Some fun for Friday

I had about five things turn up in my RSS reading today that I want to blog before long. But it’s Friday, which merits things entertaining and lighthearted.

First up: a jazzy cover of Radiohead’s classic song “Creep”, with American Idol singer Haley Reinhart on vocals. (They replace the F word in this version with something cleaner, so it’s safe to turn on in front of small children.) I love how great songs manage to be viable and stay great even when transformed into a different genre. This is a good example.

Next up: Sesame Street reminds us again that it writes most of its humor to amuse the parents who would otherwise grow unbearably weary of its puppets. The latest example: “Game of Chairs”. Fans of Game of Thrones should be quite amused.

Matt Maher: Glory Bound

I’m not a big listener of CCM and Praise & Worship music, but Matt Maher’s stuff has been growing on me lately. He has a new record out this week called Saints and Sinners, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit.

Here he goes full Springsteen on “Glory Bound”, which is a heckuva lot of fun:

A famous scene minus the dialogue

OK, I’m just shamelessly reposting something Jason Kottke dug up, but it’s fascinating - somebody took the courtroom scene from A Few Good Men and edited all the dialogue out. It holds up really well; a sign, I would imagine, of the quality of the filmmaking.

A little piano music for the season

A couple years ago I recorded a little album of solo piano Christmas music. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from it:

You can download the whole thing from the original post if you want. Merry Christmas!

Deliver Us

I’ve felt a need for Advent far more keenly this year than I recall from previous years. Perhaps it’s the tumult of the times - with religious violence abroad and racial tension at home, it is so clear that we need the peace, deliverance, and salvation that Jesus brings now more than ever.

That brings me to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God. It’s long been my favorite Christmas record; in my estimation it’s one of only two or three perfect Christian records to have been made. Early in the record as Andrew tells the story of Christ, the song “Deliver Us” introduces the longing cry of God’s people for God’s salvation. And the lyrics seem as appropriate today as ever:

Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we’re bound Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land

Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight

Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give So Yahweh, break your silence if you can

Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight

[Response:] ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem How often I have longed To gather you beneath my gentle wings’

Come, Lord Jesus.

I'm not really an opera guy but this is still amazing:

Amazing control, making the ridiculously high notes seem really easy, and putting such personality into the role… brilliant stuff.

Fun for Friday: Star Wars without the Music

How awkward would the final scene of Star Wars Episode IV be without John Williams’ awesome score?

Pretty awkward, as it turns out.

OK, this is pretty cool

I know this has been all over the internet already, but I’m going to post it here anyway. It’s a video of a group called Árstíðir singing the 13th-century Icelandic hymn Heyr himna smiður in a German train station. The acoustics… amazing.

This reminds me of a college choir trip when we stopped at the Illinois Memorial at the Vicksburg National Military Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi. We sang a hymn in there that reverberated for what seemed like an eternity… such a cool experience.

Somehow, given the choice between lots of voices in big stone buildings made to reverberate and all the microphones and audio equipment we usually use on a Sunday… most of the time I think my preference is for the voices.

Star Wars music on an amazing pipe organ

OK, this is pretty great. Organist Jelani Eddington performs a suite from the Star Wars soundtrack on a massive pipe organ. The organ was built by Wurlitzer in 1927 for a theater in Omaha, NE, and after restoration has been installed at a museum in the suburbs of Chicago.

A little more about the organ:

Mounted on the wall to the left are the 32’ Diaphone pipes, and to the right are the 32’ Bombarde pipes. A 32-note set of Deagan Tower Bells, the largest of which weighs 426 lb., hang on each side of the room. They are activated by huge solenoids from their own console, the organ console, a roll player, and even the doorbell button. To the rear of the room, the ‘Ethereal’ pipe chamber in the attic echoes softly from the skylight area, while the brass ‘Trumpet Imperial’ and copper ‘Bugle Battaglia’ speak with great authority from the back wall. …


The grand piano connected to the pipe organ is a 9’ Knabe concert grand with an Ampico ‘A’ reproducing player mechanism. To the right of the console is a rare Deagan Piano-Vibraharp, which can be played by its own keyboard or from the organ console. Toward the rear of the room is a Spanish art case Steinway model A.R. Duo-Art reproducing piano, veneered in walnut with boxwood, pear and ebony inlay. A remote Duo-Art Concertola roll changer has been adapted to play Ampico rolls on the Knabe, or Duo-Art rolls on the Steinway, at the touch of a button on its control panel.

Crazy. Anyhow, this video itself is impressive:

A Pakistani cover of Brubeck's Take Five

OK, this is likely the most unique cover you’ve ever heard of Take Five. Very cool.