From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V10 #51 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Tuesday, March 24 2009 Volume 10 : Number 051 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Gethsemani Goodbye [Chris Foxwell ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:46:30 +0200 From: Chris Foxwell Subject: [RS] Gethsemani Goodbye Um. I was planning to write one big collection of thoughts about the new album, but I haven't yet listened to it enough to let it sink in and kick about. That will be forthcoming, hopefully. But I just had to say something about "Gethsemani Goodbye." In a nutshell: holy crap. I love this song. I know nothing about Gethsemani or Thomas Merton (other than reading some of Merton's theology in school, the memories of which have mostly faded), but even before I start looking into that, this is easily one of my favorite songs on the album, perhaps my single favorite. Because it is, simply put, really really beautiful. Not so much the tale being told--again, more on that later--but simply the sound of the song. Richard's voice, the melody, everything. This is rather an odd criterion with which to establish favoritism, for me at least. I'm drawn to Richard's music mostly because of how polished, how literary and intricate, his writing is. The facts that many of his songs happen to be musically pretty and that he plays a mean guitar are icing on the cake for me. "Transit" is pretty much my favorite song of his, with "On a Sea of Fleur-de-lis" one of my favorites because of the beauty of what's being described. But this one...man, I don't know. I find myself listening to it over and over again because it's so damned beautiful. Kind of like "The Island" in *Vuelta*, although much (much) moreso. For one thing, I can't recall another song of Richard's in which his voice is so...gentle, tender. Warm. Yeah, I think "warm" is the best word for it. Without losing any power or projection, his voice somehow seems really warm and glowing in this song. (That probably sounds stupid, but attempts to articulate raw visceral impacts often are. ) I love that. And the melody is just really pretty. The kicker, though, might be the tone intervals he jumps in the middle of each chorus repetition, the low-to-high jump followed by the high-to-low jump. Especially the second one, the high-to-low. (In the first instance, it occurs with the lyrics "the circles" / "slipped away.") I may be predisposed to react thusly to those intervals, by an earlier association; those *exact *intervals appear in another song I know, and produced--or evoked in time--a similar reaction in me. I have no idea which song this is, or by whom, or even in what genre; I just know that there is one. Man. I love it. Just had to share that before moving on. I hope Richard makes it a regular inclusion in his live shows! Chris - -- "We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water." - --J.R.R. Tolkien ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V10 #51 ***********************************