Tuesday, May 08, 2018

A secular hymn

So, I'm slowly catching up with what the young'uns have long known about technology and music by paying for a family subscription to Spotify.   (It does seem ridiculously good value.)  I'd never used the app before until last weekend.

For someone of my vintage, it's remarkable to think how this digital world really makes previous decades of physically collecting recorded music largely redundant.   Not that I have ever collected much myself - listening to music probably plays a smaller role in my life than it does for the average person.   But still, I can retrospectively now deem my lack of interest in acquiring vinyl and cds as justified by technological changes that I never saw coming.

I say this by preamble of posting a song by Michael Nesmith which I hadn't listened to for years - Harmony Constant.   At the risk of sounding morbid, I've always felt that this would be a good one to play at a (my?) funeral service, as it definitely has a spiritual aspect and is rather uplifting.   I have found a good bit of commentary about the song here, calling it a secular hymn, which seems accurate.   



Update:  Hmmm.   While it's OK seeing Nesmith singing the song, his vocal in that version isn't that great.  I much prefer the album version which can be heard on the next clip, starting at 2min 55sec.   But you should listen to his cheering version of "Different Drum" at the start too.



3 comments:

not trampis said...

Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies did a far superior version of Different Drum

Steve said...

I like both versions, but am quite fond of Nesmith's lighter touch. He wrote it.

not trampis said...

I know he wrote it but sorry he just didn't come within cooee of doing it better.

Just like Darryl Braithwaite and horses re Patti Smith although he did have wendy stapleton doing back up vocals