beautiful Russian Orthodox choral music

metaphysical intuitions

"Welch takes from her mountain and Southern sources a set of metaphysical intuitions. We are not made for satisfaction. To be a person is often to feel exiled, alone, and predestined. These axioms of Appalachian Protestantism, which you can hear in songs like the Stanley Brothers’ 'Rank Stranger,' are the fixations of Welch’s 'The Harrow & The Harvest' (2011), her fourth and most recent album, whose master theme is fatalism. 'The way that it goes,' 'the way that it ends,' and 'the way it will be' are some of the refrains, and the music feels like being caught in a slow-moving but irresistible force, maybe just the temperamental force of what Welch calls being 'blessed with a dark turn of mind.' The predestination here is to perennially reckon with unruly and obdurate feeling: people cannot help what moves them, what makes them feel alive. Morphine, 'soldier’s joy,' and heroin pop up frequently in Welch’s songwriting, and, like other motifs, feel as much symbolic as literal. The sense of fate in her mature songwriting resembles the feeling of addiction: a blurred line between desires and needs, pleasure and enervation, what feeds you and what consumes you."
 

[from Jedediah Purdy's "Twenty Years of Listening to Gillian Welch"]

there's no use living in regret

[JJ Heller, "This Year"]

i'll find my own way down, as i should

[Ben Howard, "Oats in the Water"]

try and try and try to be simple again

But I'm ain't looking for an easy way out

This whole life it's been about

Try and try and try

And try and try and try

To be simple again

[Songs Ohia, "Just Be Simple"]

dispel with glorious splendour the darkness everywhere

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse's lineage coming,
As men of old have sung;
It came, a flow'ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind;
To show God's love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

O Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel with glorious splendour
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now save us,
And share our every load.

[Theodore Baker, 1894]

L'inverno

Happy Winter. Listening to this everyday until winter is over.

[Vivaldi, Concerto No.4 in F minor, Op.8, RV 297, " L'inverno", Allegro Non Molto]

she must and shall go free

Mercy speaks by Jesus' blood
Hear and sing, ye sons of God
Justice satisfied indeed
Christ has full atonement made
Jesus' blood speaks loud and sweet
Here all deity can meet
And without a jarring voice
Welcome Zion to rejoice
All her debts were cast on me
And she must and shall go free
Peace of conscience, peace with God
We obtain through Jesus' blood
Jesus' blood speaks solid rest
We believe and we are blessed
All her debts were cast on me
And she must and shall go free
Should the law against her roar
Jesus' blood still speaks with power
All her debts were cast on me
And she must and shall go free
All her debts were cast on me
And she must and shall go free

[Derek Webb, "Mercy Speaks"]

To breathe freely in the open air! Oh, what joy!

This one song from Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, makes it worth it.

"To breathe freely in the open air!
Oh, what joy!
Up here, up here alone is life;
the dungeon is a tomb."

when i think i might fall apart

But Frank put it best when he said,

"You can't plan on the heart"

Those words keep me on my feet

when I think I might just fall apart

Oh, there's nothing more to it
I just get through it

[First Aid Kit, "To a Poet"]

prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love."

[Robert Robinson, "Come Thou Fount"]

carrying on with your conspiracies, filling the room with a sense of unease

If you come to find me affable
Build a replica for me
Would the idea to you be laughable
Of a pale facsimile?

So will you come to burn an effigy?
It should keep the flies away
And when you long to burn this effigy
It should be of the hours that slip away, slip away

It could be you, it could be me
Working the door, drinking for free
Carrying on with your conspiracies
Filling the room with a sense of unease

Fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone
Like the words of a man who's spent a little too much time alone
When one has spent too much time alone

So will you come to burn my effigy?
It should keep the flies away
If you long to burn an effigy
It should be of a man whose has lost his way, slips away

It could be you, it could be me
Working the door, drinking for free
Carrying on with your conspiracies
Filling the room with a sense of unease

Fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone
Like the words of a man who's spent a little too much time alone
When one has spent too much time alone

[Andrew Bird, "Effigy"]

My sin has been erased. I'll never be the same.

[Citizens, "Made Alive"]

he told me I have a soul

I feel my shame inside me like a knife

He told me that I have a soul

How does he know?

What spirit came to move my life?

Is there another way to go?

I am reaching, but I fall

And the night is closing in

And I stare into the void

To the whirlpool of my sin

I'll escape now from that world

[from Les Miserables]

Sonata in G

Givanni Paolo Cima, Sonata in G

love quell my doubt and dread

Father whate’er of earthly bliss
Thy sovereign hand denies
Accepted at Thy throne of grace
Let this petition rise 

Let the sweet hope that thou art mine
My life and death attend
Thy presence through my journey shine
And crown my journey’s end 

Give me a calm, a thankful heart
From every murmur free
The blessings of Thy grace impart
And make me live to Thee 

You raise your hand to still the storms
That rage inside my head
Revive my heart with gratitude
Love quell my doubt and dread 

Give me a sure and rested soul
From every fear relieve
The spirit’s power and presence mine
To ever comfort me 

Give me a sure, a restful heart
From every fear relieve
Thy spirit’s power and presence mine
To ever comfort me. 

Give me a calm, a thankful heart
From every murmur free
The blessings of thy grace impart
And make me live to thee. 

[Anne Steele & Sandra McCracken, "Petition"]

Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor

This is the next song I want to learn on the piano. Breathtaking.

i am mediocrity with the name of disaster

I am mediocrity with the name disaster
Called into the chosen ones with a hope in the here and hereafter

[Tim Coons, "The Back Window"] 

everything good comes from You, Father of Lights

Love has a voice.
Love has a name.
Jesus.

["Father of Lights," Jesus Culture]

beautiful.

[Andrew Bird, "Beyond the Valley of the Three White Horses"]