The Beatles: All You Need is Love (1967)

 1960s Music

The Beatles: “All You Need is Love.” This is a single released on July 7, 1967. Maybe it is not all we need, but if there were more love in our world, it would certainly ease much of the pain and suffering. It would prevent so much pain and suffering. A kind word, a listening ear, an open heart. Love opens the doors to so much good. We are (often) embarrassed by love, yet we all desire love in our lives. Yet, I am sad to say that love, which can be abundant, is not. Although we all have the capacity to love, love has become the rarest of human qualities, parceled out in tiny doses, and our world is so much poorer as a result. We are stingy with love. It is no joke, no understatement, no exaggeration to say that we today live in a world starving for love. The starvation is greater today than it was yesterday, than it was last week, last month, last year. Than it was a decade ago. Then it was decades ago. We are slowly starving to death. The evidence is plain to see.

Via: Youtube 

The Supremes: Baby Love (1964)

 1960s Music

The Supremes: “Baby Love” (1964). This is the third track on Side A of the album, Where Did Our Love Go, which was released on August 31, 1964. Yes, here is some more of that uplifting Motown sound.

Via: Youtube

The Supremes: Where Did Our Love Go (1964)

1960s Music

The Supremes:  “Where Did Our Love Go” (1964), the title track of the same-named album, which was released on August 31, 1964. Here is some o the beautiful Motown sound that I was ortunate to have grown up with, and is still here, available for all to bathe in, Enjoy!
Via: Youtube

Three Dog Night: Joy to the World (1970)

 1970s Music

 

Three Dog Night: “Joy to the World” is the last track on Side 2 of the album, Naturally, which was released on November 18, 1970. It was also released as an extended play single a few months later. The song was popular then and remains so 50 years later.

Via: Youtube

 

 

Carole King: So Far Away (1971)

 1970s Music

Carole King: “So Far Away.” is the second track on Side 1 of the album, Tapestry, which was released on February 10, 1971.  It was both a commercial and critical success; one of the albums that defined my generation that year. It was played consistently that summer of 1971.

Via: Youtube

Tova Ben Zvi: In An Orem Shtibele (2004)

 Yiddish Music

Tova Ben Zvi: “In An Orem Shtibele” (אין אַן אָרעם שטיבעלע; In a Poor Little House) is the 23rd track on Disc 1 of the two-disc CD, With a Song in the Heart, which was released in 2004. Tova Ben Zvi, born in Lodz, Poland, in 1928, is a Holocaust survivor, who moved to Israel after the war. The lyrics are by Moyshe Korman [1884–1928] and the music by Mikhal Gelbert [1889–192]. The song was popular in Yiddish schools in Poland and the United States in the 1930s. The lyrics and music can be found [here].
Via: Youtube

Elisheva Edelson: Chiribim Chiribom Medley (2001)

 Yiddish Music

Elisheva Edelson: “Chiribim Chiribom Medley” is the eighth song on the album, Fun Meyn Yerushe (From My Heritage), which was released on December 12, 2001. Of her background, her website says: “Elisheva Edelson was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and has been a Jewish Educator and performer of Jewish Folk and Popular Jewish Music since a very young age.”

Via: Youtube 

Birds of Paradise in New Guinea

 Birds

Birds of Paradise in New Guinea: What beautiful, fascinating and amazing birds these are; and this video shows a bit of their behavior.

Via: Youtube

IDF (2014): Hebrew Version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, הללויה

 Israeli Jewish Music

IDF: “Hebrew Version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’”(הללויה). For Leonard Cohen’s original in English, go [here], and for Daniel Kahn’s version in Yiddish, go [here]. The Hebrew lyrics can be found [here]. The song is the first track on side 2 of the album, Various Positions, released on December 11, 1984. It was not a commercial or critical success during its early years. It took more than a decade for the song to achieve the popularity it now has.

Via: Youtube 

Although Leonard Cohen’s lyrics have a strong secular sense, it's religious elements are hard to ignore. Cohen referred to these for a reason, because like all humans, his spiritual self (found in the soul) needs to look upward and outward for transcendence. But the materialistic self always remains, so it is not at all surprising to see the fusing of the secular with the holy in his music, and even in his praise to God. 

In a Rolling Stone piece (December 12, 2019), Cohen is quoted as saying:

“I wanted to push the Hallelujah deep into the secular world, into the ordinary world,” he once said. “The Hallelujah, the David’s Hallelujah, was still a religious song. So I wanted to indicate that Hallelujah can come out of things that have nothing to do with religion.”

Religion is not the same as belief or faith or spirituality, although it does contain elements of these, yet it is organized and packaged for mass consumption, making it easier to accept and understand. Some, however, a few chosen few, understand and like to approach in a different way, which is in essence a more difficult path. These are the seers, poets and prophets. 

Their lives seem chaotic, inconsistent and not at all religious in the traditional sense. And they are likely not, since they do not fit within our ideas on how holy and righteous people ought to live. More often than not, they appear reclusive, living in their own world, a world of thoughts and words, and of course images. 

Yet, it can't be any other way, and there is a clear consistency in the lives of individuals who are part of this lonely tradition.It is my view that Leonard Cohen was one of those who did so, approaching God in his way of understanding who God was and is, both the God of the Jewish Bible and the God of modern humans. This song brings us nearer, closer to understanding.

Mischpoke (2015): Kinder-yorn; קינדער־יאָרן; Childhood.

 Yiddish Music

Mischpoke: “Kinder-yorn” (קינדער־יאָרן; Childhood) at the MS Stubnitz, in Hamburg, Germany, in Oktober 2015. Mischpoke consists of Magdalena Abrams (clarinet, bass clarinet, vocals), Cornelia Gottesleben (violin), Frank Naruga (guitar, percussion), Frank Naruga (guitar, percussion), and Maria Rothfuchs (double bass).     
     The song was written by Mordechai Gebirtig [1877–1942], a Yiddish poet and songwriter from Poland, who was murdered by the Nazis in Krakow during the Holocaust on a day known as “Bloody Thursday.” YIVO writes: “On 4 June 1942, while being marched to the Kraków train station on the way to the Bełżec death camp, Gebirtig was murdered by random Nazi fire.”   

     The lyrics to “Kinder-yorn” can be found [here].

Via: Youtube