Happy Weekend!
Sorry, I can’t help myself. It is a fun time of year…
Time for a break from the week and share some music and poetry. Today, it’s all classic stuff.
MUSIC
For this week’s music, on the cusp of the election first Broadway stars and a song of voting and two versions of a nostalgic, uplifting tune from “the old days”:
Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton on voting:
Check out Daveed Diggs's dietary choices and Jonathan Groff's crown!
The Doobie Brothers classic, “Listen to the Music,” also recorded around the world and featuring Tom Johnston, from the original group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4sK8d48Exs
And here are the Doobie Brothers themselves doing “Listen to the Music,” live in isolation from their homes: https://wwwoutube.com/watch?v=etGV7D3hYoY
POETRY
As we head toward this consequential election and a week that I pray will help us find our bearings and heal this country, from Walt Whitman,
I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck …
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else
As Whitman said in the preface to Leaves of Grass, “The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors … but always most in the common people.”
There is much work ahead. I think of Robert Frost’s, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Have a great weekend, an enjoyable and spooky Halloween, and a peaceful week ahead,
Glenn
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