ukulele orchestra of great britain pinball wizard

Well, my show for next week’s opening at the Principle Gallery has been delivered. Maybe it’s the odd little animation that accompanies it that gives it even a glummer feel for the holiday. It’s features the trumpet of Miles Davis and the sax of Wayne Shorter and is even bluer in tone than the songs above. But I found one video entitled Blue Christmas that is another song altogether. It is an amzing array of sounds and styles that cover this beloved holiday song. There are different instrumental versions including a charming version on the harp played by a teen who is lamenting the loss of her homeschool teacher, versions from various handbell groups (I particularly liked the one from the Trinity University) and one on the ukulele from one of my favorites, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britiain. There are rock versions , big band and country versions from dozens and dozens of various artists from every segment of the musical spectrum that all seem to pay homage to Elvis’ particular take on the song. I was amazed at how many different people have covered the song. I wanted something other than Elvis’ version, which is the standard by which all other versions are judged. I was looking earlier online for a video of the song Blue Christmas to accompany this little painting that I have used as a Christmas card in the past. I know it sounds like it should be a joke or a parody but it’s a wonderful version. It is one of my favorite David Bowie songs, Heroes, performed by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. I only wanted to jot down a little something to introduce the song below for this Sunday morning music.

It just came and I guess I can live with that. I didn’t plan on writing this for today’s post, didn’t seek to be so personally biographical. But that cheap frame on a dying woman’s bedside table with that word hero on it still lingers with me and always will.

Maybe it was that he had simply stayed, had maintained a sense of responsibility and caring for her that became very obvious in her last days. They were always one word or a single side glance away from their next battle royale, the horror shows of mine and my siblings’ childhoods.īut somehow through the years of anger and adversity she still saw something in this man that she recognized as being heroic. Most of their life together was loud and contentious. I confess that, in this aspect, the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.īut this was especially evident when it came to his relationship with my mother. Now, hero is not a term I have often equated with my father, a man who is deeply flawed in many ways. In her final months, she had a picture next to her bed of my father in a small cheap frame with press-on letters on the bottom leg of it that spelled out the word hero. I think of when my mother was dying from cancer many years ago now. Not every hero wears a cape or jumps from buildings. Maybe our failure is that we only see heroism defined in epic terms, not in the bravery of the responsibility that comes in making everyday decisions that opt for doing what is right and not expedient or self-serving. Yet to do so is a rare and wondrous thing. It seems that there is ample evidence that humans have the desire and capability for living heroic lives. I find myself nodding in agreement with the above words from the poet John Keats. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.

There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify – so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism.

Ukulele orchestra of great britain pinball wizard