Liberal Arts Blog — Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly,” Lukas Graham, “Seven Years Old,” Belinda Carlisle “Heaven is a Place on Earth”
Liberal Arts Blog — Thursday is the Joy of Music Day -
Today’s Topic: Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly,” Lukas Graham, “Seven Years Old,” Belinda Carlisle “Heaven is a Place on Earth”
For those new to the blog, posts hop around from country to country and genre to genre. Last time, Shosholoza, South Africa’s “second national anthem.” Two weeks ago, three songs by Ed Sheeran, including “Perfect.” Before that, Ricardo Arjona, the Guatemalan icon, and his signature song “Jesus Es Verbo No Sustantivo” (Jesus is a verb not a noun). In the past few months we’ve tasted the wonders of Joseph Haydn and Mozart but also those of Tracey Chapman and Luke Combs. We’ve been to Vietnam for the “Butterfly Song,”
Thailand for the “Elephant Song,” and Rwanda for “Rwanda Nziza.” Not to mention Neapolitan folk songs featuring Luciano Pavarotti.
The general theme is that the wider the musical net you cast, the greater the opportunity for shared joy with anyone you meet.
Today, a miscellany. Three random songs that stuck with me from the radio. Are you a Roberta Flack fan? What do you think of the Danish rock band, Lukas Graham? Did you know that Belinda Carlisle’s band the GoGos is “the first (and to date only) all-female band in history who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to achieve a №1 album”?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
ROBERTA FLACK (1937 — ) KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS SONG (won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1974, after she had won the year before for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”)
1. “Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with his song, telling my life with his words.”
2. “I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style and so I came to see him to listen for a while, and there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes.”
3. “I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd, I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud, I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on.”
NB: “He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair and then he looked right through me as if I wasn’t there and he just kept on singing, singing clear and strong.”
Roberta Flack — Killing Me Softly With His Song (Official Video)
LUKAS GRAHAM (Danish Band) “SEVEN YEARS OLD” — rated “One of the Top 10 Worst songs of 2016" by Time magazine: “Good luck explaining the meteoric popularity of this (yes, catchy) chewy contemporary pop-rock ballad, which makes a listener yearn for the artistic integrity of a band like Maroon 5.” The song reminds me of the A.E. Housman poem “When I was One and Twenty” as well as Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game,” Disney’s “Circle of Life” and the Beatles’ “When I’m 64.”
1.” Once, I was seven years old, my mama told me “Go make yourself some friends, or you’ll be lonely…Once I was seven years old, It was a big-big world, but we thought we were bigger, pushing each other to the limits, we were learning quicker, by 11, smoking herb and drinking burning liquor, never rich, we were out to make that steady figure.”
2. “Once I was 11 years old my daddy told me, “Go get yourself a wife or you’ll be lonely I always had that dream like my daddy before me, So I started writing songs, I started writing stories, something about the glory just always seemed to bore me ’Cause only those I really love will ever know me.”
3. “Once I was 20 years old, my story got told before the morning sun, when life was lonely, Once I was 20 years old, I only see my goals, I don’t believe in failure, ’Cause I know the smallest voices, they can make it major, I got my boys with me, at least those in favour and if we don’t meet before I leave, I hope I’ll see you later, Once I was 20 years old my story got told I was writing about everything I saw before me. Once I was 20 years old.
NB: Soon we’ll be 30 years old, our songs have been sold, we’ve traveled around the world, and we’re still roaming, Soon, we’ll be 30 years old, I’m still elarning about life, my woman brought children for me, So I can sing them all my songs, and I can tell them stories, most of my boys are with me, some are still out seeking glory, and some I had to leave behind, my brother, and I’m still sorry. Soon I’ll be 60 years old, my daddy got 61 Remember life and then your life becomes a better one. I made the man so happy when I wrote a letter once I hope my children come and visit, once or twice a month. Soon I’ll be 60 years old, will I think the world is cold? Or will I have a lost of children who can warm me? Soon I’ll be 60 years old, will I think the world is cold? Or will I have a lot of children who can hold me? Soon, I’ll be 60 years old.
“Once I was seven years old, my mama told me, Go make yourself some friends or you’ll be lonely…Once I was seven years old….Once I was seven years old…”
Lukas Graham — 7 Years [Official Music Video]
BELINDA CARLISLE (1958 — ) “HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH”
1. “Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth? Ooh, Heaven is a place on earth. They say in Heaven love comes first, We’ll make Heaven a place on earth, Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth.”
2. “When the night falls down, I wait for you, and you come around and the world’s alive with the sound of kids on the street outside, when you walk in the room, you pull me close, and we start to move and we’re spinning with the stars above and you lift me up in a wave of love.”
3. “When I feel alone, I reach for you and you bring me home, when’t I’m lost at sea, I hear your voice and it carries me. In this world we’re just beginning to understand the miracle of livin, Baby, I was afraid before But I’m not afraid anymore.
NB: “Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth? Ooh, Hea en is a place on earth. They say in Heaven, loves come first, We’ll make Heaven a place on Earth. Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth.”
Belinda Carlisle — Heaven Is A Place On Earth (Official Music Video)
BACKGROUND
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukas_Graham
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with. those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
Updating PDFs: 2023 — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Time to share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to music. Or the coolest thing you learned in your life related to music. Say your favorite song or songs. Or your favorite tips for breathing, posture, or relaxation. Or some insight into the history of music….Or just something random about music… like a joke about drummers. jazz, rock….or share an episode or chapter in your musical autobiography.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. And perhaps to cement in your memory something important you would otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters to you.
