The performing group is very good. I don’t think that “churchy” would come to my mind for this arrangement, but maybe it fits the music in some churches.
But there are many arrangements. Here is Ray Charles:
I don’t think it’s politically necessary to like an important song in all possible arrangements and versions. I have my preferences, too. As a musician, I find I have to make distinctions between a performance, an arrangement, and a composition all the time.
I don’t think it’s politically necessary to like an important song in all possible arrangements and versions. I have my preferences, too.
I’m an atheist, but at Christmastime I’d much rather hear the traditional, religious carols I grew up with than abominations like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Run Run Rudolph,” “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” “Santa Baby” or other commercial “Holiday Season” muzak. As I’m in a retail sales position in a mall, I get a lot more of the latter than the former. Even though I don’t believe in the whole sacrifical atonement, Jesus-on-a-stick story, I can still appreciate the heartfelt beauty of excellent performances of the devotional music written to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Even though I’m not Christian, it seems more honest than the schlock that tries its best to avoid the Solstice-usurping, angry desert god and his only begotten son in favour of the consumer divinities of Frosty, Santa, and Rudolph. Sure, a lot of it is nostalgia, but I can appreciate the artistic expression of a faith I do not share more than I can stomach the shallow warblings of calculated, lowest-common-denominator, corporate inoffensiveness that’s trying to get me in a mood to shop.
I don’t care much for the traditional arrangements of traditional Christmas carols, but I enjoy really innovative and clever arrangements, such as those by David Willcocks or John Rutter. I can’t easily say whether I like a particular song, since the arrangement is crucial to my enjoyment of it. (For example: “Do you like ‘Deck the Hall’?” “Yes, if we’re talking about the Willcocks arrangement; No, if we’re talking about the arrangement in the popular little book of SATB carols.”)
Even in the cases where I find the text meaningful (which is not the case with Christmas carols), I don’t see it as important that I express approval of a particular version of a particular song just because I find the text meaningful. Some arrangements, some performances, are not to my taste.
My main point is this: “For political reasons I want to like it” makes little sense to me. Is “it” the performance, the arrangement, the melody, the text? I don’t see any reason that there is pressure to “like” all of the above if the text (or original version of the song) is important; it’s perfectly possible to say (for example) “I love what this song is saying, but I’m not really enjoying this arrangement (or this performance)”.
To me the one good thing to come out of the pandemic has been to get me back into the habit of going to concerts. Better seize the opportunity to see your favorite artists while you can. You never know when (if ever*) you’ll get another chance. One of many highlights in 2022 was seeing bass guitar legend and multi-instrumentalist Marcus Miller in Oslo back in autumn. I already knew and loved his instrumental track Goree (Go-ray) featuring Miller on Bass Clarinet, but I didn’t know the story behind it. It was inspired by a visit to the island of Goree off the coast of Dakar (now a museum) where slaves were being “stored” before they were loaded on to ships for America. According to Miller the composition was inspired in part by anger but also admiration for his ancestors who endured the most inhuman conditions imaginable. As I said, I already loved the track, but knowing the back story definitely added an extra dimension to the listening experience.
I love many kinds of music, but for the last decade or so I have developed a special fondness for instrumental music. There is something so “pure” about just rhythm, harmony, and melody and no lyrics. Like Sackbut I rarely (if ever) like a song just because of the lyrics, but there are definitely rock songs I can no longer stand listening to because of the (often quite violent) misogyny of the lyrics.
* I did have tickets to see the late, great Jeff Beck who passed away just last month, but the show was postponed to a day I had to work after one of his band members caught Covid. And now there won’t be a “next time”.
I’m going to have to go with not Bruce on this one. The soaring, majestic music of the old songs is so superior to the pap they play in the grocery store ad nauseum every Christmas, starting about Halloween.
Just like the bells in my neighborhood that play silly Sunday School songs when they could be tolling out magnificent music. It also doesn’t help that I tend to know the words to the Sunday School songs, they get stuck in my head, and I have to put up with them until I hear another catchy, but better, song.
Right now, we have the windows closed against the outside cold, so I can’t hear the bells. Which is good.
To provide one more example, here is a recording of Can’t Buy Me Love.
Most people know this as a Beatles song. The linked recording is an arrangement of the song in the form of a Renaissance madrigal, sung by the King’s Singers. I like this one, I’m not so crazy about the original. Arrangements matter.
Just for fun, here’s Bad Romance: not the Lady Gaga original, but a fugue for wind quintet.
I don’t like the pap they play at Christmas in the grocery store, either, but what I might consider “pap” includes the old, boring, homophonic arrangements of Christmas carols. Give me an interesting arrangement. I’ll take an interesting arrangement of Santa Baby (here, too, probably not the original) over the same old simplistic traditional harmony version of Good King Wenceslas any day.
Re the OP, the performance is an excellent one of an arrangement of Lift Every Voice And Sing. It is not the canonic original version of the song, nor any sort of standard version, and it’s possible to like or dislike this particular version without it saying anything about whether one likes the song itself or some more standard version.
For political reasons I want to like it, but it’s just so churchy…
There is always that “yes but…”
The performing group is very good. I don’t think that “churchy” would come to my mind for this arrangement, but maybe it fits the music in some churches.
But there are many arrangements. Here is Ray Charles:
https://youtu.be/DX2nBHYkFeY
Here is a more classical arrangement sung by the Spelman College Glee Club:
https://youtu.be/pRF9FOPgLpw
Here is one by a jazz a cappella group:
https://youtu.be/S4by9WN7rZs
This one claims to be from (or based on) the original 1900 score.
https://youtu.be/ktrS2DmMcss
(I suppose I just broke the link limit. Oh well.)
I don’t think it’s politically necessary to like an important song in all possible arrangements and versions. I have my preferences, too. As a musician, I find I have to make distinctions between a performance, an arrangement, and a composition all the time.
Heh, you broke the limit, but I wasn’t far away.
I’m an atheist, but at Christmastime I’d much rather hear the traditional, religious carols I grew up with than abominations like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Run Run Rudolph,” “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” “Santa Baby” or other commercial “Holiday Season” muzak. As I’m in a retail sales position in a mall, I get a lot more of the latter than the former. Even though I don’t believe in the whole sacrifical atonement, Jesus-on-a-stick story, I can still appreciate the heartfelt beauty of excellent performances of the devotional music written to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Even though I’m not Christian, it seems more honest than the schlock that tries its best to avoid the Solstice-usurping, angry desert god and his only begotten son in favour of the consumer divinities of Frosty, Santa, and Rudolph. Sure, a lot of it is nostalgia, but I can appreciate the artistic expression of a faith I do not share more than I can stomach the shallow warblings of calculated, lowest-common-denominator, corporate inoffensiveness that’s trying to get me in a mood to shop.
I don’t care much for the traditional arrangements of traditional Christmas carols, but I enjoy really innovative and clever arrangements, such as those by David Willcocks or John Rutter. I can’t easily say whether I like a particular song, since the arrangement is crucial to my enjoyment of it. (For example: “Do you like ‘Deck the Hall’?” “Yes, if we’re talking about the Willcocks arrangement; No, if we’re talking about the arrangement in the popular little book of SATB carols.”)
Even in the cases where I find the text meaningful (which is not the case with Christmas carols), I don’t see it as important that I express approval of a particular version of a particular song just because I find the text meaningful. Some arrangements, some performances, are not to my taste.
My main point is this: “For political reasons I want to like it” makes little sense to me. Is “it” the performance, the arrangement, the melody, the text? I don’t see any reason that there is pressure to “like” all of the above if the text (or original version of the song) is important; it’s perfectly possible to say (for example) “I love what this song is saying, but I’m not really enjoying this arrangement (or this performance)”.
To me the one good thing to come out of the pandemic has been to get me back into the habit of going to concerts. Better seize the opportunity to see your favorite artists while you can. You never know when (if ever*) you’ll get another chance. One of many highlights in 2022 was seeing bass guitar legend and multi-instrumentalist Marcus Miller in Oslo back in autumn. I already knew and loved his instrumental track Goree (Go-ray) featuring Miller on Bass Clarinet, but I didn’t know the story behind it. It was inspired by a visit to the island of Goree off the coast of Dakar (now a museum) where slaves were being “stored” before they were loaded on to ships for America. According to Miller the composition was inspired in part by anger but also admiration for his ancestors who endured the most inhuman conditions imaginable. As I said, I already loved the track, but knowing the back story definitely added an extra dimension to the listening experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAF61hQJmoc
I love many kinds of music, but for the last decade or so I have developed a special fondness for instrumental music. There is something so “pure” about just rhythm, harmony, and melody and no lyrics. Like Sackbut I rarely (if ever) like a song just because of the lyrics, but there are definitely rock songs I can no longer stand listening to because of the (often quite violent) misogyny of the lyrics.
* I did have tickets to see the late, great Jeff Beck who passed away just last month, but the show was postponed to a day I had to work after one of his band members caught Covid. And now there won’t be a “next time”.
I’m going to have to go with not Bruce on this one. The soaring, majestic music of the old songs is so superior to the pap they play in the grocery store ad nauseum every Christmas, starting about Halloween.
Just like the bells in my neighborhood that play silly Sunday School songs when they could be tolling out magnificent music. It also doesn’t help that I tend to know the words to the Sunday School songs, they get stuck in my head, and I have to put up with them until I hear another catchy, but better, song.
Right now, we have the windows closed against the outside cold, so I can’t hear the bells. Which is good.
To provide one more example, here is a recording of Can’t Buy Me Love.
Most people know this as a Beatles song. The linked recording is an arrangement of the song in the form of a Renaissance madrigal, sung by the King’s Singers. I like this one, I’m not so crazy about the original. Arrangements matter.
Just for fun, here’s Bad Romance: not the Lady Gaga original, but a fugue for wind quintet.
I don’t like the pap they play at Christmas in the grocery store, either, but what I might consider “pap” includes the old, boring, homophonic arrangements of Christmas carols. Give me an interesting arrangement. I’ll take an interesting arrangement of Santa Baby (here, too, probably not the original) over the same old simplistic traditional harmony version of Good King Wenceslas any day.
Re the OP, the performance is an excellent one of an arrangement of Lift Every Voice And Sing. It is not the canonic original version of the song, nor any sort of standard version, and it’s possible to like or dislike this particular version without it saying anything about whether one likes the song itself or some more standard version.