Wisdom With a Simple touch

My old friend Steve Borth has restarted his singing career with a new album or two and some new songs.  His latest album is called "Home as Soon as I Can." Steve was a year ahead of me at Valley Grande Academy and we bumped into each other in our summer youth work for a couple of years. We used to get mistaken for each other back when I was thinner than I am now.  We both play guitar, but that's pretty much where the musical similarity ends. He has talent. I hide in the back of the song service band and try not to mess up.

Steve left a trail of songs behind him during his days in Texas, including two, "Faith", "Peace" and "Nothing Soothes the Soul Like Jesus". His early songs went on to became standards for youth rallies all over the state. He also wrote a folk cantata called "The Great Controversy" that was quite good. A couple or three Adventist singing teams produced some really excellent versions of it. Another notable production was done by the Paul Johnson Singers. I always like the ones Steve did best, but then I liked his folksy sound better than the slicker versions with orchestration.

With his new music Steve returns to his country-folk roots - his "country side" as he calls it. This particular song piqued my interest. It's not your typical gospel song, but Steve doesn't do safe - he says what he has to say and doesn't worry too much about pleasing the folks down at Hal Leonard or at Review & Herald even.  

Steve's music is very personal and he has that unique deep bass voice of his that makes it special. All I know is that I like it. And Steve's a friend, which makes it even more fun. Some day, if not in this world, maybe the next, I'd like to get together and jam with Steve - just play some mellow old songs around a campfire. "I think I still know most of the words to "Toilet Man" even for the secular portion of the evening.  I expect the new Earth will be a great place for making music. I can think of a bunch of old friends I'd like to have around that campfire.

Good luck with the album, Steve and may God bless you in all you do.

Atheist Don't Got No Songs

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...

Tom

I Think You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone

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.

Tom

Lord I Need You

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.

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

ANZAC veterans of WWI Battle of Gallipoli. 

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.

Tom

The Place Where I Worship

1975 Lone Star Camp Band - Jack, Bill, Tom & Bow

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.

Tom

I'm All Shook Up, How About You?

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.

Tom