Today we consider "Wexford Carol," which I didn't think I'd heard before until I pulled it up on YouTube. We had an instrumental version of this growing up that we listened to every Christmas, and which I expect to hear when I head back home next week.
A quick listen will tell you that the song is Celtic in origin, and in fact, was originally titled "Carúl Loch Garman" in Irish. I'm not familiar with many Irish Christmas carols, so this was a treat to discover. Thanks to those of you that suggested it. I typically include most of the lyrics to these songs here in the post, but this one is so lengthy that I'm just going to link them here. Suffice it to say, though, that the message of this song is much more all-encompassing than anything we've discussed to this point. The lyrics start with the Babe born in Bethlehem, but also discuss the journey from Nazareth, the inability of Mary and Joseph to find lodging, the animals in the manger, the herald angels appearing to the shepherds, and the visit of the Magi some years later. With the exception of Herod, this song touches on pretty much every aspect of the Christmas story as recorded in the New Testament. So what do I have to discuss with you, when I have virtually everything to choose from? Well, while this song is rich in description of the Nativity, it goes a little beyond that with the lovely lines below:
Within a manger he was laid And by his side a virgin maid Attending on the Lord of Life Who came on earth to end all strife.
"Who came on earth to end all strife." We often hear people complaining about the stress of the holiday season, but this song reminds us that the Savior came to take those things from us. He took upon Himself our sins, yes, but also our weaknesses and infirmities so that he can lift us up during times of, well, strife. He suffered to redeem us, but also, if I'm understanding correctly, so He can understand what it's like to have to prepare Christmas Eve dinner for seventeen while relatives argue about politics. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and He's eager and willing to take our pain on Himself, if only we will let Him. So we let Him, or at least, we sing about the fact that He's willing to do that for us. We remember who He is and what He has done for us, and we remember not only His birth, but also His life and what it meant. It's a nice little song, and the simple, easy to play melody helps it stay in your head so you can keep the message around a little longer.
I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas Day in the morning
Today we consider "I Saw Three Ships," and with it, one of the greatest mysteries in all of Yuletide melody: Why are there ships in the Holy Land?
Bethlehem is about twenty miles from the Dead Sea and even further still from the Mediterranean. There are no rivers that lead to Bethlehem, nor any that go through it. There are no lakes, no ponds, no puddles in Bethlehem. There is absolutely no reason of any kind for a ship to be in Bethlehem, let alone three.
And what was in those ships all three On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day And what was in those ships all three On Christmas Day in the morning
So why are we singing about ships coming to Bethlehem? Why are we singing about ships that arrived to the nativity on the morning of His birth in landlocked Bethlehem? Are they symbolic? Are they secretly camels? Are they actually the wise men?
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day The Virgin Mary and Christ were there On Christmas Day in the morning
I'm at a loss to explain the ships, honestly, but it doesn't seem like I'm alone in that. Musical historians don't have any sort of consensus on what they mean, either. It's a complete mystery, and one that I don't suspect has any sort of meaningful answer. So let's set it aside and look at the end, where we sing that "all the bells on earth shall ring" and "all the souls on earth shall sing." That's much more straightforward, and something I don't have to spend hours scratching my head over. The earth rejoiced at the coming of its Lord and Creator. So did its inhabitants, at least the ones to whom it was announced. The shepherds came as they heard the angelic heralds, and the magi followed some time after. We still ring bells on Christmas, and we still rejoice. We still feel the sacredness of the day, and the joy at knowing that our Savior came to earth, and that He still lives. No, I don't know why we sing about ships, and neither do you, but it's plainly a song of rejoicing, and maybe that's enough.
Today's song is one that I think everyone is familiar with: "We Three Kings." The words of the first verse and the refrain are almost common knowledge, but I'll post them here anyway as you listen to the video I've included at the end:
We three kings of Orient are; Bearing gifts we traverse afar, Field and fountain, moor and mountain, Following yonder star.
O star of wonder, star of night, Star with royal beauty bright, Westward leading, still proceeding, Guide us to thy perfect light.
The wise men, however many of them there actually were, are journeying to Bethlehem to present their gifts to the newborn Jesus. The exact location the "Orient" is referring to isn't clear--opinions include Yemen, Arabia, Persia, India, and Babylon--but what is clear is that they had to travel a great distance to greet the Savior, long enough that the child Jesus was considerably out of babyhood by the time they arrived. The magi saw the star and followed it, trusting that the Savior of the world was at the end of their road. The Star of Bethlehem, whatever it was, is no longer visible, but there are still signs that point us to our Lord, if we care to look for them. We can look for good works, we can look for peace, and we can look for love. The star, in that sense, is still high above the earth, westward leading, still proceeding. If we chose to follow it, it will still lead us to its perfect Light. But the first verse and refrain are far from all of the song. Each of the magi has his own verse to sing about the gift he is bringing to the child. Gold and frankincense are to honor the King and Ruler of the earth, but the verse about myrrh talks about something we haven't heard in any of the songs and hymns I've written about so far. Listen:
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone cold tomb.
Here we aren't singing about His birth, as we do in most of these songs, nor are we singing about His second coming, as we did in "Joy to the World" and "In the Bleak Midwinter," but instead, we are singing about his death. The third wise man singing about his Lord being "sealed in the stone cold tomb" to me suggests that he was not completely ignorant about why He had come to earth. He came not to rule and reign, as He would the second time He came, but to atone and redeem each of us from sin and death. The final verse seems to make this clear:
Glorious now behold Him arise; King and God and sacrifice; Alleluia!, Alleluia!, Rings through the earth and skies
This is a song that would not be out of place for Easter. We sing of His death, but we also sing of the hope His atonement and resurrection bring us. I've often heard it said that if there were no Easter, there would be no reason for Christmas, and it's certainly true. At Christmas, we commemorate the birth of our Lord, but the occasion is meaningful only because of the great work He performed for us at Gethsemane. The wise men knew, or at least had a sense of the magnitude of the moment, and so they traveled across deserts, mountains, plains, and sea. We can look to Him too. The star is still pointing to Him, westward leading, still proceeding, guiding us to its perfect Light. Previously in this series Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella In the Bleak Midwinter
Today's song is "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabaella." I struggled with whether or not to include this one, because I've always personally felt it was a little silly, but several of you requested it, so I decided to write about it. The song was originally not intended as a Christmas song, per se, even though the lyrics are about the manger scene, but rather as a lively dance number for French nobility. I never would have guessed that, but the quick tempo and the fact that the song is in 3/8 time certainly make more sense when viewed through that lens. Before we get into the lyrics, let's consider the question many of you have probably wondered about as you've heard this song: Who are Jeanette and Isabella? It's tricky to know for sure, since much is lost to history, but the two women seem to be the subject of a painting by chiaroscuro artist (I knew all those art history classes in high school would come in useful someday) George de la Tour titled The Newborn Christ. Two milkmaids are holding the infant Jesus shortly after His birth. The origins of this song are at or before this time, so one led to the other, but I'm not entirely sure in which order. In our song, Jeanette and Isabella are two young women who are summoned to the stable at the Savior's birth. They are to bring a torch for light and to announce His birth to the people of (presumably) Bethlehem. They do so, but in their excitement, they are a little too exuberant, leading others to shush them for fear of waking the tiny King.
It is wrong when the Child is sleeping
It is wrong to talk so loud
Silence, all, as you gather around
Lest your noise should waken Jesus
Hush! hush! see how fast He slumbers
Hush! hush! see how fast He sleeps!
There's a lesson there for us, if we care to look for it. The birth of the Savior was certainly a joyful occasion; countless generations had looked forward to it, and for some, it even marked the commutation of certain death at the hands of those who did not believe. Angels heralded His birth, and a bright new star appeared over Bethlehem. Yet for all the excitement of the moment, for all the happiness and glee and fervor, it was still a sacred thing, to be treated with reverence. The shepherds came to pay their respects to the newborn King by bowing and observing with wondering awe. Jeanette and Isabella were a little noisier, and for that they were gently rebuked. "Softly to the little stable," we sing in the last verse, and I imagine they did so, a little quieter and a little more meekly. It's very easy for us to get caught up in the excitement of Christmas. We look forward to opening gifts, to watching fun movies, to laughing with our families and friends, and to drinking eggnog by the fire. (I am not convinced that anyone actually drinks eggnog.) It's tempting to allow ourselves to give in to the thrill of the occasion rather than the reverence of it. Christmas is a time for us to reflect on the birth of our Savior and on the holiness of that night. There's a lot to shout about, but we may want to take a moment and exercise a little temperance as we celebrate the season. Just as Jeanette and Isabella were told to "hush, hush" so as not to wake the sleeping baby, we too may want to take a moment to quietly ponder how "beautiful is the mother; ...beautiful is the Son" so as not to chase away the Spirit of the moment.
Today's song is one I wasn't familiar with before you suggested it to me: "In the Bleak Midwinter." It's really beautiful, and if you haven't heard it before, go ahead and switch off Rudolph and Frosty and listen to this on loop all day instead.
I particularly like this video. The cathedral choir do a terrific job of singing the song, but there's something special about hearing the congregation join in. Everyone gets to praise the Lord together, no matter whether they have training, talent, practice, or not. (And that ties in neatly with the message of the song! What an amazing coincidence that surely wasn't planned in the slightest!) I wrote about this several years ago, but this song is similar to "Joy to the World" in that it addresses not only the Savior's first coming, but his second. We sing, "Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign." At His second coming, he will rule in power, and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is the Christ. There will be no mistaking Him at that time. Yet, as we go on to sing, "in the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ." The Lord, the ruler and creator of the universe, the one who took upon Himself all of our sins so that we could live again, was born in a lowly stable, with shepherds and animals to herald Him.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the beloved with a kiss.
The tender image of Mary, surrounded by hay and the gentle bleating of lambs, leaning down to kiss the little Lord on the head was enough to make it considerably dusty in my house this morning. (It did not help that in the video, the camera zooms in on a mother doing the same thing for her son.) He came in humility as an example of humility to all of us. He showed us in every footstep, every action, what manner of men we ought to be. We follow His example, and in so doing, we can give Him our heart.
The last verse of the song asks and answers the same question as we encountered yesterday in "Little Drummer Boy": What can I give Him, poor as I am? We can give Him the same thing we could if we were a poor child, or a shepherd, or a wise man, or anyone else. We can give Him our will, our heart, and everything we have and are. To paraphrase, what we can we give Him, give our heart. Enjoy your Sabbath, friends. Previously in this series Little Drummer Boy
I wrote about the fourteen Christmas hymns in the LDS hymnal three years ago. If you're interested in reading them again, you can find the full list here; if not, you may want to stop reading here and for the next thirteen posts, because I'm going to write about fourteen more Christmas songs, only this time, songs outside of the hymnal. Several of you helped provide suggestions, some I'd thought of, some I hadn't, and some I'd never even heard of before. We start with "Little Drummer Boy," a song that took me quite a while to warm up to. I like singing and hearing about baby Jesus, but the "pa rum pum pum pum"s always felt a little incongruous with the stillness and reverence I always pictured in the stable. It took my finding a softer version to get me to change my mind.
(This will probably not be the last time Sufjan Stevens appears in these posts.) The story of the drummer boy is not strictly doctrinal, but it tells of the wise men going to visit the Christ child and summoning a young boy to come with them.
Come they told me
A newborn King to see
Our finest gifts we bring
To lay before the King
So to honor Him
When we come
There's no telling why they felt they needed to bring a child, or how this child fell in with the magi, of all people, but he joins them. The song doesn't say, but I get the sense this young man felt out of place among prominent and powerful men with elegant gifts. The phrase "our finest gifts to bring" may have made him feel uneasy. What could he offer to a King that would compare with gold, frankincense, or myrrh? Why would his little drum be honored against such mighty gifts? Yet also, I get the sense that despite his fear, he wanted to see the little Lord in the manger. He probably didn't know exactly who the baby was (did the shepherds? did the animals?), but he may have felt that this was a special occasion. He may even, as we see, have felt a certain kinship with His humble origins.
Little baby
I am a poor boy too
I have no gift to bring
That's fit to give our King
Shall I play for you
On my drum
This boy had little to offer, but what little he had, he freely gave. The wise men, in all their opulence and splendor, did the same. That's all we are asked of our Lord, each of us. He asks for our hearts, all of them. He asks for our will, all of it. He asks for us to be His, all of us. Just as the Lord gave all that He had on our behalf, we are asked to give all that we are to Him. It doesn't matter if you have gold, frankincense, myrrh, or a drum to offer. The request is the same to each of us: all that we have, and all that we are. There's not much to tell with the song (fully fifty percent of the lyrics are either "pa," "rum," or "pum"), but the simple message is by no means not a powerful one.
I've been pretty busy at work recently, but not in a way that has kept me from being at home, which is nice. We've had a lot of new people start, which means that with all of my two years and change of experience, I'm the one people turn to with questions. I'm also formally charged with training several of these new people, so that keeps me pretty busy. Busy isn't all bad, of course. Better to be busy and trusted than, well, idle and unreliable, I guess. Edie is two and a half, and she's really interesting. She's gotten really good at learning and repeating words, to the point where she routinely surprises me by saying words I had no idea she knew. Some are innocuous, like "rock," "rain," and even "poppies," but some are hilarious, like "hi scum." She's very fond of "uh-oh" and "oh no," but she only seems to understand that it's a thing one says when things fall, not that it's connected to accidents. She loves to scatter things all over the ground, look up at us, and say, "uh oh!" No, little girl, that wasn't an accident. You did that. The weather here is really bizarre. It was in the teens and icy last week, and then it got up to the upper 60s in the same week. Sudden temperature shifts like that tend to bring strong winds, so while the warm weather is pleasant, the tornadoes, well, aren't. My parents are coming to visit us next month. They'd actually come to visit Tennessee once before we got here, so they might actually know more about Nashville than we do. Still, we know more about this tiny town that we live in. We'll show them places like, um, the downtown and the tiny cafes and diners here. And the barbecue pit! Okay, so there's some interesting stuff in this town. I listened to Now! 49 yesterday. You should not. "Royals" is by far the best song on the album. Nearly everything else is pure garbage. Stay far, far away.
I promised you I'd write two of these today, and here I am, delivering. And utterly squandering my day off, too! You're welcome. This album started off like many of the earlier and more reprehensible collections I've listened to, like the awful "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" from P!nk and the truly, truly rancid "Whistle" from Flo Rida, which could not possibly be a more transparent ode to fellatio if it tried. (If you haven't heard this song before, please, I beg of you, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A LOVED ONE, LISTEN TO THIS SONG.) I cringed and gritted my teeth, expecting much more of the same. It would have been grating and an affront to nature, but at least it would have given me something interesting to write about.
And then we got "Gangnam Style," and you may not believe this, but today was actually my first time listening to the song in its entirety. (Still haven't seen the music video.) This song could also be an ode to fellatio, but I certainly wouldn't know, not being a Korean speaker myself. (Wikipedia assures me that the song is about the lifestyle of residents of the Gangnam District of Seoul, which, to my knowledge, is not especially renowned for womanizing behavior.) This song is utterly infectious. It's absolutely perfect for what these compilations are trying to be. By the end of the song, I'd forgotten all about the trash from the first two songs. And then, AND THEN, we entered an hour and a half of pure synthpop. For those unfamiliar with the genre, imagine a song that was written to play over the closing credits of any tween-targeted Disney Channel show and you're pretty close. We got Owl City, Maroon 5, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and even Nicki Minaj got in on the action. I don't especially mind synthpop, personally, but that's not to say that I'm a huge fan, and it's certainly not to say that I was hoping for nearly a dozen straight songs of it. And yet, I sort of like the idea of going completely overboard with one genre for one of these albums. They all sort of blend together for me, being one huge indistinguishable blur of pop, so differentiating them by a popular genre is pretty clever. This isn't just Now! 44, the latest in a long line of pop collections anymore, it's the synthpop Now! album. You instantly know the one we're talking about now. They could produce similar entries for emo, indie folk, girlpop, boy bands, you name it. I know that I, personally, would get a huge kick out of Now! That's What I Call Thrash Rock. In summary, if you're interested in synthpop, you should give the album a listen. If you're not, you should probably avoid it. And if you're just looking to get a taste of the album, just give Gangnam Style a play. And if, for whatever unfathomable reason, you're wondering if you should listen to "Whistle," please seek professional counseling.
I missed writing to you last week, but let it be known that I still listened to my album. I'll do my best to write two for you today as a penance. This week's album is Now! 53, which means it was released just about a year ago. This is pop horror that is still fresh in our minds. The compilation kicks off with "Uptown Funk," which I'll admit is nothing if not catchy and danceable. It's also omnipresent and, to put it charitably, possessive toward women, so it's just about the perfect pick for an album like this. We get Meghan Trainor's "Lips are Movin" after that, which is an apt answer. It's catchy, danceable, and omnipresent, but instead of celebrating womanizing, it decries it. So everything's turned out a wash so far! And then, you know, the rest of the album begins. We get Ariana Grande, One Direction, Selena Gomez, Iggy Azalea, and Charli XCX in the span of eight tracks. These acts are pretty much the quintessence of these compilations, and are also pretty much why I dreaded having to listen to them in the first place. I was not disappointed, in that I was completely disappointed by their schlockiness. (Autocorrect suggests "cockiness" instead.) The B-side of these albums usually transitions to a quieter, mellower sound, which I typically enjoy more. There was a Coldplay track ("A Sky Full of Stars") on there, which I was looking forward to a bit. I'm no great fan of Coldplay, but I recognize that they have talent and can, at the very least, create songs that are unobjectionable, something that the rest of these acts have trouble with. Those of you who have heard this song are probably laughing to yourself right now, but Coldplay managed to completely let me down in this regard. "A Sky Full of Stars" sounds like a typical Coldplay song that a producer decided to infuse with a drum machine and club beats. It doesn't work. It's somehow much worse than a typical club song in that you know what it could have been. I was very, very disappointed. In summary, do not listen to this album if you have the means not to. If you want to get the sense of the sound of the album, listen to "Uptown Funk," then listen to "Lips are Movin," then smash your stereo, computer, or iPod with hammers.
I knew what I was getting myself into when I started listening to these albums. I expected them to be bad, even terrible. I expected to hate every minute of this. And I knew that if I didn't hold myself accountable to you faceless masses, I'd never go through with listening to all of this. What I didn't count on, though, was the fact that since most of this music is just similar-sounding dreck, I would run out of interesting things to say very quickly. And I have. I listened to Now! 12 a week ago, and I've been trying to think of anything to say about it that I haven't already said about the other six I've listened to. And short of the fact that I laughed out loud when I heard Télépopmusik's "Breathe" come on, I really haven't got anything new to say. It's pretty much just thumping club music for the A-side, like the last few have been, and it's quieter acoustic girl pop on the B-side. And they generally save something truly abhorrent for the last song, which in this case is "When I'm Gone," by 3 Doors Down. These are not good albums, and I'm really not excited to look at my randomized list and see that Now! 53 is up next. The more recent the album, the worse it is, and a quick look over the tracklist (Bruno Mars! Maroon 5! One Direction! Iggy Azalea!) makes me shudder. If you've come here for a recommendation, here it is: do not buy, do not listen, do not expend any amount of mental energy considering this music in any way, and do not fear, for the cold black embrace of death awaits us all.
I knew they couldn't all be as good as Now! 5, but I had hoped that many of these compilations would be at least somewhat listenable. I'm no great fan of pop, but if nothing else, I expected that these songs would be catchy and toe-tapping, if reprehensible on some level. In Now! 20, we find a collection of songs that don't even reach that level. Nearly every moment of this album is utterly forgettable, and if a compilation of pop music isn't even fun to listen to, what's the point? There are big names on this album, like Backstreet Boys, Ciara, Destiny's Child, Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Franz Ferdinand, and the like, but for the most part, none of the songs particularly stood out. They all sort of blended together into one unremarkable hum to me, and if I'm having a hard time telling apart Destiny's Child and Weezer, the music is pretty generic indeed. Normally I have a lot to say about these albums, whether how much I loved or hated the music, but the fact that I'm four short paragraphs in and already tapped out I think is indicative of just how dull this album is, so I'll leave you with this: the album kicks off with "Don't Phunk With My Heart," and as repellent a song as I think that is, I wish the rest of the album had been more like it so that I'd at least have something to write about. My recommendation: don't buy this album, and don't stream it, either. There are so many better ways you could spend 90 minutes of your time, like doing charity work or nailing your hand to a wall. Anything would be more interesting than this.
I started this project with the expectation that these compilations would all be, at best, wretched, and at worst, literally painful to listen to. I went into the project with a full understanding of that because I care about you, the reader. The first album I listened to was bad, but the second wasn't too terrible. This third one, though? You guys, this third album is very close to pure freebased pop perfection. I haven't done this yet, but I want to give you a complete listing of the tracks on this album: "It's Gonna Be Me," *NSYNC "Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche)," 98 Degrees "Jumpin' Jumpin'," Destiny's Child "Don't Think I'm Not," Kandi "I Think I'm in Love with You," Jessica Simpson "Faded," soulDecision "Shake It Fast," Mystikal "Case of the Ex," Mya "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)," Aaron Carter "Lucky," Britney Spears "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely," Backstreet Boys "Incomplete," Sisqo "I Wanna Be with You," Mandy Moore "Doesn't Really Matter," Janet Jackson "Back Here," BBMak "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)," Nine Days "Kryptonite," 3 Doors Down "Wonderful," Everclear "It's My Life," Bon Jovi This album is an absolutely flawless encapsulation of what pop music sounded like in 2000. Chalk it up to my sense of nostalgia (I was 17 when this album came out), chalk it up to my pure and unabashed love of boy bands, but I absolutely love all of this. Make no mistake: these songs are truly awful. But they're so awful that they come back around the other side. They're bad in a Plan 9 From Outer Space sort of way rather than a Manos: The Hands of Fate sort of way. Look at that lineup again. We get all three of the major boy bands from the late '90s, and we get HUGE songs from all three of them. We get early Destiny's Child crushing it with "Jumpin' Jumpin'," we get strong contributions from both Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson, we get some staples of terrible alt-rock with "Story of a Girl," "Kryptonite," and "Wonderful," and we get a spectacularly hilarious radio edit of Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass." And I feel confident in saying that all of these songs pale in comparison to the bright sun in the center of this dazzling array of pop planets that is AARON CARTER. This song is exactly what you would expect if you gave an 11 year-old a Casio synthesizer piano and asked him to rap about middle school, then turned that rap over to a producer to remaster and put on the radio. (Yes, I am aware that Aaron Carter was actually 12 when this album came out. My point stands.) He raps about throwing a party when his parents are out on a date. He raps about throwing your hands in the air. He refers to himself in the third person. And at the end of the song, HIS PARENTS COME HOME AND HE GETS GROUNDED. This song is spectacular in its awfulness. It is truly brilliant. I am convinced that the only reason this song was not digitized and placed on the Voyager Golden Record was that it had not yet been recorded when the probe was launched. If we had only been willing to wait 21 years, we, as a human race, would have unanimously agreed that this should be the song that would represent our species to alien life forms. When you listen to this album, you'll be shaking your head and remembering how horrible early 2000s pop was, but you'll have a smile on your face the whole time. You will thank yourself, and you'll do it while shaking your hips to songs like "Lucky" and "I Wanna Be with You." I don't expect this will be a recommendation I can make often this year, but you should absolutely listen to this album in its entirety at your earliest convenience. There's a reason this album went quadruple platinum and was the best-selling of the series. It's probably difficult to find, because who would sell the album back, but if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend purchasing this compilation. You will not regret it.
You may think that I've already quit on my resolution, or that I've forgotten, or that for whatever reason, this resolution has fallen by the wayside. Don't you worry, though. The only reason I didn't post anything last week was because I got really quite sick and wasn't able to listen to much of anything, let alone write about it. This week, I listened to NOW! 15, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with this one. 32 was club music nearly the whole way through, but this had a nicer mix of various genres that only rarely made me want to turn off the music and hurl my computer through the window in disgust. (Three of the last four tracks are by blink-182, Good Charlotte, and Fuel, so, you know.) It's toe-tapping, infectious pop, and really, that's exactly what these albums should be in my mind. You get alt-rock, hip-hop, girl pop, and even a bit of punk, so there's something for everyone here. Unless you're a big fan of club music, in which case, may I recommend 32 to you. The album starts with "It's My Life" by No Doubt, which is a perfect encapsulation of what this project should be. It's enjoyable, catchy, and fun, while not being particularly challenging. It's the musical equivalent of cotton candy. Nothing too tricky about it. "Toxic" is more or less the same thing, although your personal mileage may vary with this one because of the screechy hook. This music should make you want to get up and shake around, and it should stick in your head through the day without making you want to claw your brains out. (Again, your personal mileage with Britney Spears may vary.) Ludacris' "Stand Up" and Chingy's "Holidae In" are similar, but for hip-hop. You'll want to move, you'll want to shake, and you'll feel pretty okay about it. Yes, this album has a Black Eyed Peas song on it. No, I don't particularly want to dwell on it. Not every song in this project can be a winner. About halfway through the album, the tone switches from groovy pop to mellower girl pop-type music, for lack of a better term for it. We switch from Nick Cannon and Eamon to Jessica Simpson, Norah Jones, and Sheryl Crow. It's all nice, but the switch is a little jarring. I'm not sure what formula, if any, they used to determine which songs would be included on the album, but it sort of feels like they had to put these songs on them, so they just jammed them in as best as they could. Again, they're lovely, but when the song that precedes them is "Shorty DooWop," it makes for some strange juxtaposition. Ideally, they would have ended the album with Sheryl Crow, but as I mentioned, they went on and included some truly dire punk pop. I am no great fan of blink-182 or of Good Charlotte, so while I tried not to let my personal biases color my experience with the album, I couldn't help but suffer through the last few tracks. They are not good, and by the time I had slogged through them, I was rewarded with Five for Fighting's "100 Years," which sort of felt like being hit with tire irons for fifteen minutes only to be rewarded with five minutes of a MasterCard commercial. This album isn't great, by any stretch of the imagination, but for what it is, it's pretty okay. I don't know that I'd recommend purchasing it, but if you're looking for some music to put on while you're cleaning the house to give you a bit of energy, this is a pretty solid choice.
For the last several years, I've made one serious and one stupid resolution for the new year. The stupid resolution usually ends up being something entertaining that doesn't feel like a chore to do, which helps me to stay focused on my real resolution. And it's worked for the last three years! I've actually maintained focus and done what I intended to do. For whatever reason, though, I had a hard time coming up with a good stupid resolution for this year. That's not to say that some of you out there weren't forthcoming with resolutions:
@TheRealSamOrme Start w/ lowest dose nicotine patch. Keep bumping the strength until you can switch to actual cigarettes. #2PacksADayIn2016
It's stupid, yet measurable, and there are 56 of these compilation albums out there, so it works out well to do about one of these a week. I'm not sure what I'll do when three or four more of these are inevitably released this year. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This morning, I randomized the list of albums and came up with Now! 32. I pulled it up on Spotify and started listening. Let me be perfectly frank before we start, though. I'm not a fan of 2000's and 2010's-era pop, and even less of a fan of club music in general. I made this resolution knowing that I would probably hate most of the music on these albums. I'm going to try not to let my personal biases interfere with reviewing the albums. But oh my goodness, oh my sweet heavenly dogs, friends, this is not a good album. It's very, very heavy on autotune. Some autotune is often needed, and overdoing it a little can be interesting, but when it's prevalent through several songs in a row, it wears thin. (Yes, I'm talking about you here, Jason Derulo. "Whatcha Say" would be about thirty seconds long if you took out the autotuned sections.) The same bumping and thumping club chords dominate nearly every song, and after a while, the songs seem to blend together. It doesn't help that I'm not that familiar with artists like Lady Gaga, Li'l Wayne, and Pitbull, which don't sound that different to me, but they all blurred into one sound to my ears. (This is by choice, incidentally. Offers to help familiarize me with these acts are unsolicitied and unappreciated.) It's not just the club sound of the music that's prevalent, either. Several of the songs focused on what I'll call a club mentality toward women. The songs tend to be either men singing about objectifying and abusing women or women singing about being objects. Mariah Carey's "Obsessed" and David Guetta & Akon's "Sexy Chick" are notable offenders, featuring lyrics like "I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful/damn girl/damn who's a sexy bitch". I cringed more than once listening to these songs. But that's not to say that the album is terrible all the way through. This was my first time listening to many of these artists, and I was pleasantly surprised with a couple of them. Shakira's "She Wolf" has a great pseudo-disco beat, is largely free of autotune, and even has non-objectifying lyrics. I'd willingly listen to it again, something I can't say about many of these other songs. I'm not particularly familiar with Drake, except for the fact that he's virtually omnipresent in society lately, but I had a difficult time finding a reason to dislike "Best I Ever Had." I'm not a huge fan of slow jam-style R&B, but this was solid. But here's the real head-scratcher in this collection: the second-to-last track on the album is "Only You Can Love Me This Way," by Keith Urban. Almost every song on the album is noxious un-tss un-tss style club music to this point, and then we're left to conclude with a soulful country ballad. It's nice, though I'm not a fan of pop country, but it feels weirdly out of place. All I can think of is that either the Now! people have criteria that they use to determine which songs make the cut and that they were forced to include this song, or perhaps they wanted to diversify their audience at least a little and threw in this token country song. Either way, it just doesn't quite fit. My recommendation is not to purchase or even listen to this album, but your mileage may vary.
I consider myself to be pretty politically aware, if not especially politically active. I read blogs, follow the news, listen to the radio, and have at least a solid understanding of the events of the day. When things happen and leaders make decisions I don't agree with, I tend to roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders, and forget about it. What am I going to do, right? I'm only one person, after all. I figured the shooting at Umpqua Community College was going to be something else like that. We heard the President issue another call to action, we heard Congress decry him for politicizing a tragedy, and that seemed to be that. Only something stuck with me a little more this time. I'm not sure if it was the fact that Roseburg was so much closer to home than other shootings have been, or if it was just the straw that broke the camel's back, but I was upset, and I wanted to do something about it. So I decided to write my congressmen.
just wrote my congressmen about the desperate need for gun control legislation, and will do so weekly until we get some
I live north of Nashville, TN, so I knew this was going to be an uphill battle. My representative and both of my senators are strongly pro-gun rights, so just saying "we need to fix this" wasn't going to get me anywhere. So I did my best to support my letters with facts. I told them that a little over 10,000 Americans die every year as a result of gun homicides, good for about 35 per day. I told them that of those 10,000 people, a little less than 4% of them die in mass shootings like the one in Roseburg. I knew they were going to tell me that they supported mental health reform, since shooters tend to turn out to be mentally ill in those sorts of cases. Solving mental health problems is great, but if that only prevents 4% of our gun deaths, then we're hardly even scratching the surface of the problem. I told them that the majority of gun homicides are the result of arguments. The problem isn't that crazy people are getting guns, it's that angry people already have them. I admitted that legislating a kinder, gentler culture is probably beyond the scope of what they can do, but they could certainly find a way to restrict access to guns so that they aren't the easiest and most readily accessible solution to a fight. I put together a letter that detailed all of this, and I sent it to Representative Diane Black, Senator Bob Corker, and Senator Lamar Alexander, all Republicans of Tennessee. I received answers from all three of them within two weeks. I'll quote Sen. Alexander's letter here, but understand that all three were virtually identical:
Dear Sam,
Thank you for sharing your feelings regarding gun violence. I am saddened by the tragic and senseless attack at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. My thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s families, loved ones, and the Roseburg community.
As we learn more about these tragic shootings across the country, I think we must look closely at the behavior of isolated young men who develop an obsession with violence and often suffer from mental health issues. We should ask the leaders of the entertainment industry whether they would want their children--or those who might harm their children--to watch the increasingly violent video games and movies that they pour into our culture. This is not the only cause of violence in our society but it is one important cause. The problem is not with the gun but with the person pulling the trigger.
On June 29, 2015, I introduced the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act, which would reauthorize and improve programs dealing with awareness, prevention, and early identification of mental health problems. I also introduced similar legislation last Congress, which was passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.The legislation was later approved as an amendment by the full Senate with 95 votes but did not become law. I will continue to work on this issue because it is an important step in responding to the cause of these disturbing incidents of mass violence.
People with good mental health are not causing these incidents, so if we can find ways to diagnose and treat people with mental health issues, that will be an actual solution to the problem. These are terrible events for our nation and we must find appropriate ways to respond. I’m grateful you’ve shared your reactions with me and will keep them in mind as we move forward.
Sincerely,
Lamar
As I expected, all three of them told me what a great job they have been doing solving mental health problems. I was a little disappointed that I'd gone to the trouble of addressing that concern first and that all three of them chose to ignore what I'd written, but I wasn't deterred. I promised I would write letters weekly until I saw a substantive change, which in my mind is either me changing their mind or them changing mine.
Weeks went on. I only got the one response from Rep. Black and Sen. Corker. I received three more letters from Sen. Alexander, though (or, more accurately, one of his aides, no doubt). Last week, in the wake of the Paris attacks, I wrote a letter telling him, well, pretty much this:
not to belittle what's happened, but the attacks in paris represent about three days' worth of gun homicides in america (35 people per day)
I told them that attacks like the one we saw in Paris are horrifying and sensational, but that here in the United States, we would outstrip that death toll in about half a week. I hoped that would spur them to action, or at least give them a sense the magnitude of the problem.
Senator Alexander, however, saw only the words "Paris attacks" and chose to respond with the following.
Dear Mr. Orme:
Thanks very much for getting in touch with me and letting me know what’s on your mind regarding the terrorist attacks in Paris and the Syrian refugee crisis. The horrific and evil acts in Paris were a reminder of the dangerous world in which we live. Americans stand with the people of France against this outrage. Our prayers are with the families of all those hurt by these murderers.
Five years of incessant fighting between President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces, U.S.-backed opposition forces and the insurgent terrorist group, the Islamist State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has driven more than 4 million innocent Syrians into neighboring countries in search of humanitarian assistance.
In response to the Syrian refugee crisis, the Obama administration announced that they will increase the total number of refugees allowed into the United States each year. For 2015, President Obama set the limit of refugees allowed into the United States at 70,000, including 1,200 refugees from Syria. On September 20, 2015, the Obama administration announced that next year the United States will allow 85,000 total refugees, including 10,000 refugees from Syria.
On November 16, 2015, Governor Haslam asked the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to suspend the placement of refugees in Tennessee until states can participate in the vetting process. I believe the federal government should respect the wishes of states in placing refugees. But the real focus should be for the United States to work with Europe and our allies to defeat ISIS and stabilize Syria so millions of Syrians won’t have to leave their homes.
As the United States allows refugees from the Syrian conflict to enter our country, we must ensure militants don’t slip in by impersonating refugees fleeing persecution. We cannot afford for the administration to take any shortcuts with our refugee process that could jeopardize American lives.
I’m grateful you took the time to voice your concerns about balancing national security and protecting human rights, and I’ll be sure to keep your comments in mind as these issues are discussed and debated in Washington and in Tennessee.
Sincerely,
Lamar
I am not making this up. This is an actual response I received from a sitting Senator to an email about gun violence. I pointed out that 35 people a day die from gun homicides in the United States, and he answered by telling me that he was fighting to keep Syrian refugees out of Tennessee. Setting aside my feelings on Syrian refugees (I think it's despicable to fight to keep them out; the attackers in Paris were neither Syrian nor refugees), I was floored to see that not only was he not reading what I was writing, but he was deliberately misinterpreting what I had written and was just shoehorning a completely unrelated issue into his response.
So I wrote to him again, and I don't mind telling you that I was much less civil this time. I used words like "despicable" and "cowardly" to describe his actions. I told him how displeased I was that he very clearly was not paying attention to what this constituent felt and took the time to research and write to him about eight times. (It will be nine this week.) I understand that I'm almost certainly in the minority on this issue here in deep red rural Tennessee, but willfully misinterpreting my complaint and call to action seemed a little beyond the pale to me.
Guess what? The Senator wrote back to me, less than 24 hours later!
Dear Mr. Orme:
Thank you for sharing your feelings regarding gun violence. I responded to your letter about the tragic shootings in Paris with my thoughts and concerns regarding that developing situation. I am always happy to hear from Tennesseans on the important issues facing our country.
As we learn more about these tragic shootings across the country, I think we must look closely at the behavior of isolated young men who develop an obsession with violence and often suffer from mental health issues. We should ask the leaders of the entertainment industry whether they would want their children--or those who might harm their children--to watch the increasingly violent video games and movies that they pour into our culture. This is not the only cause of violence in our society but it is one important cause. The problem is not with the gun but with the person pulling the trigger.
On June 29, 2015, I introduced the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act, which would reauthorize and improve programs dealing with awareness, prevention, and early identification of mental health problems. I also introduced similar legislation last Congress, which was passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The legislation was later approved as an amendment by the full Senate with 95 votes but did not become law. I will continue to work on this issue because it is an important step in responding to the cause of these disturbing incidents of mass violence.
People with good mental health are not causing these incidents, so if we can find ways to diagnose and treat people with mental health issues, that will be an actual solution to the problem. These are terrible events for our nation and we must find appropriate ways to respond. I’m grateful you’ve shared your reactions with me and will keep them in mind as we move forward.
Sincerely,
Lamar
Take a good, close look. That's right: it's nearly identical to the first letter that I received. The last four paragraphs are word-for-word the same as the first letter that I got, and the first one is only slightly changed to be about Paris instead of about Roseburg. I get that he probably receives a lot of letters about a lot of issues, and that he certainly can't read them all himself. And I get that it's worth his time to search for key words to help him answer these emails more quickly and accurately. But this is the eighth time that I've written to him about the same issue, and it's absolutely galling to me that he seems to be intentionally misunderstanding me. This is, to me, more insulting than what I've heard from Rep. Black and Sen. Corker, which is to say, one token letter about their efforts to help the state of mental health care in the United States, and then seven weeks of silence. But I told you that I had received four letters from Sen. Alexander, and so I have. After about a month of writing, I got this:
Dear Mr. Orme:
Thanks for getting in touch with me.
I’m glad you received my response to your comments on gun violence. Although in many cases I have taken a position on an issue long before a vote, I pride myself on being open to new ideas and arguments. Even in cases where we may disagree on issues, I do weigh carefully the opinions of Tennesseans on both sides of an issue before casting a vote in the Senate. Your comments help me to know where the people of Tennessee stand on this issue, and they are very helpful to me in making decisions.
I’m glad you’ve taken the time to respond to my letter with additional information and questions, and I’ll be sure to keep these in mind as I continue to consider this issue.
Sincerely,
Lamar
The other emails were signed with some variation of "LA/ld," indicating that while he was signing his name to the email, it was actually written by an aide. There was no such tag at the end of this one, so perhaps he wrote it himself? If so, then that means the one email he wrote himself to me, the one time he took the trouble to tell me what he, personally, thought and felt on the issue, he effectively told me, "Eh, I've already made up my mind on this, but thanks anyway."
This after I told him about how many people are dying daily in this country from handguns. This after I told him that it's very clearly not exclusively crazy people pulling the trigger. This after I warned him about the cost of militarizing the police, and the danger of a culture in which people feel that they have to carry a weapon everywhere they go in order to feel safe. So, if I'm reading correctly, Sen. Alexander has already made up his mind on the issue, and he feels that 35 handgun deaths daily are an acceptable cost to pay, but he's glad that I've taken the time to respond with additional information and questions. I've had it, and what's even more frustrating is that despite my efforts, I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I'm not getting through to my Congressmen, who are either ignoring me or making a mockery of my letters and opinions. So here I am, writing in an effort to shame them publicly so that maybe, just maybe, they'll answer me seriously. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. After all, I'm only one man. I end every one of my letters with the phrase "I will continue to write until I see substantive action." Rep. Black and Sen. Corker seem content to wait me out. Sen. Alexander seems content to insult me into giving up. But I promised myself and my 30 or so non-pornbot Twitter followers that I would write every week until we got some sort of worthwhile gun control legislation. We're not there yet. So yes, Congressmen. I will continue to write.
Listening to General Conference this last weekend (which was fantastic, and available in full online, and you should go back and read or re-read it all) got me thinking about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The most recent addition to the quorum was Neal L. Andersen, who replaced Joseph B. Wirthlin upon his death. That made me stop and wonder: who did Elder Wirthlin replace? I did a little digging and found that he replaced President Spencer W. Kimball. I started to imagine the quorum as a table surrounded by fifteen chairs (twelve members of the quorum plus the three members of the First Presidency, who are also Apostles). When one member of the quorum leaves, his chair is moved to the back of the line of seniority, and someone takes his place. It's the same chair, though, in this scenario. You could imagine that Elder Andersen moved into Elder Wirthlin's office after it was vacated. So what if each man who sat in that chair, or worked out of that office, carved his name in it? What would those lists look like of who sat in each chair over the years? It's a little trickier than you'd think, as it turns out. The quorum began with twelve members, but the practice of replacing members was much more fluid in the early days of the Church, and the practice of having three members of the quorum (again, for a total of fifteen) serve in the First Presidency didn't really gain steam until the early 1900s, so getting an exact sense of who is taking which seat and which seats are empty for the first sixty years or so was challenging. But that's no reason to back down, right? We start with the original twelve members of the quorum, in order of seniority. Let's number each of their chairs around the table (or offices at Church HQ, if you'd prefer): 1. Thomas B. Marsh 2. David W. Patten 3. Brigham Young 4. Heber C. Kimball 5. Orson Hyde 6. William E. McLellin 7. Parley P. Pratt 8. Luke S. Johnson 9. William Smith 10. Orson Pratt 11. John F. Boynton 12. Lyman E. Johnson Those are the twelve chairs we'll be carving names into. (The remaining three chairs come up a few years later, shortly after the death of Joseph Smith.) (You'll notice Joseph Smith's name doesn't appear on any of these chairs; he was never properly a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.) I'll spare you the chronology of men moving in and out of these seats, but just list below each seat's history. To me, at least, it's really interesting to see which seats had many occupants and which had few, as well as the relative prominence of each seat's occupants. Take a look: Seat 1 Thomas B. Marsh Lyman Wight Charles C. Rich John W. Taylor Orson F. Whitney Charles A. Calliss Delbert L. Stapley James E. Faust Quentin L. Cook Seat 2 David W. Patten Willard Richards Jedediah M. Grant Daniel H. Wells John Henry Smith James E. Talmadge Alonzo A. Hinckley Sylvester Q. Cannon Ezra Taft Benson Jeffrey R. Holland Seat 3 Brigham Young Frances M. Lyman Stephen L. Richards Gordon B. Hinckley D. Todd Christofferson Seat 4 Heber C. Kimball Brigham Young, Jr. Charles W. Penrose Joseph F. Merrill Adam S. Bennion Howard W. Hunter Henry B. Eyring Seat 5 Orson Hyde George Teasdale Joseph Fielding Smith Bruce R. McConkie M. Russell Ballard Seat 6 William E. McLellin George A. Smith Moses Thatcher Matthias F. Cowley David O. McKay Boyd K. Packer Seat 7 Parley P. Pratt George Q. Cannon Hyrum M. Smith Richard R. Lyman Matthew Cowley Hugh B. Brown David B. Haight David A. Bednar Seat 8 Luke S. Johnson John Taylor Anthon H. Lund John A. Widtsoe Richard L. Evans Marvin J. Ashton Robert D. Hales Seat 9 William Smith Amasa M. Lyman Joseph F. Smith Melvin J. Ballard Harold B. Lee L. Tom Perry Seat 10 Orson Pratt Heber J. Grant Henry D. Moyle Thomas S. Monson Seat 11 John F. Boynton John E. Page Ezra T. Benson Albert Carrington Marriner W. Merrill Anthony W. Ivins Albert W. Bowen George Q. Morris N. Eldon Tanner Neal A. Maxwell Dieter F. Uchtdorf Seat 12 Lyman E. Johnson Wilford Woodruff Rudger Clawson Mark E. Petersen Dallin H. Oaks Seat 13 Lorenzo Snow George Albert Smith LeGrand Richards Russell M. Nelson Seat 14 Erastus Snow Abraham H. Cannon Abraham O. Woodruff George F. Richards Marion G. Romney Richard G. Scott Seat 15 Franklin D. Richards Reed Smoot Spencer W. Kimball Joseph B. Wirthlin Neil L. Andersen Whole lotta interesting in there, if you care to dig.
