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I’m sure I got tagged on this meme somewhere along the way, and then my buddy Dan did it last week, so I figured it’d be an interesting exploration into my music library. 15 records that were influential in my listening history. More or less in chronological order as to when I found them.

1. Harry Connick, Jr , When Harry Met Sally (soundtrack)

This was my introduction to big band. At the time I was a teenager who loved playing the piano, and here was a twenty-something artist who was ripping up the jazz piano and putting together some awesome big band arrangements. I fell in love with it, and I can sing all of the arrangements to this day.

2. Rich Mullins, A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band

I had been a Rich Mullins fan before this record came out, but this is a classic, a nearly perfect record from beginning to end. Rich taught me that Christian music doesn’t have to be low-quality, uninspired drivel, and my piano-playing style has been more influenced by his than by anyone else.

3. Jennifer Knapp, Kansas

Jen continued the “Christian music doesn’t have to suck” campaign with her signature record. This one pushed me to pick up a guitar and sing. I’ll never forget the morning that three of us from my worship team in college did “Martyrs & Thieves” as a special… it was perfect.

4. USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir, Rachmaninoff: Vespers

I remember first hearing bits of Vespers on NPR as a pre-teen. As I recall, the program was comparing two recordings of this a capella choral work, one by the Robert Shaw Chorale and one by a Russian choir. The Robert Shaw group was technically perfect, but the Russian choir was so much more alive. When I finally bought a recording, I made sure to get a Russian choir. I own three recordings of Vespers, but this one is the best of the three.

5. Sergei Rachmaninoff, The Ampico Piano Recordings

I first heard this in high school, and I was amazed both from the technical and musical perspectives. Rachmaninoff himself made these piano roll-type recordings back in the 1920’s. Then in 1990 some engineers resurrected the rolls and the piano mechanism and made a modern recording on a good piano. The result is a clean, crisp recording of a master playing his own works. The highlight for me is the final track: Rachmaninoff’s own arrangement of Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesfreud.

6. Caedmon’s Call, Long Line of Leavers

My brother Ryan had been into Caedmon’s for a long time but they never made sense to me. Then I popped this CD in at a Christian bookstore and was hooked within the first 10 seconds. Yeah, it’s those horns on the first track that all true Caedmon’s fans hate with a passion. But I loved them. From there on out I filled out my Caedmon’s catalog. More significantly, I joined an online community of Caedmon’s fans, which has over the past 6 years joined me up with some people who have become dear friends.

7. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head

Ryan tried again with this one. It took a couple of years before it finally made sense, but once it clicked, it was amazing. I’m not sure I’d count it as my favorite Coldplay record, and not sure that it contains my favorite Coldplay song, but it’s a classic from beginning to end, and was my first Coldplay record.

8. Andrew Osenga, The Morning

I found Andy’s stuff after he joined up with Caedmon’s. When he recorded The Morning I found a record with which I resonated in a way I never had before. Here was the heart of a man my own age, wrestling with the same life situations I was, pouring his heart out in a way I never could. Also: fantastic production, and a great concept from beginning to end.

9. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

I’d been into big band since high school, but had never made the progression further on into jazz until I found this record at the library. From the opening of “So What” I was hooked. Bebop is pretty much my sweet spot for jazz. Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane… they are where it’s at.

10. Jamie Cullum, twentysomething

Along with the jazz kick, here is a young guy who could rip up the jazz piano, swing over to piano-based pop for a song or two, and then come back to the jazz trio without missing a beat. And he does a jazz cover of Radiohead’s “High and Dry” that kicks some serious butt.

11. Andrew Peterson, Behold the Lamb of God

If there is another perfect record to go alongside Rich Mullins’ Liturgy, Legacy, this is it. Andrew Peterson’s ’true tall tale of the coming of Christ’ is an amazing concept, filled with beautiful music and tight lyrics, brought into being by an amazing community of musicians. This is the ‘Christmas album’ that I could listen to year round.

12. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Once: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack

It took me a while to get to this little Irish indie movie, but once I did, I bought the soundtrack that same day. Intense, emotional, personal stuff, and the only song I’ve heard that actually works in a 5/4 tempo.

13. Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog

This low-fi, folky thing is a beautiful piece of work. I don’t have a lot to say about it, but it keeps coming back into my listening rotation. That consistency means something.

14. The Khrusty Brothers, Jonas Is Back

This one is the oddball. This brainchild of Don Chaffer (who usually headlines Waterdeep) is essentially a collection of songs that he probably couldn’t have gotten away with recording under his own name. Good lyrics, sticky melodies, and a killer track called “Sympathy for Jesus”. Not linked because I don’t know where you can get it anymore. Here’s their Facebook page, though.

15. Radiohead, In Rainbows

For the longest time Radiohead didn’t make sense to me. I downloaded In Rainbows when it first came out (for free!), listened to it once, shook my head in confusion, and turned it off. But then a year or two later I turned it back on, heard it with fresh ears, and was transfixed. Then I proceeded to work back through the Radiohead catalog and find records like Kid A, The Bends, and OK Computer. While “Fake Plastic Trees” from The Bends has to be my favorite Radiohead song of all time, In Rainbows tops my list as a beginning-to-end record.

A follow-on to yesterday’s post about the superiority of ‘O Canada’:

I was not surprised to read that there are official lyrics in both English and French for the anthem. I was surprised a bit, though, at the stark difference in the message of the two versions.

First, the familiar English version:

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

But compare that with this English translation of the French lyrics:

O Canada! Land of our ancestors,
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.
As is thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic Of the most brilliant exploits.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.

A very different flavor to those, eh? An “arm ready to wield the sword”, but also “ready to carry the cross”. And rather than the English version standing on guard for the country, the French version stands in protection of “our homes and our rights”.

Fascinating how they’ve chosen to keep the tune and meter the same between both versions, and accepted the inevitable difference in lyrical content.

Time to start something new around here - from time to time I’ll highlight a record that I’ve been playing. I’ll start with a rather obscure one this afternoon: Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports.

Brian Eno is pretty much the king of ambient music, and Ambient 1 is one of his earlier works, dating back to 1978. This isn’t something that you’re going to want to sit down and just focus on for the entire 45 minute playtime, but it makes a beautiful backdrop to an hour, almost fading out here and there but never quite leaving the edges of your consciousness. Even if you’re not typically a listener of ambient music, it’s worth a try.

No promises about the video content on this one, but the music is worth a listen.

Songwriting, you ask? Yeah, if you missed it, I was invited to attend the Iowa Songwriter’s Guild meeting last month and they planted the bug again. So I’ve been keeping the songwriting idea in mind, looking for and writing down ideas, phrases, and so on. I have at least one idea that I really like as a concept; now I have to find a way to put actual words to it.

As a worship leader and accompanist for many years, one of my greatest gifts has been that I have an immense capacity for remembering music and lyrics and then playing them back. I could sit down with nothing more than a list of song titles and play and sing you songs for hours and hours. That skill, though, seems to become a curse when it comes to songwriting. Because I have trained my brain for so many years to remember and replay other people’s melodies and lyrics, now when I try to create my own phrase, I write down two words and it makes some other song lyric pop into my head. Play a couple of chords and it pops a song into my head. And once it’s in my head, it’s hard to banish.

I’m going to keep at it, though, and hope to attend January’s Guild meeting with at least something to show for my efforts. I may not ever turn out a great song, but it’s at least worth the effort to try.