I love these. This one on song really hits home firme. Always have a song I’m singing to myself ! Love songs, sad song, hymns and sometimes hers. Sorry, couldn’t resist! Keep up the good work! Really enjoy them all!!!
I have two seemingly unrelated thoughts on this topic:
The first music that caught my attention was the soundtrack to the musical Camelot. I was about 11 and came home to find my mom and dad singing the songs a cappella from a printed booklet with great pleasure. I ended up seeing the movie when it came out a few months later and memorizing the words to most of the songs and singing them with a couple of my friends. We were stationed overseas at the time, without a lot of access to American popular culture. Then I found that a friend's family had the LP record to it and we listened to it over and over. I still remember the words to many of the songs.
Many years later I was at a peaceful protest outside an abortion facility in Maryland. We prayed the Rosary and sang hymns, usually with gusto. Across the parking lot, about 100 feet away stood the "clinic escorts," who sullenly watched us to ensure we didn't illegally try to stop cars from entering the facility grounds. They were a glum, largely quiet group of people who inaudibly chatted among themselves and snickered at us, but what struck me about them at the time was they seemed to have no songs of their own to sing. What they were supporting is simply nothing that can be sung about.
That's a tale that illustrates a truth, for sure. This reminds me of a childhood experience of mine. My father took me and my two cousins (I was an only child, and my parents had the wisdom to make sure I wasn't a lonely child) to see many films in the 1960's, including the likes of "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music," and "Oliver." Of course we got the sound tracks, and the songs were SO memorable that all sorts of people knew them. "Edelweis" became a real folk song. Every little school child could sing "Supercalifragilisticexpalidociaos." We'd learn the tunes, and then on long car trips (often with the same cousins) we'd all sing to wile away the time. Now we think of that those days as belonging to A Different Universe.
Once again, the CHURCH made all the difference. Having both parents singing in the church choir growing up (and a dad with a beautiful bass voice who, along with his buddies and millions of other men of his generation fancied themselves Sinatra-like), and the incomparable joy of church youth choirs, meant we were a singing family. And I assumed all families were like us! But no. My wife has "grown into" being a singer almost by necessity. And where would I have been on long, wonderfully introverted solo car trips without, like my dad, pretending that I sound just like Frank...and singing with gusto those old tavern-tunes put to sacred words by my spiritual ancestors the Wesley brothers?! Songs...thank you Dr. Esolen.
Tony unfortunately grew up in a church where the traditional hymns had been tossed out in favor of the "modern" songs. He knew very few hymns when we met, but I had grown up with great congregational singing in the Methodist church. When we first married, I insisted that we find a church with very good homilies and very good hymnody. Tony needed no persuading about that. We love the Wesleys .. and so many other great hymnodists and the great church music of many centuries, and hymns which connect us to our ancestors in the faith. Great hymnody is never fluff, but real spiritual food.
How I look forward to that Remedial Singing course in the hereafter! Some people dream they can fly....Once I dreamt that I could *really* sing.🥰 Yes, surely that is an integral part of what we are made to Be. As a kid, I remember going with my mom to a Hymn Sing at a church in our county. I remember how special it felt to be singing with brethren from different denominations.... And I remember the holy bliss of being one very small voice in the gathered choirs which sang for the Mass on the Mall. Oct. 1979. Glory be!
I love these. This one on song really hits home firme. Always have a song I’m singing to myself ! Love songs, sad song, hymns and sometimes hers. Sorry, couldn’t resist! Keep up the good work! Really enjoy them all!!!
I have two seemingly unrelated thoughts on this topic:
The first music that caught my attention was the soundtrack to the musical Camelot. I was about 11 and came home to find my mom and dad singing the songs a cappella from a printed booklet with great pleasure. I ended up seeing the movie when it came out a few months later and memorizing the words to most of the songs and singing them with a couple of my friends. We were stationed overseas at the time, without a lot of access to American popular culture. Then I found that a friend's family had the LP record to it and we listened to it over and over. I still remember the words to many of the songs.
Many years later I was at a peaceful protest outside an abortion facility in Maryland. We prayed the Rosary and sang hymns, usually with gusto. Across the parking lot, about 100 feet away stood the "clinic escorts," who sullenly watched us to ensure we didn't illegally try to stop cars from entering the facility grounds. They were a glum, largely quiet group of people who inaudibly chatted among themselves and snickered at us, but what struck me about them at the time was they seemed to have no songs of their own to sing. What they were supporting is simply nothing that can be sung about.
That's a tale that illustrates a truth, for sure. This reminds me of a childhood experience of mine. My father took me and my two cousins (I was an only child, and my parents had the wisdom to make sure I wasn't a lonely child) to see many films in the 1960's, including the likes of "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music," and "Oliver." Of course we got the sound tracks, and the songs were SO memorable that all sorts of people knew them. "Edelweis" became a real folk song. Every little school child could sing "Supercalifragilisticexpalidociaos." We'd learn the tunes, and then on long car trips (often with the same cousins) we'd all sing to wile away the time. Now we think of that those days as belonging to A Different Universe.
Once again, the CHURCH made all the difference. Having both parents singing in the church choir growing up (and a dad with a beautiful bass voice who, along with his buddies and millions of other men of his generation fancied themselves Sinatra-like), and the incomparable joy of church youth choirs, meant we were a singing family. And I assumed all families were like us! But no. My wife has "grown into" being a singer almost by necessity. And where would I have been on long, wonderfully introverted solo car trips without, like my dad, pretending that I sound just like Frank...and singing with gusto those old tavern-tunes put to sacred words by my spiritual ancestors the Wesley brothers?! Songs...thank you Dr. Esolen.
Tony unfortunately grew up in a church where the traditional hymns had been tossed out in favor of the "modern" songs. He knew very few hymns when we met, but I had grown up with great congregational singing in the Methodist church. When we first married, I insisted that we find a church with very good homilies and very good hymnody. Tony needed no persuading about that. We love the Wesleys .. and so many other great hymnodists and the great church music of many centuries, and hymns which connect us to our ancestors in the faith. Great hymnody is never fluff, but real spiritual food.
How I look forward to that Remedial Singing course in the hereafter! Some people dream they can fly....Once I dreamt that I could *really* sing.🥰 Yes, surely that is an integral part of what we are made to Be. As a kid, I remember going with my mom to a Hymn Sing at a church in our county. I remember how special it felt to be singing with brethren from different denominations.... And I remember the holy bliss of being one very small voice in the gathered choirs which sang for the Mass on the Mall. Oct. 1979. Glory be!
Thank you for singing. I was at that Mass too, but not as a singer.
Awesome! What a blessing that was. I wasn't even Catholic then, but was deeply moved by his words and presence.