Four days and counting until the thesis is due. There will no doubt be a preponderance of posts this weekend as I procrastinate away the hours.
Lucky for me, my internet is down (sign from God?), forcing me to "focus" on the task at hand. Several of these posts were written in Notepad and saved to my desktop until I finished.
Right now I have been listening to a certain song on the computer for, oh, say, two hours in a row. It is called "Wahjeeleh" and is sung by the Stanford Talisman, a student a capella group specializing in traditional African songs. They are fucking awesome. You can listen to them here. I seriously believe this song is the secret to the universe.
There is something about the tune and the harmony and the chord changes and the humming and the shrieking, and also the fact that I can't understand a single word. The beginning chanting reminds me of creation. The way everything starts sort of slow and gets added together one by one. Like the water animals walking onto land for the first time, one leg after another, water dripping off their backs onto the hot earth. (I picture turtles.) And then the first minute of the song just slowly builds. I picture a lot of mud. And tall stalks of wheat. And baskets, men and women carrying baskets. Around minute 2:48, when the world is in full swing, and the ladies are yelping, and the men suddenly come in, and the melody brings us back to the beginning, I really get this feeling that they are trying to tell me something divine.
My stupid ass ex-boyfriend was such a music snob, for a while all we listened to was depressing emo/indie rock. Because that's all he valued. Some of that stuff is good, but there is just so much other music in the world that is great, it is rediculous to limit yourself like that. I actually sort of got into the mindset that his music was all music, and stopped listening to a lot of my stuff. My stuff is definitely better. And more massive. And varied. I have piles of CDs in my bedroom, on shelves and on my nightstand, in the living room next to the stereo, in CD holder booklets, in my car console, and in my classroom. I have rock, and pop, and classical, and vocal jazz, and choral, and Jewish, and country, and Israeli, and hip hop, and neo soul. I know it all. It gives me great pride to know so much music. In this case, more is better.
1 comment:
Wahjeeleh is AWESOME, I had a good time visualizing creation and life to the tune, though I do wonder about the translation, which my googling has yet to overturn. I love the way it builds everything together into a pulls-no-punches celebration of (what could only be) life. There's another one I think is pretty good, it was part of a game a few years ago and they released it for free, since there was such a huge response. It's got the same vibe, but it's a little more... produced? studio? I don't know, but it's called Baba Yetu (a google search for "baba yetu mp3" should find it on some site pretty quick).
Also, I don't know how much you've checked out Talisman's other stuff, but Babethandaza (translation: Things are as they are because we pray.. because our grandmothers prayed..) is another of my favorite-favoriteses along that line, but Wahjeeleh has to be, IMHO, hands down the best. Famine Song is an incredible lesson in supplication. And that "one by one" one gets really cool too.... and be like him... well, i guess they're all good!
Thanks for the post.
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