The Ark and The Dove

If I Could Read Your Mind, Then Maybe I'd Have Some Idea What The Heck You're Talking About

So as a result of that radio station I mentioned earlier, I had, for a while, that Gordon Lightfoot song "If You Could Read My Mind" stuck in my head.  Listening to this song made me feel the way people must feel when they are following everything I'm saying until I fog the issue by trying to explain it through a metaphor based on particle physics or something, only he starts with the bizarre metaphor and then (fortunately) moves on to progressively less bizarre metaphors and finally to plain explanation of how he feels.

Let's analyze some of the lyrics.

If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts would tell,
Ok, the intro.  So far all right.
Just like an old-time movie about a ghost from a wishing well
Whoops, now you've lost me.  But I don't know that much about movies, so maybe I'll just take old Gordon's word for it that ghosts from wishing wells are a standard feature of old-time movies.
In a castle dark, or a fortress strong, with chains upon my feet.
Wait a minute, forget wishing wells - he's imprisoned in a castle or a fortress with chains.  Even though he's a ghost.  Someone tell me if you know of movies where this is a standard plot so I can understand what's going on.
You know the ghost is me.
Ok, the ghost is you, and...
And I will never be set free as long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.
Wait, wait, try to imagine what the movie script would be like.  There're so many unanswered questions.  How did the ghost get from the wishing well to the castle?  Who imprisoned him and why? Somewhat improbably, someone's managed to chain him up in there, even though he's a ghost (ghosts typically being known for their incorporeality), and invisible.  Yet he can't be set free unless he either stops being a ghost or at least stops being invisible.  Now I'm totally confused.

Perhaps the narrator is like a ghost in a dungeon in that his thoughts are invisible (like a ghost) and walled up inside his head (a sort of a fortress), and thus the captive ghost is a metaphor for his inability to manifest what he's thinking and feeling to his girlfriend.  Even though this is clever, it still sounds like one of those things that made sense in your dream, but then when you woke up and tried to explain it to people they didn't get it.  Plus the confusion of, '"Y'know, it's like in that movie." - "No, I don't know.'

Add to the weirdness the fact that the way the music goes gives it a fair amount of emotional earnestness, if your friends don't know the song, they're likely to wonder what you've been smoking.

Rock and Roll, part III

I suppose I'm not against all alternative rock, but there's a lot I don't like, never have, and probably never will.  Specifically the kind characterized by angry-sounding shouting of lyrics.  I just can't identify with that kind of rage.  I don't have tides of pent-up rage needing to get out.  I probably prefer rock that hasn't lost touch with the bluesy roots of rock.

Exuberance

So someone mentioned to me the other day about Protestants complaining about how Catholics are dull and dead at Mass, as opposed to vibrant, enthusiastic Protestant services.  Around the time of hearing that I heard some Gospel music and went to a Sunday Mass where the choir sang very emotionally effusive music, but probably 90% of the congregation wasn't buying it.

I don't know about you, but if I was required to make a big emotional display every time I walked into church, I would virtually never go to church (if I was Protestant).  If the Catholic Church really required that, I would hide in the back, come late and leave early.  The great big emotional display every time at church thing only works if 1.) you are one of the small percentage people who just naturally find it easy to make big emotional displays all the time about everything you're happy about 2.) you are one of the small percentage of people who can induce those sorts of emotional overflows in yourself at will, like how some people can cry on cue, 3.) you can fake it reasonably well, or 4.) you only have to go to church when you feel like it.

If you're a #1 or #2 person, you might not understand the rest of us.  After all, you may say, if you're so happy and joyful about Jesus, then why don't you act more like it?  Look at married people, though, including those who really love each other a lot and have really good, happy marriages.  Do they have to make a huge emotional display every time they see each other?  No, they don't.  Most people can't walk around like that all the time no matter how happy they are.  And wouldn't it be weird and unhealthy to force it at times when it doesn't come naturally?  Sometimes a simple "I love you" or hand-holding or loving look can say as much as any extravagant display, especially if the former is sincere and the latter is forced.

Now, Protestant congregations differ from the Catholic Church and Catholic parishes in significant ways.  Protestant congregations can cater to a specific sort of person and don't have to worry about taking diverse sorts of people, so you can easily have a congregation made up mostly of people for whom #1 and #2 are applicable.  The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is universal - has to take all sorts - and a parish also cannot segregate, but typically (or ideally) has all sorts.  I would hope that most everyone would find #3 as dreadful as I do.  Number 4 is not a legitimate option for Catholics.

Ideally the music at Mass would be music that does not demand emotional effusiveness to perform properly, but it is open to it.  Gregorian chant and "traditional" hymns are good for this.

But what really has been the case in recent times is that the people of the #1 and #2 type gravitate towards the music ministry in parishes and take it over, with help from the status quo which heaven help you if you try to challenge, and the icy warm fuzzy black hand of hymnal publishing companies.  Ostensibly this is a popular movement, and it sort of is in a tortured way, but it really ends up excluding most of the average folks in the pews in your typical parish, which typically has abysmal congregational singing because it holds up something as an ideal which does not respect peoples' feelings and which is impracticable for most every Catholic parish.

Sacred music in the news

There is a rumor that Pope Benedict may make a statement on sacred music sometime soon.  This is a matter that is close to his heart.  Maybe on St. Cecilia's Day.

Where has the classical music gone?

If you read about music history, you know that classical music used to be "popular" music, as in music actually patronized by people.  But what is the modern analog?

Steven of Flos Carmeli suggests that movie music has replaced formal classical music as the classical music of our time.  What interesting idea - I never thought about it that way.

Rock and Roll Part II

Did I mention how much I like Chicago?  A lot. 

See, to my way of thinking, every sort of music there is except maybe Gregorian chant could be improved by having a really good brass section as a prominent feature.  This is right in line with Chicago's take on rock - jazz it up with high-power, high-energy trumpets and trombones.  Awesome.  In the marching band we did a Chicago show and I loved it.  As much oomph as some of their songs have, imagine them with the big, big sound of the Mighty Sound of Maryland behind it.

I always assumed that when I found out what it was "really" about I wouldn't really be able to like Twenty-five or Six to Four because it would be about drugs, like everything is.  Apparently, though, it's really (at least in the primary interpretation) a song about trying to write a song at the last minute.  Next time you hear it, listen to the words and hear how well they bear out that interpretation.  Very amusing.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, vis-a-vis the title, as a band guy I can't start it.  But no one's stopping the student section.

Thomas' adventures in Rock and Roll Land

Because I am not entirely averse to stories that may make me look a little silly as long as it is a good story, I will let you in on my ongoing attempts at broadening my musical horizons.

Now, for a great many people, broadening their musical horizons would mean listening to Mozart and Beethoven and classical music.  For me, however, for whom classical is already my favorite, it involves listening to rock music.

I don't want to make it seem as though I have lived in some sort of bubble where I never encountered it before, but I never really got "into" it, or felt any pressure to, because it didn't appeal to me all that much and my degree of indifference to popularity or fashionability as a motive (a two-edged sword, because it can either make people respect and look up to you as an independent or original thinker or dismiss you as a hopeless dweeb).  Also, my parents were not fans (or at least not by the time I was born) so it was not always "around" in the house.

Some time ago I decided that since I like Romantic-era music, and I like jazz, and blues, it would be unreasonable to maintain a prejudice against all rock music and that doing so was a sort of of posturing that I hate anyway.  Also, it is such an important influence on and expression of contemporary culture that it would be unreasonable to ignore it.  So after a while of trying to find out what the "best" rock was to form my opinions of, and realizing that building a collection would be expensive and might just result in too narrow a selection, I found some radio stations that promised the "best" and let them give me a selection.

Since hearing my experiences of listening to - rather than just hearing - rock for the first time might be amusing to people who consider it "normal" music much in the way I, a twenty-something American, was so terribly amused by Bill Bryson's book about coming back to America after twenty years of living in Britain, except that I can't be expected to be as funny as Bill Bryson.

So if you see posts about a song "everyone" knows that sound like it's being written by someone who's heard it for the first time, this is the context for that.