless the year is also divisible by 400, in which case the extra day is added. In other words, the year 2000 was a leap year, even though 1900 was not. Simple, huh?
The Gregorian Calendar was adopted, sometimes hesitantly, by most of the so-called Western World by the end of the 18th Century. As a result of a need for uniformity in matters of global commerce, the rest of the world began using it for many purposes by the early part of the 20th Century.
While Pope Gregory’s decree established the length of the year, it did not say when the year should start. For a long time, the Church continued to use Christmas, December 25th, as the beginning of its ecclesiastical year. Other groups chose to begin the new year on January 1st – or March 1st – or March 25th – or on a solstice or equinox day. It took awhile, but here in the 21st Century there is a general agreement that the calendar year begins on January 1. That is the date coming at the end of this week.
There are various traditions for celebrating the transition from one year to the next. In the United States, it is common to “ring out the old and ring in the new” with a celebratory party featuring happy people and funky music.
It is also common to look back on years like 2015 with a desire to heal the many things that have gone wrong. We have been through mass killing and terrorist attacks, there have been wars and insurgencies. 2015 was not even an election year but the U.S. has experienced a divisive, media-driven political campaign filled with lies and demagoguery.
On a more personal level, numerous friends and relatives have suffered illnesses, injuries, physical deterioration, loss and pain. There is a need for healing on a personal, as well as a global, level.
Well, I would like to suggest a song you should listen to. It is performed by the Neville Brothers, who are the epitome of of funky New Orleans soul and rhythm and blues. The song is “Healing Chant” from their wonderful 1989 album, Yellow Moon. This is a powerful song that truly can help to bring healing. You should listen to it.
There has been a lot of Christmas music played these last few weeks, on the radio, in shopping malls and public buildings, on our Pandora playlists. I enjoy hearing the songs, but many are played so frequently that they begin to lose their original meaning. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have heard some singer or other telling me to have a merry little Christmas when ‘faithful friends who are dear to us, they gather near to us once more.”
After hearing those lines several times, I began to think of the old song, “Faithful Friends,” by the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble. Its lyrics tell us that while words come easy, like the wind, faithful friends are hard to find. That is a valid point, so I briefly thought “Faithful Friends” might be a good Song of the Week. I abandoned that idea, though, because it is not a great song, and it sounds very dated today – more than 45 years after it was recorded. Also, the song tells us that it is important for us to distinguish “faithful friends from flattering foe,” and that is not the sentiment I wanted to convey here.
Instead, I have chosen a song from the group’s third album, Roll Over (from 1971), by which time their name had been shortened to the New York Rock Ensemble. The song is entitled “Beside You.”
The New York Rock (and Roll) Ensemble presented a completely different approach to “classic rock.” Originally a five-piece band, three of the members – Michael Kamen, Martin Fulterman and Dorian Rudnytsky – were Julliard trained classical musicians, while the other two – Clif Nivison and Brian Corrigan – were accomplished self-trained rock guitarists. At times during their concerts and recordings, Kamen would step away from the keyboards and play his oboe or English horn, Fulterman would put down his drum sticks and pick up his own oboe and Rudnytsky would trade his electric bass for a cello (or sometimes a trumpet or French horn). The group often wore tuxedos while performing.
As mentioned, “Beside You” is from the group’s third album, after Brian Corrigan had left the band. It is one of the songs that features the woodwinds and cello with Nivison’s acoustic guitar. On its most obvious level, it is a romantic ballad. However, it can also remind us that our faithful friends are those in whose presence we can experience a quiet and enduring peace.
The song is also appropriate for this season of the solstice as we “listen to the sunrise and feel its growing light.”
The New York Rock Ensemble quit recording in 1973. Since then, the two members who have been best known are Michael Kamen, who composed the scores for more than 50 major motion pictures1, including several in the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon series, Mr. Holland’s Opus and 101 Dalmatians; and Martin Fulterman, who changed his name to Mark Snow, and also composed for television and film, most famously for the series X-Files. Michael Kamen died after suffering a heart attack in 2003, but I believe that all of the other band members are still ,living.
