Riu Riu Chiu - The Monkees

I found this lovely little number by the Monkees last Christmas and put it on my Mp3.  It's a beautiful old Spanish Carol done acapella by the boys. They all have quite lovely voices and the harmonies in this carol are beautiful. I'd never heard this carol before. It was wonderful discovering a carol so beautiful that I'd never heard before.  Here's Riu Riu Chiu as done by the Monkees in what could be called an early music video. Actually, one of the Monkees, Michael Naismith was one of the first producers of modern music videos.

If anyone has any suggestions for little known carols, drop me a note. I'd like to discover a new carol this Christmas. The older the better....


Tom

Do They See Jesus in Me

Once again, my second favorite singer in all the world (her Mama is still my #1 favorite) with a song for Sabbath.  I tell people Meghan got her singing ability from me because her Mom still has hers. Actually, she got her perfect pitch and lovely voice from the gene pool on her Mom's side. On my side we play guitar and kind of hum along in the background because we've been told not to sing too loud. It throws the others off. We tend to wander off key a lot. I've gotten better at it, but Miss Sheila still has to stop up her ears whenever I get musical.

Not so with Miss Meghan. I have a few brief clips of the two of them singing together. One day I'll post them on Youtube and here. In the meantime here's Meghan singing a lovely song call Do They See Jesus in Me? Knowing my daughter, I think they can.

Tom King

The Coloring Song

I love this Petra song. It's been a standard for youth song services where I've played. It's not hard to play and the words are quite lovely. My Primary Sabbath School kids requested The Coloring Song almost every week.  We even got a bunch of rhythm band instruments and they used to do this drumbeat/cymbals sort of thing in time with the song. It gave it a Celtic kind of sound. All we needed was for someone to learn the recorder line for the opening and chorus.

Tom

Charlie Brown is All Shook Up

I found this fun thing on Youtube. I like Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up". I drove our supervisor nuts when I worked at Brandom's Cabinet Mfg. back home in Keene. I think I've already told this story, but it bears repeating. I only worked at Brandom's a few months during a brief time of desperation and unemployment. Our lady foreman for the framing department wouldn't allow us to listen to the radio while we were working so the guy next to me and I taped the words to Elvis songs on our work boards and merrily framed cabinets while singing Heartbreak Hotel and All Shook Up. She tried to force us to stop, but management wouldn't allow her to stifle our creativity. They noticed we worked faster when we were singing.

This is the slower original version which I think was way better than the one he sang during his later years where he rushed it and always seemed to be in a hurry to get through it. I liked it better when he sang it like he wasn't tired of the song. Maybe he figured he was running out of time. Turns out he was.

The Peanuts Gang version is just fun.

Tom

Are You Tired of Chasing Pretty Rainbows?

This cherubic Swedish-American gospel singer, Evie Tornquist, introduced me to this lovely little song. I've played guitar for other singers for church services over the years and it was a favorite we sang for youth song services. This is another one that makes me all weepy. Here's "Give Them All to Jesus".

Tom

Just As I Am - Michael W. Smith

This lovely old song by Charlotte Elliott with music by William B. Bradbury was originally written in 1835 and published in 1836 in a hymnal she edited. Charlotte related later that she was troubled about her own salvation. She often comforted herself by writing verse. She took pen and paper from a nearby table and deliberately set down to write what she later called "the formulae of her faith." In this familiar altar call hymn, Charlotte restated the Gospel of pardon, peace, and heaven.

I remember this hymn fondly from the ministry of former Voice of Prophecy Quartet singer, John Thurber. Brother John taught his Adventist Youth in Action (AYA) teams and the kids who came to youth meetings how to sing this song. He always got amazing harmony out of us. This song in particular used to really reach me.

On May 1, 1971, Brother John baptized me in the swimming pool at Jefferson Academy - Just as I was.  Here's Michael W. Smith's rendition of this lovely hymn at the funeral of Billy Graham. This song was the altar call at the 1934 revival meeting at which Billy Graham came forward and was converted. The song became Graham's traditional altar call song throughout his career as an evangelist.

Tom

Molly Malone

This old folk song shows up a lot in the folk singer community, especially among Irish folk singers. But sometimes pop singers pull up an old folk tune and red-headed comedian Danny Kaye used to sing songs like Molly Malone in his movies and radio appearances. He had that lovely Irish tenor voice that set these songs perfectly.

I especially like poignant sweet melodies like this one. I think it probably inspired The Beatles song, Obla Di, Obla Da which also features a barrow wheeling daughter of fish-mongers. Danny Kaye movies are some of my favorites, but I love listening to him sing too. There's another Danny Kaye melody by his wife Sylvia Fine called Darlin Meggie.  I had to go to the Library of Congress to get that video. Enjoy these two beautiful songs.



Tom King

Grow Old Along With Me

It's kind of ironic that one of the last of John Lennon's songs was this lovely ballad, "Grow Old Along With Me" in which he prays "God bless our love."  This is the same guy who wrote the anti-religion "Imagine".  One hopes John was able to work it all out with his maker at some point. That said, Grow Old is a very beautiful song. This version is by Mary Chapin Carpenter. The only versions we have of Lennon singing it, are some home recordings which suffer a little from the poorer quality of home recording equipment of the day. 

This is a beautiful song. Perfect for weddings. It's sad that Lennon was looking forward to growing old along with his wife and died very soon after he wrote it.

Tom

Love is a Verb

This unusual song by John Mayer flies in the face of the romantic poets. Love to Mayer is something you do, not something you can hold on to or something that just magically pop up in your heart. It's not a feeling that you can capture like you could scoop up a butterfly with a net.

CS Lewis captured this idea in his book Mere Christianity. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

About the only iteration of love as a "thang," that I think is accurate, is something the apostle John pointed out in one of his letters. "God," he said, "is love". All love springs from the author of love and is the wellspring of all love in the universe. There are some preachers and romantics who will argue with you that love is a "thang," but I think they miss the point. Love it seems springs from an act. It's not some magical thing that occurs when a pretty girl in a skimpy bathing suit walks by on the beach or a muscled up young man removes his shirt while repairing your porch. I think they're thinking of another "L" word besides love.

Tom King

Mississippi Squirrel Revival

This one is one of my favorite Ray Stevens songs and that's saying something given that he also wrote the hilarious Shriner's Convention.  We've all known a Sister-Bertha-Better'n-You in our time and the spectacle of her standing up in meetin' and confessing about her "love life" and "namin' names" is just too appealing an image. This thing is funny right here, I don't care who you are. This is also on my phone.



Tom

The Hand Song

My son, Micah introduced me to this Nickel Creek song. The lyrics are beautiful and this song always makes me mist up a little bit. I'm not sure even now, as many times as I've listened to it, that I could sing it all the way through without getting all choked up.  The Hand Song is one of those poignant folk songs that is beyond the typical murder ballad, folk hero song or the "I love her so much I want to lock her up inside a box and not let her out" sort of twisted love songs you find in mountain music.  This song is lyrical and beautiful.

© 2018 by Tom King

Out of His Great Love

The first time I heard this song, my daughter and her friend performed this for a Sabbath morning service in Tyler. It's a driving Southern Gospel Number that makes you want to stand up and shout, "Hallelujah!"  I found out the original version of the song is done by The Martins, a family Southern Gospel group.  I looked them up on Youtube and got an Mp3 of them for my phone.  I only got half of the version my daughter sang on video, so I went with the Martins.

I just love this song.

Tom

Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown

 

This old hymn was one of the first songs that Great Grandma Doney taught to my Grandpa King when he was just a little boy. It remained a favorite all his life. My Grandpa was a praying man and I have no doubt at all that there will be some stars in my grandpa's crown. He'll get at least part of one for me.  I introduced my own son to the song when he was little.

Above is one of my favorite folk singers, Burl Ives singing "Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?"
Below is my first favorite folk singers, Thomas Adolph King....



Tom King