Soldier Boy --- The Shirelles

There's something about purity and innocence in music that brings out the best in me. The Shirelles Soldier Boy has that quality. It inspires a higher ideal in me.

Here's Soldier Boy on YouTube:

I was driving home a few days ago when this song came on the radio. A local station was playing a recording of a radio show that had aired in Dallas, Texas in 1962. The recording included wisecracks by the DJ, commercials that were current back then, etc.

I was driving my car in Maine and listened fascinated as this radio show recorded in Dallas 50 years ago played on my radio.

Contributing to the innocence of the era was the DJ who had so much more freedom to engage in off-the-wall antics and be entertaining. Clearly it was a live show and clearly the DJ was making it up as he went along.

The sentiment of the song is loyalty. Loyalty is one of the most rewarding ideals one can pursue, especially if it is returned. Even when not returned, it still helps you to find out who your friends are. When someone is disloyal, you move on.

Returning to simple ideals, such as loyalty, is always rewarding. The song says, I will never make you blue. That's essentially true. The people who are loyal to you rarely make you blue.

Oddly enough, the song is not just entertainment, it also teaches higher values in a very un-self-conscious way. The song teaches a higher value --- loyalty --- without seeming to teach anything at all.

That's my favorite kind of teaching. The kind of teaching where neither the teacher nor the student is conscious of the fact that anything at all is being taught. It's the most innocent and most effective form of teaching.

Every song has an ideal behind the lyrics. An innocent ideal is great. A higher value is even better. Soldier boy has both.

Ed Abbott

Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah

I've always appreciated music that brings me back to life. Jeff Buckley's rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah does that. It brings me back to life.

Here's the song on Youtube:

Apparently Jeff Buckley was a session guitarist who later made it as a singer and a solo act. Interestingly enough, the same thing happened to Glen Campbell. Glen Campbell did sessions for the Beach Boys before he embarked on his solo career.

Here's the Wikipedia article on Jeff Buckley's life:

Jeff Buckley

The main point I get out of the Wikipedia article is that Jeff Buckley was a musician not only because he wanted to be one, but because he had to be one. I find it so interesting that the best singers sing not out of luxury, but out of necessity. Necessity drives the best musicians!

You can hear it in Jeff Buckley's voice. He's no luxury singer. If he could not sing, he would absolutely die. That's the sense I get.

So it is with all the best artists. Art is a necessity, not a luxury.

Because music is a necessity for Jeff Buckley, his music tends to be enlivening. Here are some of the characteristics of music that is enlivening:

1. Enlivening music is alive because the musician has to do it, and is not merely responding to a passing desire to be a musician.
2. Great music is full of rests. If it's really good, the sound is counter-balanced with the silence. Oddly enough, this is true even of up-tempo music. However, with up-tempo music the silence is little micro pauses that only musicians with excellent timing put into their music.
3. Great music is bare-naked. Even with a full-piece orchestra, there's a certain amount of nudity in great music. Buckley's Hallelujah is especially bare-naked. Just a boy and his guitar.
4. Just as each individual has a spiritual essence, so each musical performance has a spiritual essence. Great musicians have Soul and their musical performances have Soul.
5. An odd thing about great recorded music is that it sounds like a live performance. Because it is alive, it sounds live. This is very true of Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah.
6. I can't help but notice a great musician will vary their physical technique depending on the way they are feeling. Though I cannot see Jeff Buckley play guitar, I strongly suspect the technique he is using to play the strings varies as his emotional expression varies.
7. A great recording captures the moment. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to capture the moment just the way it is

All of the above is characteristic of life-giving music. When the music comes from life, it has life.

Ed Abbott