No piano. No guitar. No drums. So many things aren’t here. But nothing is missing.
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Sit Down Servant and Rest Awhile,” live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi, 1978
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
back to church
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Jesus Traveled On This Road Before”
Live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Miss., 1978
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lagniappe
reading table: more of Seamus Heaney
Reading (New York), 2011
***
Funeral (Dublin), September 2, 2013
Repeat them often enough and words lose their literal shapes, dissolving into pure feeling.
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “I Stepped in the Water One Day,” live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi, 1978
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lagniappe
reading table
. . . Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly needing mending.
—Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby-Dick
No piano or organ. No guitar. No bass, no drums. So many things aren’t here. But nothing’s missing.
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Sit Down Servant and Rest Awhile,” live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi, 1978
back to church
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Let Jesus Fix It”
Live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Miss., 1978
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music, the greatest good that mortals know,/And all of heaven we have here below.
—Joseph Addison (1672-1719), “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”
music clip of the day 