Michelle Moyer & Clyde Bawden – Silent Night
An evening pause: A nice way to close this year’s Christmas season. Hat tip Wayne DeVette, who notes this performance’s “unique arrangement.” Quite refreshing.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Buddy Greene – How Can I Keep From Singing
An evening pause: Most people in the secular world today know this version of the hymn, but this performance of the original is so magnificent I think all should see it, whether you are Christian or not. And for those who are Christian, what better day but today to hear it.
To me, it was this performance from 1987 by Jean Redpath that is most meaningful, but in good will I — a secular humanist born a Jew — post the gospel version now.
A Christmas Carol
An daytime pause: For me, this version, starring Alastair Sim, remains the best of all the many adaptions of Charles Dickens classic short novel. Always worth seeing during the holiday season. As I wrote last year when I posted it, “I watched this again and felt like weeping, not because of the sentimentality of the story itself but because it is so seeped in a civilized world that increasingly no longer exists. There was a time when this was our culture. I fear it is no longer so. As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present, ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’”
May all my readers have a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Greg Lake – I believe in Father Christmas
Benjamin Shapiro – Theme from Schindler’s List
An evening pause: Performed live in 1996, when Shapiro was twelve years old. Note that this is that Ben Shapiro, the orthodox Jew and well-known conservative columnist whom leftists ignorantly love to call a Jew-hater and white supremacist. How they come to that conclusion can only be because they are willfully ignorant or so filled with hate and their ideology that they can’t look at reality with any honesty.
I think, during this holiday season, it is wise to also reflect on humanity’s tragic failures, one of the worst of which was the Holocaust during World War II.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Aryeh and Gil Gat – The Sound of Silence
An evening pause: I think this song is fitting for the last night of Hanukkah. For Jews, this verse well describes perfectly what it is like when they try to express their point of view in a harsh and hostile world:
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
The two singers are brothers and rabbis, and are performing here for an Israeli television show modeled after American Idol called Rising Star.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Daniela Andrade – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
An evening pause: This is the second Christmas song I’ve posted by Daniela Andrade, and this is the third version I’ve posted of this particular song, one by Katie Melua and the second the original by Judy Garland.
No matter. This version is as good as the others.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
The Fifth Dimension – One Less Bell to Answer
Slimtime
Julie Andrew – Impossible
An evening pause: From the live television premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella in 1957, their only musical written for television. Edith Adams plays the fairy godmother.
For the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don’t believe in sensible rules
And won’t believe what sensible people say
And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes
Impossible things are happening every day!
I first posted this in 2011. Time to see it again.
David Essex – A Winter’s Tale
Jerry Weil – Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages)
An evening pause: A simple but powerful performance, in Hebrew and English, for the first night of Hannukah.
No Strings A Cappella – Past Three O’ Clock
An evening pause: Though written as celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus, I think the lyrics really apply all newborns. As William Wordsworth said, we arrive “trailing clouds of glory.”
past three o’clock,
on a cold frosty morning,
past three o’clock,
good morrow masters all.
born is a baby
gentle as may be,
son of the Eternal
Father supernal.
mid earth rejoices
hearing such voices.
ne’ertofore so well
carolling nowell!
cheese from the dairy
bring they for Mary,
and, not for money,
butter and honey.
thus they: i pray you,
up sirs, nor stay you
till ye confess him
likewise and bless him.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Pablo Larcuen – Elefante
USAF Band – Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring
A evening pause: This is almost a real flash mob event at the Air & Space Museum. It seems as if they sneak up on the holiday crowds, but at the same time I am not so sure. Too many cameraman around, as well as performers. Regardless, it is a great performance.
Hat tip Edward Thelen, and Tim Vogel (who suggested this a couple of years ago when I was especially dismissive of fake flash mob events. Since then I’ve mellowed). Also, as Edward notes, the schedule of events at the end of this video no longer applies.
How to make your dog really happy!
An evening pause: How? You enter the room dressed as your dog’s favorite toy.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
The Holdman House decorated for Christmas
An evening pause: From the youtube webpage:
The Amazing Grace Christmas House was located in Pleasant Grove, Utah and designed and programmed by Richard Holdman. A small little charity box placed in front of the display has raised more than $40,000 for the Utah Make-a-Wish Foundation. Thank you everybody for your support.
Hat tip Willi Kusche.
LeAnn Rimes – Blue
Petula Clark – I couldn’t live without your love
An evening pause: Performed live, 2012, when Clark was in her eighties. See this 2017 interview of her that includes some nice details about her life.
Portrait of Lotte, 0 to 18 years
An evening pause: Somehow, to me, this seems a fitting introduction to the holiday season. From the youtube website, “Lotte from the Netherlands (Utrecht) becomes 18 years old in this film! Dutch filmmaker and artist Frans Hofmeester has been filming and photographing his children Lotte and Vince since birth. Every week the images are shot in the same style.”
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Susanna Hoffs – Eternal Flame
Steve Cutts – This is our world
An evening pause: This animation expresses well what I often feel and think, as someone who does not use a “smart” phone.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who sent it from his own smart phone, which left him “not feeling very high and mighty.”
Bryan Adams – Everything I Do
The Dukes of September – Who’s That Lady?
An evening pause: That’s Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, and Boz Scaggs performing live in 2014.
Hat tip Joe Griffin.
Matt Wessel and Katie Wessel – Anyone Else But You
An evening pause: Seems very appropriate for Thanksgiving. This cover was performed by the couple immediately after they had gotten married.
Hat tip Edward Thelen, who said he prefers this to the original, an opinion to which I agree whole-heartedly.
Delivery from Earth
An evening pause: A short film about the moment the first human was born on Mars, as seen from the perspective of a Navajo family on Earth.
Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
Samantha Whates – Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who tells this story about the song’s origin: ” Future country music star, Jeannie Seely, worked as a secretary at Liberty and Imperial Records in 1963. The producer for the record company, Eddie Ray, was looking for a new song for Rythm & Blues legend, Irma Thomas.
“After each day’s work, Seely would work on her own compositions on the studio piano. One day, Seely was asked to attend an Artists and Repertoire meeting by Ray. She came to the meeting with her stenography pad but was told, no, he wanted her to sing that song she was writing the night before.
“‘Anyone Who Knows What Love Is’ became a 1964 hit for Irma Thomas in both the R&B and Pop charts. It was the first song Seely had published.”
I’m not a robot
Belle & Sebastian – Piazza, New York Catcher
David Bowie – Life on Mars
An evening pause: Hat tip to Edward Thelen for reminding me that I should post another Bowie song. This was recorded live in 1999.