A joke a fellow economist told me as we rode in the taxi to the airport for our return trip:
A group of economists are stranded on a desert island. They have but one can of beans, and set out deciding what should be done with it. Economist #1 says "All right. First, assume we have a can opener..."
Economists like to state assumptions. I think everyone makes them, but we have some sick love for letting everyone know when we make them. In that vein, assume that the idea of a musical Ideal holds true - that some music by its composition comes closer to stirring up complex thoughts, images, feelings, or somehow representing seeming inherently non-musical things, like Superman. My follow-up question is this:
What songs do you know that seem to come close to capturing some Ideal? Ground rules: lyrics that make you think of things are not allowed (sorry, Kaysi!), because that would be poetic. Lyrics in languages you do not know are okay, as are pure instrumental pieces.
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I'm back from North Carolina. I left my hotel yesterday at 1 EDT. I arrived home at 2am EDT (11:00 PDT). That was long, and I hear some such trips are even longer. A globe-trotter I am not. I am now cruelly and strangely awake (though at a time I'd normally be at work) though I am almost unable to stand for exhaustion.
I saw a Blue Ridge Road, I am not sure if it was the aforementioned Blue Ridge Parkway. It ran right by Crabtree Mall, which was where we took all our meals, being a short walk (doable,, but only in the evening) from the hotel. More stories are probably forthcoming, but I'm putting pictures up on Flickr (the few that I took). http://www.flickr.com/photos/renowiggum
5 comments:
Ode to Joy - Beethoven
Sketches of Spain - Miles Davis
well then i am unable to participate, as every song i have ever heard has attached to it some sort of memory, lyrics or not.
(side note: as far as foreign lyrics go, i do particularly love josh groban's "alla luce del sole," but as i mentioned, we cannot count this because attached to it is the memory of driving through the mountains after a late spring snowstorm, looking for some scenery to photograph.)
It counts if you don't know the meaning of the words (ie, using voices as a musical instrument). You can't use a Rich Mullins song.
It's like in The Shawshank Redemption when Morgan Freeman's character remarks about an opera "I don't know what those two ladies were singing about. I like to imagine that it was something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words."
There are many songs that produce thoughts or even just emotion for me. I'll only list a few though for the sake of breavity.
Zoe Keating- Arrival. This piece is done only with cellos and is quiet stirring.
Jean Ives-Thorugh (something like that) - Your hands are so cold. Also instrumental.
Damien Rice- The professor. There is some french at the end and it makes me happy, but it is a fairly sad song.
hmmmmm okay then i really really LOVE the soundtrack from "the village." there's something so bittersweet & melancholy yet beautiful about it... definitely one of my favorites.
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