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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:
But finally, with about six hours to go in 2015, I figured it out:
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.
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:
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.
#1 "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (music: John Baptiste Calkin, lyrics: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, based on Luke 2:14)
You might be wondering why I would choose this hymn as the top of the fourteen considering it mentions neither Jesus nor His birth. There are no shepherds, no angels, no Joseph, Mary, or wise men. You could argue that the only reason this is a Christmas hymn at all is because the narrator happened to hear the bells on Christmas day. It could just as easily be "I Heard the Bells on Easter Day," couldn't it?
And yet when I made my list, this was the easy #1 in my mind, challenged only briefly by "Silent Night." This one's my very favorite. The lyrics are beautiful and share a powerful sentiment. The tune is wonderful and has been in my head since I came up with the idea for these posts (which was, incidentally, while I was singing this very hymn). And while I don't like to focus on this as much, the backstory to the lyrics is powerful, too.
Longfellow's son enlisted enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War against his wishes. He was severely wounded only a few months later in November. At nearly the same time, Longfellow's wife perished in a fire. In his grief, he wrote the poem "Christmas Bells," which was set to music and became this hymn.
It's a hymn of sadness, despair, and grieving. It's a hymn about a crisis of faith. Longfellow writes that he has long heard the "unbroken song of peace on earth, goodwill to men," but now questions whether or not it is still true. He saw war, destruction, and agony all around him. Was God still there? How could He be if He allowed his son to be wounded fighting for what he thought was right? And how could He allow his wife to be taken in an accidental fire?
And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
The image of hate mocking the notion of peace on earth is a painful one. It's one thing to oppose peace, but another altogether to mock and demean it once it has been defeated. Longfellow must have felt that fate was being cruelly spiteful in taking both his wife and son from him. And surely, he must have felt that it was not fate, but God himself mocking him. His wife's death was an accident, yes, but one in which she was doing something entirely innocent. She was saving locks of her children's hair in an envelope and sealing them with wax, and somehow her dress caught fire, fatally burning her. To add insult to injury, Longfellow too was burnt, severely enough that he could not attend the funeral.
We all go through similar crises of faith in our lives, though perhaps not as dramatic. We wonder if God is really there, and if He knows our pain. We wonder why there is so much evil in the world and why He does not intervene. We may even wonder if, rather than loving us, He takes pleasure in our suffering, since we endure so much of it. We go through dark times, we hurt, we ache, and we doubt.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."
Through the darkness, a beam of light comes through. God lives, He loves us, and He hears us despite our pains and suffering. His hand is active, even if we can't always see it. He is always there. The bells never stopped ringing; it was we who stopped hearing them. The angels' song has never ceased. We stop, we listen, and we once again tune our ears to the ringing of the bells. The world revolves from night to day, and we regain our trust in our Father, who sent His Son to give us reason to listen to the bells at all.
It's a Christmas message after all, even if the nativity isn't mentioned. The Savior lives that we might not die. In time, war, anger, and hatred will fade away, leaving only a voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good will to men.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Previously in this series
#2 Silent Night
#3 The First Noel
#4 Away in a Manger
#5 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
#6 Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
#7 Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#2 "Silent Night" (tune: Franz Gruber, text: Joseph Mohr, based on Luke 2:7-14)
I had a tough time deciding which of the two remaining hymns should be #1 and which should be #2. "Silent Night" is, to me, the holiest of the fourteen hymns. Some of the other hymns leave me a feeling of reverence, but only this one makes me feel as though I'm on sacred ground. There's something about the slow, gentle melody that gives me goosebumps to hear it.
It seems to be a universal feeling, too. "Silent Night" is the only one of our fourteen that has been declared a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. On Christmas Eve during World War I, British, French, and German soldiers came out of their foxholes and trenches and sang this song together, each in their own language. That's partially because this was the hymn that everyone knew, but I like to think that even if each of them knew all fourteen, this was the hymn they would have chosen.
And why would they have chosen this one? Simply put, the theme of the hymn is peace. The word itself only appears twice ("sleep in heavenly peace"), but peace echoes in every verse. The night is silent and holy, the mother and child are tender and mild, and the love of the newborn is pure. Many of the hymns we've heard about earlier highlight the joy that came at this night, and there's joy here, but it's quiet and restrained. We feel love more than celebration.
It's the love we sing about in the third verse that touches me most about this hymn. The child is described as, well, listen:
Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, lord, at thy birth;
Jesus, lord, at thy birth.
I had never held a newborn in my arms until my daughter was born. She was good, and she was pure, but I don't know that I could have described her as beaming love's pure light. She was indifferent, she was upset, she was tired, but beatific she was not. Not so with the infant Jesus. I don't know that this is strict doctrine, but He is described as being perfectly calm and exuding the pure love of God. Even in that tiny manger, the magnitude of who He was and His mission here on earth was clear. The animals knew, Mary and Joseph knew, and the shepherds no doubt knew once they arrived on the scene.
Not only could they feel His pure love, but they knew that His birth marked the dawn of redeeming grace. They may not have known that from just seeing the baby, but the angels surely sang it to them. We've sung about this earlier: through Him, God and sinners are reconciled. Mankind was fallen, and His birth was the beginning of a new age in which we could return from that state into something purer.
I think what's most touching about this is the intimacy we feel. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are there, and the shepherds may be there, but that's all. It's quite possibly the single most important event in human history thus far, and only a handful of people are there to witness it and feel the outpouring of love from the Father and His Son. And when we sing this hymn, we get to listen in, even if just for a moment. We get to feel love's pure light. It almost feels like I'm intruding on something private when I hear the hymn, but then, I imagine that someone so possessed of that holy love would be happy to welcome me in.
Christ, the Savior, is born.
Previously in this series
#3 The First Noel
#4 Away in a Manger
#5 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
#6 Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
#7 Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#3 "The First Noel" (music and lyrics: traditional 17th c. English carol, based on Luke 2:8-20)
For a long time, this was my very favorite of the fourteen. My placing it at number three is less an indictment of the song and more of a mark of how much I've grown to love the top two. The melody is absolutely beautiful to me, rising and falling gently as the refrains of noel, noel float over everything. I'm not sure what it is about the tune, but it even feels a little cold to me. I can picture myself rubbing my hands together, blowing in them, and stamping my feet to keep warm in a field with my sheep.
There's no scriptural evidence that I'm aware of that the birth of the Savior took place in winter (I suppose you could figure it out if you knew when all the world was taxed by Augustus), but it's inarguable that no matter the time of year, the shepherds could have looked up that night and seen a star. The account in Luke doesn't actually mention the star, but I picture the shepherds seeing the star before the angels. They looked up into the night sky and saw something unmistakable. I don't think the shepherds were intimately familiar with the stars. They probably didn't need to use them for navigation, so they may not have known the constellations, but they wouldn't have needed to in order to see the star of Bethlehem. The sign wasn't given so that you could only see it if you knew just when and where to look. It was given to announce the birth of the King of Israel to the whole world, and to the earth it gave great light.
To all the earth, no less. We've talked about them before, but there were those in the Americas looking to the birth of their Savior, too. When He was born, there was no darkness that night as a sign to them, and after that day and a night and a day, a new star appeared in the sky. I couldn't say whether or not it was the same star, or whether or not it was a star at all or a supernova or a nebula or what, but I can say that it was the same God who provided the sign. He tells us so himself. Listen:
Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son—of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given. (3 Nephi 1:13-14)
He promised, and He delivered. That night was the sign given. He came to His own, whether it be shepherds, wise men, a humble virgin mother, or even the animals in the stable. So too can we look up, see the star, and be of good cheer. He comes to His own.
Previously in this series
#4 Away in a Manger
#5 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
#6 Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
#7 Far, Far Away in Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#4 "Away in a Manger" (music: William J. Kirkpatrick, text anonymous, based on Luke 2:7)
When I set out to write about these fourteen hymns, I did it mostly to give me a reason to write about the top three, each of which I'm very excited for. When I drew up the list, there was a clear divide for me between the top three hymns and the remaining eleven. The more I thought about them, though, the more I realized that this hymn wasn't so far off from the others. In fact, the more I listen to it, the more I realize that it's really terrific.
Let's start with the obvious aspect that sets this hymn apart from the other thirteen: it's a lullaby. (Yes, "Silent Night" is also a lullaby, but I don't think it's nearly as salient a feature of the hymn as it is with this one.) It's in three, it has simple tonal harmonies, and the lyrics encourage the hearer to be calm and go to sleep. It's the sort of song I could picture being played on a Fisher-Price record player. I tried to find either a recording of the song on such a record player or a way that I could create my own, but I couldn't find anything, so you'll have to imagine it, I'm afraid.
So who are we singing the lullaby to? We're singing it to baby Jesus Himself. We spend the first verse singing about Him, but the second and third transition to addressing Him directly. You know the first verse; listen now to the second:
The cattle are lowing; the poor baby wakes,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.
I love thee, Lord Jesus; look down from the sky
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
There's an interesting transition from addressing the baby in the cradle to a resident of heaven, and in fact, when we make that switch, it's fair to say that we're reversing roles. Where once we sang to a tiny baby as gentle parents, we now approach our gentle Lord as relative infants ourselves. Infants go through a wild variety of emotions and don't know why they feel what they do. We may find ourselves in the same situation, and here we turn to the Lord and ask Him to "stay close by me forever, and love me." If babies could talk, I imagine they might say something similar.
I have a baby daughter of my own, which colors my experience hearing this hymn. When she's crying and doesn't know why, sometimes I pick her up and hold her close. I'll rock back and forth, I'll try to make soothing sounds, and I'll tell her what a sweet baby she is. I tell her that I love her, and I do. It comforts both of us.
So when I hear the words, "I love thee, Lord Jesus," I can picture myself holding the tiny King in my arms, being overcome with the majesty of who it is I'm holding, but also with my love for Him who made it possible for God and sinners to be reconciled. And when I sing "and stay by my cradle till morning is nigh," I can picture myself being held close. I can picture being told that I am loved, and that He is near.
The lullaby is for the baby, but it's also for "all the dear children in [His] tender care." We sing it to Him, and He sings it to us. We comfort Him, and He comforts us. We love Him, and He loves us.
Previously in this series
#5 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
#6 Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
#7 Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#5 "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (music: Felix Mendelssohn, lyrics: Charles Wesley, based on Luke 2:8-14)
Every word in this song, with the exception of the first line, is a word that we're to understand as being sung by an angel, and maybe not even all of the first line. It could either be "'Hark!' the herald angels sing," or "Hark! The herald angels sing:" The title of the hymn capitalizes "the," suggesting the second reading, in which a third-person narrator tells us to listen to the herald angels; the lyrics themselves don't capitalize "the," suggesting the first reading, in which the angels themselves ask us to listen. I'm not sure it really matters who is saying "hark," but in either case, we're asked to pay attention to what the angels have to say to us.
Most of what they sing are the sorts of praises and shouts of glory we've read about before, but before long, we're treated to a fantastic description of why it's so marvelous that Jesus was born. Right out of the gate, we get the line that I chose for the title of this post: Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. He came to bring peace, and He came to reunite us with the Father we estranged ourselves from through sin. That's not to say that He drags us back to our Father's presence, but He does reintroduce us and give us the chance to make amends.
And how does he do it? The second verse gives us some clues. He reconciles us not by changing the mind of God or the rules of the heavenly game, but by softening our hearts. Life and light to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. He changes our desire, which lets us change the direction we're traveling from away from heaven to toward it. And He does it as an example of humility to us, despite the magnitude of the sacrifice. Listen:
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
He was born that we may be reborn. He died that we may live. And as we learned earlier, the angels sing His song just as they always have. It floats over all the weary world, and all we have to do is bend an ear to hear them sing.
Hark!
Previously in this series
#6 Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
#7 Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#6 "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful" (music and lyrics: attributed to John F. Wade, trans. Frederick Oakley, based on Luke 2:8-20)
Although the English translation is enduring in the western world, the original Latin is nearly equally well-known. I'm no expert on Latin, but I've studied Romance languages enough to know that Oakley's translation is pretty close to the source text, although I have one minor quibble, which I'll come back to. We are directed to sing majestically, and I think the Latin lyrics provide a certain sense of majesty that is missing from the English. Judge for yourself:
Here's what they're singing:
Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes
Venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum venite
Regem angelorum;
Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus Dominum.
The hymn celebrates the arrival of the infant Jesus, but emphasizes his coming not as an infant, but as a King ("born the King of angels," as it says). And in reverence to the king, we sing His praise. We join with the choirs of angels, we sing in exultation, all of us citizens of heaven above.
The Latin makes a reference to His role as ruler that is lost in our English hymnals, though, and I want to point it out here. The third verse, in one of my favorite melodic passages in sacred verse, has us sing, "Son of the Father, now in flesh appearing." And yet the Latin reads, "Patris aeterni, Verbum caro factum." You don't have to hold a doctorate in Latin to recognize the word verbum instead of filium. In Latin, we sing of the coming of the Word of the Father, not His Son, and while scripture tells us that one is the other, the emphasis on one role over the other is no accident. In Latin, we offer praises to our ruler and king.
And yet, His more approachable role as Son feels more in keeping with the preceding lines, "Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning." We've been waiting for His coming, and now that He has come, we greet Him not as a ruler to be feared, but as a friend to be welcomed with open arms. His coming is met with reverence and majesty, yes, but since we, too, are sons and daughters of the Father, we rejoice to see the arrival of our Brother. He is come, and He is good, and surely that makes it a happy morning. Incidentally, this is the only hymn that refers to the time of day as "morning" rather than "night." I won't pretend to know what time of day the Savior was born, nor will I suggest that the contradiction implies some sort of doctrinal failing, but I might suggest that the morning is symbolic of the dawning of a new age in which God and sinners are reconciled.
But that, of course, is a story for another hymn.
Previously in this series
#7 Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
#7 "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains" (music and lyrics: John Menzies Macfarlane, based on Luke 2:8-20)
This is the only hymn of the fourteen in which the chorus is longer than the verses themselves; the familiar refrain of "glory to God in the highest" is four lines compared to the two allotted for each verse. That makes it an easy hymn to sing if you aren't familiar with the lyrics, since you can just wait for the chorus to come back around, but for someone like me looking for nuggets to uncover in the lyrics, that makes it a little challenging.
And yet, the extra-long chorus is so long for a reason. Each verse ends with a colon. The chorus represents the song of the angels in the first two verses, and in the final two, it represents the song of our own hearts. The song is one and the same:
Glory to God, Glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest;
Peace on earth, goodwill to men;
Peace on earth, goodwill to men!
It's the same message we've heard from each of these hymns, although I'd draw your attention to the exclamation point at the end. While most of these hymns have been quiet and reverent in tone, this one encourages loud rejoicing. The hymnbook recommends that we sing "joyfully," which is hardly surprising; the word "joy" appears twice ("joyous" and "rejoice") in those short verses. We've shown our reverence and respect for the newborn King; in this hymn, we get to celebrate.
There's one other unique word in this hymn, though, that I particularly want to emphasize to you. Of the fourteen Christmas hymns, this is the only one that uses the word "help." In fact, none of the other hymns includes any sort of request for aid, though "Away in a Manger" comes closest ("I ask thee to stay"). Here's where it appears in verse three:
Lord, with the angels we too would rejoice
Help us to sing with the heart and voice.
We hear the songs and shouts. We hear the joy from the angels. And we want to join in, only maybe our voice can't communicate that feeling as well as they can. Maybe our hearts aren't as softened and pure as their are. We give it our all, but somehow, it's just not quite enough. And so we ask the Lord, the Lord who is paradoxically in the very cradle we're singing about, to help make our hearts as the angels' so we can sing like them.
The reason we sing this chorus at all is because He can heal our hearts to be able to sing with the heart and voice, and He does. We turn to Him with that desire, and He makes it possible. And as our hearts unite with the angels', we sing that fourth verse, waiting for others to join with us:
Hasten the time when, from ev'ry clime,
Men shall unite in the strains sublime:
Glory to God, Glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest;
Peace on earth, goodwill to men;
Peace on earth, goodwill to men!
Previously in this series
#8 Once in Royal David's City
#9 Angels We Have Heard on High
#10 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
#11 O Little Town of Bethlehem
#12 With Wondering Awe
#13 Joy to the World
#14 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
