Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Stupid Pet Tricks – Playing Dead
An evening pause: This is so silly, which is why it is funny and worth watching. Silliness is good. The world needs more of it.
Hat tip Charlie Tutino.
Sheryl Crow – Strong Enough
Julie Andrews – My Favorite Things
An evening pause: From the movie The Sound of Music (1965), a song about teaching children to face fear, to push past it, and live boldly and with courage. And to do it with humor. As Ray Bradbury wrote in his book, Something Wicked This Way Comes, you defeat evil and fear by laughing at it. The world needs to recapture this idea, or else we are doomed.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
Jeff Lynne – When I was a Boy
An evening pause: A nice song to start the new year. Performed live 2017 in London.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Andrea McArdle – Tomorrow
An evening pause: The first Annie sings live at the 1977 Tony Awards. Seems as appropriate a song to greet the New Year as Auld Lang Syne.
Cameron Taylor – Auld Lang Syne
Ray Stevens – Everything is Beautiful
An evening pause: Performed live 1970. Seems fitting as this bad year rolls to an end, since it looks forward with optimism and hope. And what other choice do we have?
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Kings Return Music – Ave Maria
An evening pause: I like how they describe themselves on their YouTube page: “We sing in stairwells.”
Hat tip Cotour, who actually sent me a different performance by these guys. I had seen this performance elsewhere, and decided to use it instead.
Natalie Merchant – Kind and Generous
The Hatterine – Swinging by the Christmas tree
An evening pause: An “electro swing dance” to the song “What will Santa Claus say.” This somehow seems appropriate just after Christmas, after the presents are opened and the partying is done.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir – Psalm 34
An evening pause: Some Old Testament religious passion, sung from my home town, Brooklyn, and very fitting for Christmas Eve.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Bobby Brown – Every Little Step
An evening pause: Performed live 2012. Hat tip to my wife Diane Zimmerman, who might have picked the song but I wanted to post it now as my own thank you to her. Every word Brown sings are words from me to you.
Do You Hear What I Hear – Whitney Houston
Scala & Kolacny Brothers – California Dreamin’
An evening pause: This choir cover of the classic Mamas & Papas song seems quite appropriate for the first day of winter.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Queen – You’re My Best Friend
An evening pause: We must always appreciate our friends, especially the ones who are honest and can be depended on.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
December 17, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
» Read more
Foxes and Fossils – I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
An evening pause: I’ve posted this group before. Their Patreon site is here. The key words: “Peace on Earth, good will to men.”
Hat tip Gary McDaniel.
Dido – Thank You
Alison Krauss & Yo-Yo Ma – The Wexford Carol
Andrea Bocelli – Panis Angelicus
Viola Brand – Ballet on a bicycle
An evening pause: Another one of the myriad sports that humans have invented. Stay with it, it gets better and better.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
How It’s Made – Candy Canes
Christmas Food Court Flash Mob – Hallelujah Chorus
An evening pause: Most claimed flash mob performances are not really what they claim, often well staged with lots of cameras and hardly a surprise to the surrounding innocent crowd. This one, performed during the Christmas season in 2010, appears quite genuine, building out of nowhere at an ordinary mall food court. Even the camera work appears to be mostly from phones, many of which I think the producers obtained from the onlookers after the fact.
And of course, the music of Handel using the words of the Bible cannot be beat.
Hat tip Chris McLaughlin.
Led Zeppelin – Thank You
5 Things You Don’t Know – Pearl Harbor
An evening pause: Some nice tidbits of historical trivia related to the attack that occurred this day in 1941 that forced the U.S. into World War II, and literally signed the death warrants for the Nazi and Japanese warlords.
Mean Mary James – Iron Horse
Black Pumas – Colors
An evening pause: Hat tip Tom Wilson, who notes that “they sound better live than on their CD, that shows talent.”
Dropkick Murphys – The Season’s Upon Us
An evening pause: As important as the Christmas season might be to family and friends, I think this song reminds us that friendship and family also must include humor and a requirement that we do not take ourselves too serious.
And boy, those two little kids must have had a blast making this video.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.