Viggo talks the Hobbit (and LotR)

[Elentári]

Prim - there's certainly no guitar allowed anywhere near our church (sorry Al!), we're very traditional, singing music from the Cathedral and Collegiate Church tradition. (Sung Evensong every Sunday).

so I'm not sure "happy dance" smiley is the one for me either - no swaying or clapping allowed by our vicar

[Alatar]

Bah! I'm working on getting Drums into ours. We have 4 Guitars and a Bass now, plus tambourines, but we need more er, percussive percussion...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Cool, Al!

[Inanna]

Cool, Al!

There you go. You call him Al.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don't find this stuff amusing anymore
If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al

A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where's my wife and family
What if I die here
Who'll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is
Gone Gone
He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

Sorry!

[Inanna]

At one point of time in my life, this is how I used to always respond, to almost everything, with lyrics.

[Primula Baggins]

That's a great song, Voronwë.

Elen, we're Lutherans, so it's not so much that we're not allowed to clap and sway as that we're not much good at it. We do have a music ensemble with drums (not the kind that come in a set, individual handmade drums) and acoustic guitar, all unamplified, plus draftees on strings and brass on festival occasions. And our music is partly traditional, partly not, though we always follow the form of the liturgy and always serve Communion. There are a whole lot of Lutherans in southern Africa, so that music is influencing our hymns now. I really like it. We're a small church, but even the congregation likes to sing harmony.

[Elentári]

Prim wrote:

but even the congregation likes to sing harmony.

That's great!

We do have a "singing group", made up of members of the congregation who, for whatever reason, don't feel they can commit to the choir regularly, or maybe just enjoy singing but arn't musically up to our standard, and they lead some of the services when the choir has a weekend off. They sing Evensong one sunday a month, for example, and their music will naturally be selected from the newer types of worship songs. They have started to try more harmony singing lately, and are gaining in confidence.
Our congregation really supports our choir and is very proud of the standard we try to maintain.

[Pearly Di]

OT:

It's strange because I really have not liked di Caprio in anything I've seen except Romeo and Juliet, in which he was really excellent! I think it was a combination of very skilled direction, extraordinary if unorthodox script and his youth at the time. It really worked for me!

But nothing else since.

I liked Leo in Baz Lurhmann's Romeo and Juliet too, Impy.

But like you, nothing else since. I recently saw Revolutionary Road (oh my goodness me, what a depressing film!) and Kate Winslet almost acted him off the screen.

While we're all being merrily off-topic, a) I love You can call me Al, a song that gets my feet tapping, and b) I love the English choral tradition and will happily sit through a sublime Evensong in any of the cathedrals, but my church, like Al's, has a music group which does the contemporary worship side of things and I sing with them.

Well, I hope that was off-topic enough.

On-topic, it'd have been cool if Viggo had directed TTT and RotK.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don't find this stuff amusing anymore
If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al

A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where's my wife and family
What if I die here
Who'll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is
Gone Gone
He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

Sorry!

Paul Simon is such a great lyricist.

If I ever wanted to turn to writing lyrics, in addition to poetry, he would be one to learn from.

BrianIs AtYou

PS

Actually, my poem "The Ballad of Indigo Joe" (that I wrote back in November's Seven/Seven) has been turned in to a song by a local group, and I saw it performed last Saturday night.

A friend of mine took a video and I am hoping he'll be able to get me a copy. I had forgotten to bring my camera, or I would have recorded it myself.

[Primula Baggins]

That must have been a fascinating experience! I hope you get the video. Would you be willing to link it here? I think a lot of us would love to see it.

[solicitr]

Meanwhile, we're working up one of Haydn's settings for a full-bore all-Latin bells 'n smells Romapalooza mass.....

[Primula Baggins]

Sounds like fun, solicitr!

[Alatar]

Paul Simon is such a great lyricist.

If I ever wanted to turn to writing lyrics, in addition to poetry, he would be one to learn from.

BrianIs AtYou

I've never really made a distinction. I've always felt the great lyricists were equally great poets. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan are modern day poets to my mind. The fact that they put music behind them doesn't change that.

As a poet yourself, would you disagree? Is there something inherently different about lyrics?