Seattle Photo-Postcard City & Ye Olde English Shoppe

In a naturally-induced, mildly Romantic dream-state, I learned Seattle and Tacoma combined comprise the 4th-largest container gateway in North America.

Like a cloud myself, and like a bird below the clouds, I moved through hanging gardens of rain. I landed on a ledge to warm my wings. I shook and cried and became the building, expanding as the sun warmed each stone.

Partly because of death, love and taxes, partly because some people are forever beating themselves, others, and a confession from the English language, I went looking for the most blue-green grove of late summer I could find.

Somewhere where they just say the sounds of words, and words mean things. Things like deep sorrow and joy, car and ship and tooth. Words full of wisdom and words tied to memory and words seeking each moment as it passes, welcoming truth.

Well…

I’ll take the West African blue note, and this green, green English. Follow the link to YouTube, alas.

As for 80’s pop, and the New-Romantic synth sound, it’s got an older groove:

Looking for ye Olde English Shoppe:

Thursday Poem-Thomas Dekker

The Merry Month of May

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
    So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say:
    “Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer’s queen!

    Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
    The sweetest singer in all the forest’s choir,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale;
    Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

    But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
    See where she sitteth: come away, my joy;
Come away, I prithee: I do not like the cuckoo
    Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.”

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
    So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
And then did I unto my true love say:
    “Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer’s queen!”

Thomas Dekker

Did you fall in love with this green, green English?

Maybe it all comes back around:

Some Wednesday Musical Links-Where Is Your Voice?

A really good rock voice, stripped of instrumentation, pulled out of the mix:

A very good female rock voice, with instrumentation, and two voices harmonizing during the chorus.

Two very good voices, and a pretty good voice, with instrumentation, and sometimes three voices harmonizing.

Here are six good voices, harmonizing throughout:

A Whole Chorus:

Ye Olde Blue-Green English: Some Songs And Links For Merry Listeners

Too much shredding?  Maybe, but that’s some tone, timing and technique!

You need a guy with near virtuosic talent on his instrument, some feel for composition, and long, long hours to play so faithfully live.

I like the change to the Am chorus at 2:50 or so.

Towards a theme.  New-agey and way 80’s yes, but I really like the composition, and the raucous feel beginning at the :32 mark as the drums and bass kick-in:

Why, it’s a like a tapestry of vocal harmonies:

Everything old is new again.  It gets positively medieval at 3:20 seconds?:

Who’s writing these things?  Just enjoy.  You culture has much to teach you if you bother to listen.  Stuff gets passed down, you know.

You can’t see (hear) it all from one place.