All My Favorite Singers Couldn't Sing
I had been a Pavement fan for a while, but it took Matt Earl to introduce me to the Silver Jews during my student teaching experience, senior year at Houghton. Matt, a member of the Houghton soccer team, all-around popular guy, was also one of the nicest guys I knew at Houghton (Abigail always says, "oh, the elf"). During student teaching we would commiserate, and Matt always kept a bottle of whiskey under the driver seat of his old lemon of a car. Matt gave me a tape copy of the album American Water.
"We are real" is not the best song on the album, but it does contain the best single line on the album (which is the title of this post)...
You can listen to it here:
We are real (note: this is another YouSendIt link that expires in a week or 25 downloads, whichever comes first)
Due to Scott's prompting, I was over at Farmer Buie's blog and left a couple of comments, which I'll re-post here for everyone's benefit (ha!)....
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As far as rock music goes, here are a few comments from the current Bishop of Rome (dating back to when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger):
"On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. “Rock”, on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit’s sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments."
Source: The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 148
Where I found it:
Milites Veritatis
"... Rock music seeks release through liberation from the personality and its responsibility ... [it is] among the anarchic ideas of freedom which today [1985] predominate more openly in the West than in the East. But that is precisely why rock music is so completely antithetical to the Christian concept of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite. Hence music of this type must be excluded from the Church on principle, and not merely for aesthetic reasons, or because of restorative crankiness or historical inflexibility."
Source: Address to the XVIII International Church Music Congress in Rome, November 17, 1985, translated as "Liturgy in Church Music" in Sacred Music, Vol 112 No 4 (Winter 1985).
Where I found it: Asia Times Online
Now I'm going to go listen to some Dock Boggs and you should all do the same.
For the record:
I listen to rock music.
I love raw milk.
(I didn't include it in my original comment, but I wanted to half-heartedly tongue-in-cheek suggest that those involved in this debate are closet Papists)
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and then, my follow-up comment:
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No, I had never listened to Un-Reconstructed. I've now listened to samples available on their website. My opinion, from what I've heard now....
They are good as far as technique and present decent arrangements of 19th century songs, but... they don't have the same soul of a Dock Boggs. I can't imagine anyone writing an article like this about them.
In my opinion, there aren't too many excellent modern interpreters of Anglo-American folk music (though there are some).
If you really care about "old-timey" music, then go to the sources. We're blessed today to have readily available the efforts of early and mid twentieth century men like Alan Lomax and Mike Seeger that went into homes and prisons and countrysides and recorded real people, housewives, murderers, coal miners, singing real songs. We have these recordings, and there is no excuse to not be familiar with them, unless you were even more blessed to have these songs passed down to you by your father and your grandfather and you know them by heart. These songs were our heritage, yet we have been robbed of them, and given a platter of feces in their stead.
I'd suggest starting with Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music if you're interested at all.
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-
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I love folk music, and I'm convinced that folk's true heirs are closer to Drag City than to Rounder.
I had been a Pavement fan for a while, but it took Matt Earl to introduce me to the Silver Jews during my student teaching experience, senior year at Houghton. Matt, a member of the Houghton soccer team, all-around popular guy, was also one of the nicest guys I knew at Houghton (Abigail always says, "oh, the elf"). During student teaching we would commiserate, and Matt always kept a bottle of whiskey under the driver seat of his old lemon of a car. Matt gave me a tape copy of the album American Water.
"We are real" is not the best song on the album, but it does contain the best single line on the album (which is the title of this post)...
You can listen to it here:
We are real (note: this is another YouSendIt link that expires in a week or 25 downloads, whichever comes first)
Due to Scott's prompting, I was over at Farmer Buie's blog and left a couple of comments, which I'll re-post here for everyone's benefit (ha!)....
-
As far as rock music goes, here are a few comments from the current Bishop of Rome (dating back to when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger):
"On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. “Rock”, on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit’s sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments."
Source: The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 148
Where I found it:
Milites Veritatis
"... Rock music seeks release through liberation from the personality and its responsibility ... [it is] among the anarchic ideas of freedom which today [1985] predominate more openly in the West than in the East. But that is precisely why rock music is so completely antithetical to the Christian concept of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite. Hence music of this type must be excluded from the Church on principle, and not merely for aesthetic reasons, or because of restorative crankiness or historical inflexibility."
Source: Address to the XVIII International Church Music Congress in Rome, November 17, 1985, translated as "Liturgy in Church Music" in Sacred Music, Vol 112 No 4 (Winter 1985).
Where I found it: Asia Times Online
Now I'm going to go listen to some Dock Boggs and you should all do the same.
For the record:
I listen to rock music.
I love raw milk.
(I didn't include it in my original comment, but I wanted to half-heartedly tongue-in-cheek suggest that those involved in this debate are closet Papists)
-
and then, my follow-up comment:
-
No, I had never listened to Un-Reconstructed. I've now listened to samples available on their website. My opinion, from what I've heard now....
They are good as far as technique and present decent arrangements of 19th century songs, but... they don't have the same soul of a Dock Boggs. I can't imagine anyone writing an article like this about them.
In my opinion, there aren't too many excellent modern interpreters of Anglo-American folk music (though there are some).
If you really care about "old-timey" music, then go to the sources. We're blessed today to have readily available the efforts of early and mid twentieth century men like Alan Lomax and Mike Seeger that went into homes and prisons and countrysides and recorded real people, housewives, murderers, coal miners, singing real songs. We have these recordings, and there is no excuse to not be familiar with them, unless you were even more blessed to have these songs passed down to you by your father and your grandfather and you know them by heart. These songs were our heritage, yet we have been robbed of them, and given a platter of feces in their stead.
I'd suggest starting with Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music if you're interested at all.
-
-
-
I love folk music, and I'm convinced that folk's true heirs are closer to Drag City than to Rounder.
posted by trawlerman at 8:12 PM
3 Comments:
John,
Christopher Blosser had an interesting related post:
http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/02/on-rockers-who-find-god-and-devils.html
He states:
"So, parting question for the readers: Is there something intrinsically wrong -- as Ratzinger seems to suggest -- in the form of rock itself, and not just the lyrical content? Is rock capable of being "morally rehabilitated" once purged of morally objectionable lyrical content, or is there something intrisically wrong with the form of rock itself (as religious critics like Cardinal Ratzinger, and secular critics like Alan Bloom, might suggest)? And does the validity of the Cardinal's critique extend to other genres as well (hip-hop, techno, industrial, et al.)?"
In answer to the question Chris poses I believe that rock can be expressed consistant with a Christianity (and without being explicitly Christian), and don't believe the genre is intrinsically immoral or evil.
But I also think certain genres tend to the expression of dicordant, disharmony, confusion, anarchy, and can promote the same within the soul. As such they are not suited and can not be reconciled with liturgical worship.
For the Record:
--I'm a Papist,
--I listen to Rock music,
--I love raw milk (having growed
up on it my creamy complexion I
credit to that frothy rawness).
"... we have been robbed of them, and given a platter of feces in their stead."
I especially liked the use of the English language here.
Bring some of your best folk with you next week, Please.
Good thing Ratzinger was standing up when he said these things... I'd hate to see him getting anywhere near that cathedra. :)_
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