Music at the start of 2008

Since it's the first day of a brand new year, I figured it'd be good to listen to songs that cheer and inspire the spirit. I can't think of a better song than Feist's (one of last year's "it" female singers) contribution to the film "Paris, je t'aime."

Here are the English and French versions:

"We're all in the dance"

"La meme histoire"

(dancing dragon, if you're reading this, know that I still think of you whenever I listen to the song. Hope you're doing well.)

Another song that gets plenty of airtime in my study is Peter Mayer's "Now Touch the Air Softly," which manages to sound traditional and romantic and timeless all at once. It's a song I like listening to late at night when it gets quiet and I sit by an open window dreaming of distant worlds and other lives. I love how the lyrics conjure up images that start from the small spaces of a home - a country house - then widen to rivers, mountains, and an open sky awash with stars.

However, Mayer didn't write the lyrics; William Jay Smith, a poet, did. In 2004, he wrote -

"As a lyric poet I have been pleased also to find that my poems have for many years attracted the attention of composers, jazz musicians, and folk singers. Recent concerts in Rome at the American Academy and in Paris at the Atelier de la Main d'Or by Ned Rorem, Liz Peterson, Donna Kelly Eastman, and Stephen Berg have presented prominent singers in settings of my poetry for both adults and children. This development has given me particular pleasure since I like to think of myself as part of the Southern oral tradition. One of the poems that has been a favorite with composers and is frequently sung at weddings is the following:

Now Touch the Air Softly

Now touch the air softly,
Step gently. One, two …
I'll love you till roses
Are robin's-egg blue;
I'll love you till gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender's red.

Now touch the air softly,
Swing gently the broom.
I'll love you till windows
Are all of a room;
And the table is laid,
And the table is bare,
And the ceiling reposes
On bottomless air.

I'll love you till Heaven
Rips the stars from his coat,
And the Moon rows away in
A glass-bottomed boat;
And Orion steps down
Like a diver below,
And Earth is ablaze,
And Ocean aglow.

So touch the air softly,
And swing the broom high.
We will dust the gray mountains,
And sweep the blue sky;
And I'll love you as long
As the furrow the plow,
As However is Ever,
And Ever is Now.

Posted by Monoceros at January 1, 2008 8:26 PM