Dolly Parton has died

In a video posted to Parton’s X account 15 minutes ago, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced the death of his aunt, for whom he acted as head of security.

"This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality.

As her head of security for more than two decades, a role my father, Larry, held before me. I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now. It is an honor, an honor that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness.

But sadness lies with us, not with Dolly. Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents, and countless others who have watched her and longed for her to meet them in the heavens.

I first went on the road with Dolly as a kid, getting a taste of the road life in the early 1980s. Dolly opened doors not just for me, but for her entire family to reach the potential we didn’t even know was possible. Dolly also opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians, and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent. By her example, we believed that anything was possible. She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history.

My family and I have shared a lifetime of beautiful memories with Dolly, but so have you. She has always been on your television, your record player, your CD, and on your phone playlist becoming an extended part of your family, whether you liked it or not. Our family and the team she has entrusted with her legacy will work diligently to ensure her spirit will live with us for ever.

Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy. He farmed the soil; she farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.

Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly, Aunt Granny. Gigi. May God bless Dolly Parton and may God bless you all. She will always love you."

TYWKIWDBI is deeply saddened and truly in mourning for the passing of this wonderful lady.  I will be reposting my tribute to her later, but for now this simple announcement will suffice. 

"Starry, Starry Night" explained

I was going to introduce this music video by saying "I was today years old when I learned..." but I've recently realized that idiom is not understood or well received by readers here, so instead I'll just say...

Today in 2026 I learned that the lyrics of this old (1971) song refer to the life and works of Vincent Van Gogh.  How did I go 50+ years without knowing this??  I can only surmise that it's because by 1970 I had stopped buying records and albums and instead started copying from broadcast sources, so I never had the opportunity to browse an album cover/sleeve or (later) even a commercial CD insert.  Perhaps that's why so many of my 365 posts in the video-music category have background and explanatory material harvested from Wikipedia.  The joy of finding out.

Anyway, here it is.  Found it while searching for something else, was stunned by the Van Gogh paintings. and then saw the true title of the piece was "Vincent."  So, I learn something today; maybe a couple readers here will as well.

Plus, now for the first time (for me) some of the odd lyrics start to make sense.

I also found this cover by the MonaLisa Twins:

My personal bias is that most solo music can be improved by two voices in harmony. 

How does music become "popular" ?

Do you ever get the sense that many of the so-called mainstream pop stars whose images you unwittingly encounter dozens of times a day aren’t as “mainstream” or “popular” as you’re told they are? Do you give one eighth of a fuck about Dua Lipa, Zara Larsson, Childish Gambino, Bebe Rexha, or Shawn Mendes? Does your mother? Your little cousin? Your boss? The person delivering your mail? Your barista? Have you (or has anyone close to you) ever spent real money on anything these artists are selling? Do you, or anyone around you, follow them with any interest in what they make or do?...

And Spelman said: “In the past, a label and management team would do a great job getting their artist on SNL or Tiny Desk or Triple J, post it, and then kind of wait, and the comments would come in: terrible cover choice, voice sounds terrible, all that. What we do at Chaotic Good with our management clients is this: the second the SNL performance drops at midnight, you should post one hundred times saying that was the best performance of the year. The question is how you do that at scale. It takes a lot of work and infrastructure, but controlling the narrative is really, really important.”...

This is precisely how contemporary digital-music marketing operates, less as targeted exposure or coercion and more as the quiet reconstruction of the conditions under which discovery appears to occur. Not by introducing music to listeners but by staging the conditions in which it feels as though it arrived on its own.

More details in the "Getting Shilled" article in the June issue of Harper's Magazine.

The most amazing musical instrument is the human voice

I don't really have time to blog today, but I wanted to share this video I found last night at Nag on the Lake (which I invite you to explore if you like TYWKIWDBI).  

It took a bit of searching to find the lyrics (excerpted from Psalm 84) at Light on Dark Water:

"How beloved is your dwelling place,

O lord of hosts,

My soul yearns, faints,

My heart and my flesh cry out.

The sparrow found a house,

And the swallow her nest,

Where she may raise her young.

They pass through the Valley of Bakka,

They make it a place of springs;

The autumn also covers it with pools."

You don't need the lyrics to appreciate the beauty of the harmonies.  Had I heard this music without the video, I probably would have assumed it came from a synthesizer, similar to the many programs I've recorded from Music from the Hearts of Space.  But these are human voices.  Awesome.

Bob Dylan - Forever Young

I'm a "boomer," and Bob Dylan is one of the musicians who define my generation. "Forever Young" was written as a lullaby for his eldest son and released in the mid-70s; it appeals to an older crowd than those who were attracted to him earlier for his "protest"-themed songs.

There are lots of choices of venues for hearing the song. I've embedded the one from The Band's performance in The Last Waltz.

And if you don't care for the music, at least accept these lyrics as my wishes to you.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Originally posted in February of '08.  Reposted now in response to today's announcement that Bob Dylan will receive the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature - in recognition of his skills as a lyricist rather than as a singer or musician.

Reddit Books discussion thread re the appropriateness (or not) of this award.

Addendum:

Dylan has sculpted iron pieces for family and friends for the past 30 years, but it wasn’t until 2013 – at London’s Halcyon Gallery in an exhibition called Mood Swings – that his metal artwork was first viewed publicly. His works feature found objects, vintage scrap metal and industrial artifacts collected from junkyards. Dylan collects everything from farm equipment, children’s toys, kitchen utensils and antique fire arms to chains, cogs, axes and wheels. He then welds these curiosities into thoughtfully juxtaposed masterpieces. Commissioned by MGM National Harbor to envision an open entrance, Dylan hand-selected unique objects and will weld a stunning composition into a soaring archway.

Text and image from MGM National Harbor, via Minnesota Brown, the definitive blog about northern Minnesota's legendary Mesabi Iron Range.

Reposted from 2016 to add a recording of my favorite Bob Dylan song -

"The Coster's Mansion" sheet music cover (1899)

The image will enlarge with a click, but the text is still small, so I'll enter the text of the chorus here:

"If yer wants to see me dining-room or step into me parlour,

     Or me orfice where I contracts all my biz;

If yer wants to see me bedroom, or the place we calls the larder,

    Why, you've only got to stop just where you is."

"Coster" is a shortened version of "costermonger."

This was one of the final images posted by Miss Folly, back in 2014.

"The Third Man" theme played on a zither by Anton Karas

""The Third Man Theme"... is an instrumental written and performed by Anton Karas for the soundtrack to the 1949 film The Third Man. Upon release the theme proved popular, spending eleven weeks at number one on Billboard's United States Best Sellers in Stores chart. Multiple versions have been performed and recorded, selling tens of millions of copies, and its success influenced the release strategy of later film singles.

The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed. One night after a long day of filming The Third Man on location in Vienna, Reed and cast members Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orson Welles had dinner and retired to a wine cellar. In the bistro, which retained the atmosphere of the pre-war days, they heard the zither music of Anton Karas, a 40-year-old musician who was playing there just for the tips. Reed immediately realized that this was the music he wanted for his film..."

Here's the trailer for the movie -

 

"Sinnerman" (Nina Simone)

While watching Hunt for the Wilderpeople a couple nights ago, I heard this song in the soundtrack, and remembered hearing it in The Thomas Crown Affair.  Found more information at Wikipedia:

"Sinner Man" or "Sinnerman" is accepted as an African American traditional spiritual song that has been recorded by a number of performers and has been incorporated in many other of the media and arts. The lyrics describe a sinner attempting to hide from divine justice on Judgement Day. It was recorded in the 1950s by Les Baxter, the Swan Silvertones, the Weavers and others, before Nina Simone recorded an extended version in 1965...

Simone learned the lyrics of this English song in her childhood when it was used at revival meetings by her mother, a Methodist minister, to help people confess their sins. In the early days of her career during the early sixties, when she was heavily involved in the Greenwich Village scene, Simone often used the long piece to end her live performances.

Reposted from 2016 to add the lyrics;

Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Sinnerman where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
All on that day
We got to run to the rock
Please hide me, I run to the rock
Please hide me, run to the rock
Please hide here
All on that day
But the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out
I ain't gonna hide you there
All on that day
I said rock
What's the matter with you rock?
Don't you see I need you, rock?
Good Lord, Lord
All on that day
So I run to the river
It was bleedin', I run to the sea
It was bleedin', I run to the sea
It was bleedin', all on that day
So I run to the river
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', all on that day

So I run to the Lord
Please hide me, Lord
Don't you see me prayin'?
Don't you see me down here prayin'?
But the Lord said
Go to the Devil, the Lord said
Go to the Devil
He said go to the Devil
All on that day
So I ran to the Devil
He was waitin', I ran to the Devil
He was waitin', ran to the Devil
He was waitin', all on that day
I cried, power, power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Kingdom (power, Lord)
Kingdom (power, Lord)
Kingdom (power, Lord)
Kingdom (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)

Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Well, I run to the river
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', I run to the sea
It was boilin', all on that day
So I ran to the Lord
I said Lord, hide me
Please hide me
Please help me, all on that day
He said, hide?
Where were you?
When you oughta have been prayin'
I said Lord, Lord
Hear me prayin', Lord, Lord
Hear me prayin', Lord, Lord
Hear me prayin', all on that day
Sinnerman, you oughta be prayin'
Outghta be prayin', sinnerman
Oughta be prayin', all on that day

Up come power (power, Lord) 

Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
(Power, Lord)
Hold down (power, Lord)
Go down (power, Lord)
Kingdom (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Power (power, Lord)
Na-na-na, na-na-na-na
Na-na-na, na-na-na-na
Na-na-na, na-na-na-na

Woah, ho

Ha-ha-ha-ha
Ha-ha-ha-ha, oh Lord
Nu, nu, nu
No-no-no-no, ma-na-na-na-na, don't you know I need you Lord?
Don't you know that I need you?
Don't you know that I need you?

Oh, Lord
Wait
Oh, Lord
Oh, Lord, Lord

Songwriters: Nina Simone

Sinnerman lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

I couldn't find a good YouTube video of a live performance by her that wasn't mixed with a jumble of unrelated visuals.

Reposted from 2019 to embed a different and more interesting video at the top (the original was a still photo).

Excellent advice not to "future-trip"

There is a very interesting article in the September issue of The Atlantic.  "My Father, Guitar Guru to the Rock Gods" is written by the daughter of Fred Walecki, who crafted instruments and provided advice to the greatest musicians of 1960s California.  Here are the introductory paragraphs:

In August 2000, when I was 2 years old, my mother put me in a maroon velvet dress and stuck foam earplugs in my ears. She carried me through the backstage corridors of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium... My mother remembers the night in flashes. David Crosby—walrus mustache, smiling eyes—telling jokes. Bonnie Raitt’s aura of red hair. In the distance, the sound of Linda Ronstadt warming up. Sitting in a dressing room with Michael McKean and Christopher Guest, already in costume as Spinal Tap’s front men.

That night, the auditorium was hosting the Friends of Fred Walecki benefit concert. These friends included Crosby, Raitt, and Ronstadt. Also Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Emmylou Harris, and Warren Zevon. Three of the four original Eagles, who in this room in 1973 had performed their new album, Desperado, were there too.

One of the Eagles, Bernie Leadon, had helped put the event together. He had known Fred Walecki, my father, since they were teenagers, when Leadon started coming into Westwood Music, Dad’s musical-instrument shop in Los Angeles....

I'm not posting this for the music of the 1960s, which I love (please go to the link to continue reading, if you share that interest).  I'm posting this to share one bit of advice that Fred Walecki offered his grown-up daughter:

"When I was 18, I got a bad concussion that took me out of college for my first semester. My doctor didn’t want me to fly home for a while, so I called Dad one night from the other side of the country, panicked that my brain would never return to normal. 

“What are you looking at right now?” he asked. Pine trees, I said. Some shrubs. I’m sitting on a bench outside. “What’s the temperature like where you are?” It’s nice. Cool but not cold. It was early fall in the Northeast, a new sensation for a Californian. “What does the air smell like?” Wood chips. 

“I know it’s hard, but your only job right now is to stay in this moment and not future-trip. In this moment right now, the one God is giving you, the air smells nice, the temperature is good, you’re somewhere beautiful.”"

Excellent advice, in my opinion, and worth sharing via the blog.

A pianist with phocomelia

VERY impressive. This seems to be part 1 of several parts, but I haven't located the others yet.

Credit to Alex at Neatorama for finding and posting this.  Reposted from 2009.

Meeting the parents

Chuckleworthy.  Found on the Oakville Chamber Orchestra Instagram account, with a tip of the blogging cap to Austin's Swamp Campground in Longville, MN. 

Addendum:  Readers old enough to decipher script have identified the cartoonist as Tony Husband (additional panels at this archive link).

"Gated reverb" explained

In a Zoom session I attended this morning, one of the participants discussed "gated snare/gated reverb,"referring to a sound of the 1980s that was totally familiar to me, but using terminology I had not previously encountered.  A brief search led me to this video, which offers a concise and amply illustrated explication of the genesis and evolution of the sound and its technological basis.

Janis Ian sings "At Seventeen" for my blogiversary

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say “come dance with me”
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn’t all it seems at seventeen.

A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs

Whose name I never could pronounce

Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve

They only get what they deserve"

And the rich-relationed hometown queen

Marries into what she needs

With a guarantee of company

And haven for the elderly.

Remember those who win the game

They lose the love they sought to gain

In debentures of quality

And dubious integrity

The small-town eyes will gape at you

In dull surprise when payment due

Exceeds accounts received

At seventeen.

[instrumental break]

To those of us who knew the pain

Of valentines that never came

And those whose names were never called

When choosing sides for basketball

It was long ago and far away

The world was younger than today

When dreams were all they gave for free

To ugly duckling girls like me.

We all play the game, and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say: “Come dance with me”
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me, at seventeen.

Her most successful single was "At Seventeen," released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. "At Seventeen" was a smash, receiving tremendous acclaim from critics and record buyers alike — it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It even won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt who was nominated for the classic Heart Like A Wheel album, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975... Another measure of her success is anecdotal - on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received any as a teenager."

Reposted from 2008 because I received in the mail a flyer from the Stoughton Opera House advertising a performance by Janis Ian as part of her upcoming "End of the Line" tour.   Updated photo and bio at the link.

Reposted from 2021 to add the lyrics I elided on the original post, and because today TYWKIWDBI is seventeen years old (18,959 posts and 68,000+ curated comments).  Not done yet.

Is my library of music CDs at risk?

Found this commentary I saved back in 2006:

Opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs. Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, has his own view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point. 

-- John Blau, IDG News Service Tue Jan 10, 2006

I burned all my favorite music to CD-RW discs 10-15 years ago.  I seldom play them, and they seem to be ok now, but maybe I should be transferring all that music to other media... ?

"Ennio" (Morricone)

I'm watched Ennio last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'll add a note here to explain that it may not be to everyone's taste.  First of all, it's a documentary rather than a traditional movie, and it's also two-and-a-half hours long.  More importantly, it is not a mashup of hours-worth of his compositions - it's instead an insight into the mind of arguably the most inventive and successful composer of our lifetime.

This man reminds me of the Mozart in Amadeus; the music is there inside his head and he just transcribes it to paper as fast as he can.  Look at this productivity:

With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.

His filmography includes more than 70 award-winning films, all Sergio Leone's films since A Fistful of Dollars, all Giuseppe Tornatore's films since Cinema Paradiso, Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy, as well as The Battle of Algiers (1968), 1900 (1976), La Cage aux Folles (1978), Le Professionnel (1981), The Thing (1982), The Key (1983) by Tinto Brass and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989). He received Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Days of Heaven (1978), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991), Malèna (2000) and The Hateful Eight (2015), winning for the latter. He won the Academy Honorary Award in 2007. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is regarded as one of the most recognizable and influential soundtracks in history. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Morricone has the classical education that allows him to decide that a film set in the 1700s needs this kind of music rather than that.  But his signature style began with the incorporation into movie scores of nontraditional music and sounds.  Before him, movie scores were produced by orchestras and were lyric and melodic.  Morricone adapted non-orchestral instruments, animal sounds, and ambient noises into a tapestry of sound.  And it fits into the movie because he is often looking at the soundless scene and creating the music as he watches.

See also Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold, and In memoriam: Ennio Morricone.

Metal umlauts

I've seen them for years but never thought to read about them until the term appeared in a recent NYT crossword puzzle.  Here's a summary from Wikipedia:

A metal umlaut (also known as röck döts) is a diacritic that is sometimes used gratuitously or decoratively over letters in the names of mainly hard rock or heavy metal bands—for example, those of Blue Öyster Cult, Queensrÿche, Motörhead, the Accüsed, Mötley Crüe and the parody bands Spın̈al Tap and Green Jellÿ...

Among English speakers, the use of umlaut marks and other diacritics with a blackletter typeface is a form of foreign branding, which has been attributed to a desire for a "gothic horror" feel. The metal umlaut is not generally intended to affect the pronunciation of the band's name.

More information at A brief history of heavy metal umlauts.

As Vince Neil recounts: "I can remember it like it was yesterday. We were drinking Löwenbräu, and when we decided to call ourselves Mötley Crüe, we put some umlauts in there because we thought it made us look European. We had no idea that it was a pronunciation thing. When we finally went to Germany, the crowds were chanting, 'Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!' We couldn’t figure out why the fuck they were doing that."

A "quilted" maple tree

The abnormal consistency of the wood results in an unusual pattern when the wood is cut tangentially - coveted by makers of guitars:

There was very little useful discussion at the Reddit source for the tree photo, or at the Wikipedia entry where I found the guitar photo (cropped for size).  There is some discussion at The Wood Database.  The process reminds me of tree burls, which are also prized by woodworkers.

Word for the day: fermata

Today I was reading an essay by Rachel Kushner about the personal management of time, which included this passage:

Nabokov’s character Van Veen, from Ada, suggests that he is “an epicure of duration,” who “delight[s] sensually in Time.” Veen’s “greatest discovery,” Nabokov later said, was “his perception of Time as the dim hollow between two rhythmic beats . . . not the beats themselves, which only embar Time.” What Nabokov describes in his typically florid style, without naming it, is the fermata. A simple but profound music notation, a fermata on a note or rest stops time between beats, freeing the musician (or conductor) to decide when it ends. On my own fourteen-mile fermata, from the town of Las Terrenas to Salto El Limón, I passed on foot through clusters of modest little houses with tin roofs. I saw people, a woman in hair curlers cooking on charcoal briquettes, and people saw me, the men in faded military uniforms who stopped to offer me a ride in their jeep. I refused their offer, and was abandoned back into my solitary pursuit.

What a wonderful new word.  

Fermata is the Italian name for the sign (𝄐), which in English is commonly called a Pause, and signifies that the note over which it is placed should be held on beyond its natural duration. It is sometimes put over a bar or double bar, in which case it intimates a short interval of silence. [examples in the image embedded above].

The Wikipedia entry has some clickable audio examples of incorporating fermatas into music, but no discussion of usage of the word beyond the realm of music.  The word is not in my compact OED, and the only non-musical use I could find was in Wiktionary, where (as an Italian word) is designates "a stop" (where passengers get on and off).

But I like Rachel Kushner's usage.  I think I need to spend more time "pausing" rather than constantly going from point A to point B to get things done.  If anyone wonders why I'm staring off into the distance to ponder a scene or the meaning of life, it will be because I'm in a personal fermata.

We'll Meet Again (Vera Lynn, 1939)

For New Year's Eve, instead of embedding fireworks I've chosen a classic song. "We'll Meet Again" was a signature tune of World War II:

The song... resonated with soldiers going off to fight and their families and sweethearts. The assertion that "we'll meet again" is optimistic, as many soldiers did not survive to see their loved ones again. Indeed, the meeting place at some unspecified time in the future would have been seen by many who lost loved ones to be heaven.

There have been many versions as modern performers have covered the piece, but Vera Lynn is the obvious choice, since she popularized the song during the war, and it became one of her signature pieces. The video of this song most often seen is the one using the final moments of Dr. Strangelove, but those images of nuclear blasts were a little too dismal for tonight; I thought this one employing stills from WWII was at least a bit more upbeat.

The message of the song is for all TYWKIWDBI readers, especially the old-timers. It has been an interesting year; I've enjoyed having your company for this curious adventure. We'll meet again - tomorrow...

Addendum: The Guardian has a story about Vera Lynn at age 92, and about the upcoming publication of her autobiography.

...at the age of 92, she has done it again, hitting No 1 in the album charts last night with her offering We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn and usurping Bob Dylan, 68, as the oldest artist to grace the top spot... Her album fought off stiff competition from the Beatles, who occupied the 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 21st, 24th, 29th, 31st, 33rd, 37th and 38th spots...

It is 70 years to the month since Lynn, then 22, first recorded We'll Meet Again, which became a symbolic song of the second world war... Last night's No 1 made her the only artist to feature in the UK single and album charts in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Update 2010:  I needed some music to post on New Year's Eve, so this repost finds life once more.  See you guys next year...

Update 2014:  Familiarity with this song skyrocketed in the U.S. this year when it was chosen by Stephen Colbert for the concuding segment of his farewell program.  I'll leave the original version embedded at the top; the Colbert version is a bit too celebrity-centered for my taste.

Meanwhile, in England Vera Lynn reached her 97th birthday in March.

She is the oldest living person to have a top 20 UK album after Vera Lynn: National Treasure - The Ultimate Collection reached number 13.

Reposted for New Year's Eve, 2019.  One of my all-time favorite songs.  I also note it was featured in one of the trailers for the upcoming Westworld season 3:

YouTube link.

Reposted on more time (probably not the last) to make note of the death today of Vera Lynn at age 103.  Here's an outstanding mashup of multiple performances of her signature song:

YouTube link.

One of the best songs ever because it implies that death will not keep us apart. Reposted again for the new year of 2024.

"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" performed on Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica

A special treat for Christmas eve for the TYWKIWDBI family. The song will be familiar, the instrument not. This is a glass harmonica, invented by Benjamin Franklin. Sounds are produced by placing damp fingers on glass vessels in the same way that one might do at a dinner party; here the vessels continuously rotate, so the fingers can just be touched to the glass.

In Franklin's version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally nested on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot-operated treadle. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note... With the Franklin design it is possible to play ten glasses simultaneously if desired, a technique that is very difficult if not impossible to execute using upright goblets. Franklin also advocated the use of a small amount of powdered chalk on the fingers which helped produce a clear tone in the same way rosin is applied to the bows of string instruments.

Before you listen to the music, please note this cautionary bit:

The instrument's popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad... One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung where it is stated that "the armonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation.

Enjoy.

Reposted from 2008 (!) to add this performance of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor:

Crank up the sound when you watch this; share it with someone else in the room.