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"Luna de Xelaju" and "Every Time We Say Goodbye" (Patrick Mears, -Germany, 11/20/23 10:26 am)I second John E's hearty and sincere welcome back to Gary Moore. I have missed his wise, clever and fun posts.
"Luna de Xelajú" is a beautiful song and a brilliant video that Gary has served up to WAISdom. Thank you very much for that kindness.
John E's comment immediately brought to mind the Cole Porter classic, "Every Time We Say Goodbye" and these lyrics therein:
"When you′re near, there's such an air of spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it
There′s no love song finer
But how strange the change from major to minor
Every time we say goodbye."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2opW4UfH26o
JE comments: Music criticism is not my bailiwick, so I'll just make some loose observations. Pat Mears has forwarded another song written during WWII. (Gary Moore's entry, "Luna de Xelajú," is from 1944.) Why did so many excellent tunes emerge during the conflict? Much of the canon of popular Christmas songs came out during the war. "Every Time We Say Goodbye" certainly had deep meaning for wartime listeners.
Another curiosity cropped up: are humans "hard-wired" to associate the minor mode with sadness? Apparently not (I looked it up): it's culture-specific. Some cultures create happy songs in minor keys.
And Pat, will your Heidelberg home hold a Thanksgiving celebration, or will you be joining most Germans and treating the 23rd as a normal day? Either way, a joyful TG to you and Connie.
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Reflections on German Music, Serbian Apologists (from Gary Moore)
(John Eipper, USA
11/22/23 4:41 AM)
Gary Moore writes:
Many thanks to Patrick Mears for his kind words on my post about the Guatemalan song "Luna de Xelajú."
Both Patrick and John E responded with rich questions about music, emotion, and culture (e.g., Why do minor chords sound sad to Europeanized cultures, but not to some others?), which I hope will bring instructive discussion from those blessed with more musical knowledge than me.
Patrick, in Austria I was surprised to find new friends scoffing that they didn't much like their own rich tradition in music of the German language, but preferred American or Americanized pop. Is this a traumatized reaction to authoritarianism in the past? (Or if you like, any other musing on Germany or elsewhere.)
But oops, now Kosovo. If we are not to use eloquent words like "rubbish," may I then heartily second Istvan Simon with less effective prose: Romanticized pro-Serbian apologia on Kosovo, steeped inadvertently in the Kosovski ciklus (about which the apologist typically knows nothing), are like the post-Confederate outpourings that exalted Dixie's Lost Cause--packed full of triumphant factoids (and fiction-oids) that surely seem to win the point, though unburdened by objective inquiry at the scene. Or perhaps like the avalanche of geological factoids coming from Creationists proving a 4,000-year-old earth.
Is this replacement enough for the impolitic word?
JE comments: The Germans and Austrians have nothing to be ashamed of, musically speaking. A trio of "B" composers should put their minds at ease. Or how about Mozart? For Austrians who of recent times, consider Falco and his pounding 1980s anthem, "Der Kommisar." I proudly say, Rock me, Amadeus.
Gary Moore's comparison of the Serbian and Confederate Lost Causes gets me thinking. I clearly see the "lost" part, but the Serbs were never secessionists, quite the opposite. Is it intrinsically romantic to sympathize with war's losing side? Must reflect more on this.
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