Steve Martin may have come up with the answer to what's wrong with modern atheists. Atheists seem to be a troubled lot. Avowedly atheist nations are responsible for probably half a billion deaths by war, extermination, genocide, starvation and execution. It could be that the trouble is that atheists don't have any atheist music. The best they can do is some angry rock n' roll, grunge rock or rap.
I love this song. According to Steve Martin it's the entirety of the atheist hymnal. The song is called, appropriately enough, "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"
You've got to admit it's a catchy tune. Any song that can use the word "Underpants" to rhyme with "Gregorian Chants", you have to admire that in a lyricist...
I got really attached to Adrian Monk, the lead character in the TV series "Monk". The show was about an ex-cop turned detective when his obsessive compulsive disorder made it dangerous for him to continue as a uniformed officer. The show had a nice run and a lovely ongoing story. It ended really well. USA Network gave the show time to close the storyline. Randy Newman wrote the original theme song and he wrote this song to cap the series off. It played one time during the last episode. I put it on my Mp3 player.
I thought it was nice that unlike so many TV shows these days, they actually gave us some closure. Because of that, I'll come back to Monk again and binge watch it. TV networks need to always give their shows a closing few episodes, especially nowadays when people binge-watch their favorite series'
Here's a little montage from the show with "When I'm Gone" sung by Randy Newman:
I shed serious tears during the final song. And I'm not ashamed.
This one comes from Sheila's favorites playlist. She's a big Matt Maher fan along with groups like Casting Crowns and Third Day. Here's the studio version of "Lord I Need You" with Matt Maher.
Eric Bogle is a Scotsman who decided to continue his folk-singing career in Australia after he struggled in the British folk scene for a while. He assimilated into Aussie culture and writes a lot of songs about his adopted country, its history and people. One of the most poignant is this song about soldiers returning from Australia's WWI experience in Turkey at the vicious battle of Gallipoli. Bogle weaves the old Aussie tramp song "Waltzing Matilda" into this
story about the tragedy of returning veterans of the carnage at
Gallipoli. I first heard this song sung by Peter Paul and Mary. Then I
head it by the author of the song. Here's the original version by Bogle.
He wrote another song about the Australian WWI experience in Turkey called "It's As If He Knows." It's about the fate of some 136,000 cavalry and supply horses the Australian Army took to Gallipoli. It was heart-breaking and I can't listen to the song anymore. It's too disturbing. I have a very soft spot for horses. Bogle will break your heart.
I learned this song at Lone Star Camp when Elder Burns was Youth Director at the Texas Conference of Seventh day Adventists. It's the perfect song to sing by a campfire with a guitar and a bunch of friends. The place where I worship truly is the wide open spaces - whenever I can get to them. You are welcome there alone or with the one you love.
And who better to sing it than Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with the Sons of the Pioneers. This version is a medley with another favorite end of campfire song, Happy Trails. It's the kind of song that you need in your repertoire if you play guitar and camp. You just need this song.
You have click on the Youtube notice to link over to Youtube to watch this.
There are other versions you can look up on Youtube, but I'll stick with Roy and Dale.If this link doesn't work for you try clicking on this one.
I got hooked on this song when I worked for a while at a place I had all my life hoped
never to have to work at - Brandom's Manufacturing, a maker of kitchen
cabinets in Keene, Texas. I had worked my way through school at every other job that was to be had in Keene, including as a janitor at the nursing home and that one was a pretty grim job let me tell you.
But I found myself back home and between jobs, with a wife and kids and old enough to be sassy and not terribly subservient.
I already had my Bachelor's degree, but I'd abandoned the Great Advent
Movement that is school teaching in SDA church schools. I didn't leave the church, just teaching. After that, I'd done a brief and brutal run at
nuclear power plant construction and had been laid off. Then, I found a good job as a recreation therapist....sort of.
We were doing a startup treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids
and the job was still a few months away. I was also between cars at the time,
so I needed something I could walk to.
So I took a job at minimum
wage in the framing department at Brandoms. I was putting together oak frames for cabinet
boxes. It was boring to say the least and I couldn't get any speed up
(we had a quota). My foreman was the mother of a kid who used to beat me
up in elementary school and she had very little in the way of a sense
of humor. We were banned from having radios and/or those new Walkman
things. So the guy next to me and I decided we'd make our own music.
I
dug around for some suitable lyrics that were singable. As it turned
out "The King of Rock n' Roll" proved to be just the ticket. The right speed, easy to sing and easy to learn the lyrics. We learned a
bunch of his songs my friend and I. I taped the lyrics to my framing table and sang as I
worked, my buddy joining in from next door. Our favorite was "All Shook
Up!"
Well it wasn't long before the foreman came stalking in to
demand that we stop. We protested that there was no company rule against
singing - just against radios. She sputtered a bit, then went off to
talk to her supervisor. He told her there was no rule against singing so long as we didn't sing dirty words. She
returned frustrated. You could see it in her eyes. So she tried another
tactic.
This time she went around to everybody who could remotely
have heard us singing over the screech of saws and drills and asked if
our singing was "bothering" anyone. Everybody said it didn't. Many said,
they liked it. Some sang along. Man she hated me, especially
after she checked out our framing output to see if the singing of Elvis tunes was
slowing down our production. Au contraire'. Our output had improved more
than a little.
So here's one of our favorite "songs to frame cabinets by." I even worked in a little
Elvis style leg jerk on the "Ooooh, I'm all shook up!" line.
Like Elvis, we was very very awesomely cool! We also sang "Burnin' Love". When we got to the "I'm a hunka hunka hunka burnin' love" part, Mrs. B. used to have to go down to the water fountain, it offended her sensibilities so.
Cripple Creek is a standard bluegrass tune from way back. And this is
one of my favorite versions, not by a country boy from North Carolina,
but from an irreverant Scottish comedian who also happens to play
frailing or clawhammer banjo.
Earl Scruggs who was not a comedian who plays Scruggs Style bluegrass banjo does a definitive version with Lester Flatt that you can listen to to see the difference and I'll post a link to his version at the end, but
for now, I'll post Billy's version because it looks like he's having so
danged much fun playing it.
You'll recognize Billy from parts he's
played in a bunch of movies of late, including "Lemony Snicket's A
Series of Unfortunate Events" with Jim Carrey. Billy's a very funny guy,
but it's
better if you catch him where there are some censors available to tone
him down just a bit. He was also one of the voice actors in Disney's
Brave with his rich Scottish brogue and played a part in the third of
Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies "The Battle of Five Armies."
He's actually Sir William Connolly CBE, knighted by the Queen and everything. He's an odd little man, but very talented.
