Every once in a while I like to put together a post like this one. Most of the time they don’t get a lot of comments because, well, I figure that folks may look at something like this as taking a lot of time, and I know that the particular style of music or movie doesn’t fit everyone.
Opera Singer by Cliff
So why do I do them? Two reasons.
Continue reading My Top 10 Favorite Operas
This is something different from me. Ode To Joy is actually a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1800, but most people know it as the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the one he wrote when he was totally deaf. It has been performed in multiple ways throughout history, and it’s a piece I absolutely love.
It’s in that vein that I’m doing a video post of different ways the song has been performed. Some are goofy, some are eclectic, and some are outstanding; okay, in my mind they’re all outstanding. Yes folks, it’s the same song over and over, but something amazing with each one.
Let’s start with something funny, Beaker from the Muppets:
Tomorrow I’ll be doing a live presentation and I’m going to be spending today rehearsing and getting ready for that. Since the last post was so long I decided it was time for a shorter and more fun post again. So, following along the lines of other musical posts I’ve done, I decided to share my top 5 favorite songs from the 60’s, which some of you have no recollection from, and the rest might have other songs to highlight instead.
Before that, though, I’d like to share some of my previous posts, in case you’re new to the blog or just missed them:
And now, on with my list, from #5 to #1:
5. Happy Together, The Turtles – I can’t even tell you why I always liked this song. Maybe it was the relatively simple melody. Maybe it was the fairly non-threatening lilt in the way Flo & Eddie (it was 2 guys by the way) sang together. I couldn’t tell you, but it makes my top 5.
4. Daydream Believer, The Monkees – I remember this song for many reasons. One, of course it was on the TV show. Two, it helped close out 4th grade for me, and man, was that a grade that just had to end! I remember a party at school near the end of the school year where this song played a few times and, because of the show, I could sing along with it and it brought comfort to me. Yeah, I missed the love song part of it, but so what. lol
3. Soul Man, Sam & Dave – My mother bought this album when we first came back to the United States from Japan back in 1966 and for the next 20+ years it was the first song she played every single Friday night; yup, you read that correctly. It was the first song on the album, and it was a great one; always made me smile, and still does.
2. Sugar Sugar, The Archies – This was a cartoon and on the cartoon the characters had put together a band. In the 3rd season of the cartoon they released their second album, and the main single from the show was this one, which ended up going all the way to number one.
1. I Want You Back, The Jackson Five – This was the first #1 song of 1970, but it was released in 1969. I’ve told this story before, but the day my dad left for Vietnam the Jackson Five showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time and performed this song, and they and Michael Jackson himself were my favorites from that point on.
As I say about blogging, sometimes you get inspiration from reading other people’s blogs and then commenting on them in some fashion. In this case it’s the blog of a local young guy who not only works for the local newspaper, but is a DJ. He has an interesting connection with all types of music, even music that, in my strange opinion, I would never expect him to know; it shows there are some younger people with an appreciation for older music.
Anyway, his name is Geoff Herbert, @deafgeoff to us here because he’s also legally deaf, and his post was titled Chillin’ like a villain: My all-time top 5 Bob Dylan songs, only he had 6 songs instead; kids, can’t count. lol Of course, he has some of these from movies and some of these with other people singing; I can’t roll like that. I’m giving you Dylan, the best of him and, well, him anyway. lol So, here we go, not necessarily in any particular order.
I think this is the first Bob Dylan song I ever heard, from the Blonde on Blonde album, and though he had this really weird voice, there was something about this song that captured my imagination.
This is the first of two songs in a row from the album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. It was also in a movie called American Pop, along with the next song. This is one of the most musical songs Dylan ever put out, very catchy tune.
As I said above, same album and same movie. This was probably one of the best albums he ever put out because I liked almost every single song on it.
Of all things I couldn’t find this one on YouTube, but I find it elsewhere. This song is from the album Planet Waves, and I sang this version of the song at a wedding, believe it or not. It’s not a love song but the bride, the sister of a friend of mine, heard me play it and requested it for her wedding; who was I to say no?
Well, I guess I did end up putting them in order because this is my favorite Bob Dylan song of all time, and it’s the “newest” song on my list. What a great story this song is, and some of the lyrics are classic, one of the best songs lyrically I’ve ever heard. I have to admit this isn’t my favorite version of this song, but it seems that no one has created a video with the original so it’ll have to do. At least it’s Dylan live.