Reasons To Be Left Behind: New Year of Music

Photo by Miami Love1

As promised, here is my traditional New Year’s Music CD for 2010, entitled “Sweet Old World” after the Lucinda Williams song, covered by Emmy Lou Harris.

1. Sweet Old World by Emmylous Harris
2. Hallelujah by Allison Crowe
3. K’erachaim’av by Brenda Peterson, accompanied by Diana S.
4. Peace In the Valley by Sam Cooke
5. The Crossing (Osiyeza) by Overtone
6. Yesterday by Boyz II Men
7. I Dreamed a Dream by Susan Boyle
8. If Love Were All by Rufus Wainwright
9. Bird Girl by Antony & The Johnsons
10. Yahweh by U2
11. Drops in the River by Fleet Foxes
12. Trouble in Mind by John Gorka
13. Here Comes the Sun by Yo-Yo Ma, James Taylor
14. This Little Light of Mine by Marika Hughes, Marcus Rojas, Yo-Yo Ma
15. A Primeira Vez by Jane Monheit
16. Un gaou a Paris by Magic System
17. Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love) by Alanis Morissette
18. World In Union ’95 by Overtone
19. Singing Sisters by Zap Mama and Sabine Kabongo
20. What I Did for Love by Caroline O’Connor
21. Gracias a La Vida by Mercedes Sosa

Listening to and choosing the playlist for this New Year’s music CD was so much fun. Hours spent with headphones at my computer, as I walked along the Salish Sea with my iPod, and while driving. So far, friends and family are giving it the “thumb’s up,” but we’ll see what the general consensus is before claiming it as a success.

A few more music notes on some of the choices: If there is a regional dominance it seems to be Canadian and South African singers. Rufus Wainright’s album of Judy Garland songs at Carnegie Hall was an unexpected discovery; he makes a tender and haunting ballad of “If Love Were All.” And the aforementioned Allison Crowe, will probably be a staple on many more of my homemade music CDs. The South African multi-dimensional harmonies from the soundtrack of the new movie Invictis by the group Overtone are soaring examples of what human voices can do when they seek the most subtle and heartfelt harmonies.

Perennial favorites are back on this 2010 “Sweet Old World” CD, including the bombastic blends of Eurasian sings Zap Mama (“Singing Sisters”), the elegant jazz singer Jane Monheit in “Priemera Vez,” and the marvelously inventive Fleet Foxes (”Drops in the River”), whose fame will surely not be fleeting.

A surprise discovery this year was Anthony. I arrived at his astonishingly vulnerable and gender-bending voice while following one of those “If you liked this, you’ll love . . .” links. I chose “Bird Girl” because it betrays such longing for another world, either those 60 other dimensions that string theory surmises exist if we could but find the portals – or simply the yearning to be feminine, from the soul of a man whose voice can fly.
U2’s soulful “Yahweh” calling upon the sometimes forbidden name of God to “take this soul and break it” is for all of my spiritual seeker friends. It seems a call-and-response to the mighty Sam Cooke’s “Peace in the Valley.”

Recently, my niece interviewed me for her high school report on the civil rights movement and integration in the 1960s when our family lived in northern Virginia. Our high school was segregated; and even the white kids were listening to Motown and Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna’ Come” we had to wait until the 1964 Civil Rights Act to make it official. I write about this tumultuous change in my new book and especially how it played out on the girls’ basketball court. So choosing Sam Cooke’s voice to accompany this New Year, the second year with a strong and visionary black president, who has just won the Nobel Peace Prize, seems right.

“Sweet Old World” closes with the magnificent Mercedes Sosa singing “Gracias a la Vida” – thanks to life. This song always reminds me of a friend of mine who long ago said, “You know, I realize after all my searching, that the love of my life is – my life.”

So here’s to life abundant, to a New Year and decade together in this sweet old world, sharing all the multitudinous reasons to be left behind, to simply be here now.
 
L’achaim!