Red Door By the Beach

Getting ready for Easter dinner tomorrow and need to get the music playlist together.  Here are the  selections for this year. The list is divided into two parts: classical and pop/jazz.  Links are to Youtube videos of the selection. 

The poppies are blooming on the Central Coast.  I found these in a vacant lot across the street from my mechanic.  You can find beauty everywhere you look.  I’m going to have to go for a drive this week and find some more.  They revive my spirit.

Classical

• Sonata for Violin and Piano No.5 in F, Op.24 (Beethoven)
• The Four Seasons(”La Primavera,” No. 1), Op.8/1, RV 269 (Vivaldi)
• Appalachian Spring, ballet for 13 instruments-Simple Gifts (Copland)
• Blumine (”Flora”), for orchestra (discarded movement from Symphony No. 1) (Mahler)
• Frühlingsstimmen (Voices of Spring), Op. 410 (RV 410) (Strauss)
• Spring Song (Mendelssohn)

Popular Music

• “Spring Can Really Hang you up the Most”
• “Beautiful Day”
• “Here Comes the Sun”
• “Turn, Turn Turn”
• “Daydream”
• “It Might as Well Be Spring”
• “You Must Believe in Spring”
• “Skylark”
• “Spring is Here”

 For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad. –G. K. Chesterton

In honor of my Irish great grandmother and in preparation for my long awaited trip to Ireland this summer, here are my favorite Irish songs.  Links are to Youtube performances.  Some are sad, some are rowdy, and some just beautiful. 

• Whiskey in the Jar 
• Down By the Sally Gardens
• Isle of Inisfree
• Galway Bay
• Spancil Hill
• Black Velvet Band
• The Rising of the Moon
• The Wild Rover
• Wild Colonial Boy

I decided to begin lising favorite first lines and stop at 10.  I seem to have as many favorites as I have songs on my MP3 player.  Isn’t it nice to be able to carry a jukebox in your pocket?

• “She can kill with her smile. she can wound with her eyes”-Billy Joel ’s “Always A Woman To Me”

• “You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips”-The Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”
• “I read the news today, oh boy,” -The Beatles’ -”Day in the Life.”

• “I’ve got sunshine/On a cloudy day.”The Temptations’ - “My Girl

• You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht”-Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”

• “I learned the truth at seventeen - that love was meant for beauty queens” - Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen”

• “When the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay.” - Journey’s “Lights”

• “Hello, Darkness, my old friend” -Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence”

• “I guess I shoulda known by the way you parked your car sideways
  That it wouldn’t last”-Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”

• “I may not always love you but as long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it, I’ll make you so sure about it and God only knows what I’d be without you.-Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”
   

Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

Glory in the highest to God. And on earth peace to men of good will.

The message has been the same for over two thousand years.  When we will listen?

Vivaldi’s Gloria:  Et in Terra Pax

“Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?  Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm the storm with his hand? Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod? When you kiss your little baby you’ve kissed the face of God.”

So many wonderful Christmas songs to choose from.  I have about fifty on my MP3 playlist.  Here’s a  sample, a list of great tunes to help you pass the time on that long drive to your loved ones’ homes, wrapping packages, cooking, or anything else.  Some of pop, others are not, but they all fill me with joy and remind me of special times past and hopes for special times to come. 

•  ”All I Want for Christmas is You”-Mariah Carey
• “Please Be Home for Christmas”-Bon Jovi
• “Christmas Song”-Nat King Cole
• “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”-Bruce Springsteen
• “Silent Night”-Lou Rawls
• “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”-Darlene Love
• “Carol of the Bells”-Robert Shaw Chorale
• “Feliz Navidad”-Jose Feliciano
• “Little St. Nick”-Beach Boys
• “This Christmas”-Donny Hathaway
• “Sleigh Ride”-Boston Pops
• “March of the Kings”-Trans Siberian Orchestra
• “Mary’s Boy Child”-Harry Belafonte
• “White Christmas”-Otis Redding
• “Blue Christmas”-Elvis Presley
• “Gesu Bambino”-Luciano Pavarotti
• “O Holy Night”-Il Divo
• “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”-Johnny Mathis
• “Mary Did You Know”-Clay Aiken
• “Hard Candy Christmas”-Dolly Parton
• “We Need a Little Christmas”-Angela Lansberry and Cast of Mame
• “Ave Maria” (any composer)-Andrea Bocelli
• “Pretty Paper”-Willie Nelson
• “River”-Sarah McLachlan
• “What are You Doing New Year’s?”-Harry Connick Jr.