o frabjous day!

Category: Music

  • 5 December – Winter Song

    This is my winter song, December never felt so wrong; Cause you’re not where you belong, inside my arms This was written and recorded by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson that I included on the 2009 mix. Wikipedia rather amusingly says that it became a very minor hit in Canada in 2008. When you look…

  • 4 December – All That I Want

    And when the night is falling, down the sky at midnight; Another year is stalling, far away a goodbye, good night I really like The Weepies’ style of gentle folk, and included All That I Want on my 2009 Christmas mix CD. It’s a track from their first album, Happiness.

  • 3 December – Once In Royal David’s City

    Once in royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed; Where a mother laid her Baby, in a manger for His bed Sufjan Stevens has recorded a great deal of Christmas music, and I included this track on the 2008 mix. I think this was also the first version I’d heard of this song –…

  • 2 December – In The Bleak Midwinter

    Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow; In the bleak midwinter, long ago. This version by Sarah McLachlan was another song on the 2008 Christmas mix CD. Wikipedia helpfully advises that the song is based on a poem by Christina Rossetti written before 1872, which then appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906…

  • 1 December – Go Tell It On The Mountain

    When I am a seeker, I seek both night and day; I seek the Lord to help me, and He shows me the way James Taylor’s version of Go Tell It On The Mountain was on my first Christmas mix CD in 2008. Due to a general lack of contact with Christmas music I think…

  • Parting Glass

    I first heard The Parting Glass on a collected CD of Irish music that my parents owned – it was a version by The Dubliners, with a gruff-voiced singer and a shrill whistle wailing the melody along with him. Of all the money that e’er I spent I spent it in good company And all…

  • Foxes

    I find my eight-string ukulele really difficult to tune. The first two pairs of strings are one octave apart, the last two pairs the same notes, and once I’ve gone through the strings the first ones seem to have gone out of tune again. The husband kindly tunes it for me occasionally, as for some…

  • Brains

    While my brother and I live in (roughly) the same city – well, he lives within it, and I live 50ks away – we don’t spend a lot of time together, so it was nice to spend some time hanging out with him on the weekend. I asked for a coffee, which he didn’t have,…

  • Counting in

    Since early this year, I’ve been organising a group of people who get together to play ukuleles once a month. Until a few weeks ago, we were meeting in our lounge room – I would drag all our dining room chairs into a rough circle and we crowded in between the bookcases, strumming away. But…

  • Stuff we’ve tried recently

    ♠ Some (fairly) locally grown coffee – the Espresso Blend from Zeta’s Coffee, which is grown in the Tweed Valley. We bought it through Food Connect. I really liked this coffee, but I don’t think I know enough about coffee to describe why. It was warm and round and mellow? I don’t know. It was…