Here are three more songs that I've been playing a lot. I've known all of them for a while, but recently, something clicked and I truly "got" them.

John Denver - "Rocky Mountain High"


He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found the key to every door….

I love taking long walks through the woods, so the outdoorsy vibe really hits home with me. There's a certain freedom to being alone in nature.

Simon and Garfunkel - "Bookends"


Time it was, and what a
Time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago, it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you….

It's that time of year when memories, both good and bad, start to hit me hardest. I looked through some old photographs the other day and was amazed at how many faces had passed into and out of my life in a few years. Some will last, I suppose, but others just be now and then, or not at all.

And on the same note, I leave you with

Billy Joel - "Souvenir"


And your memories will turn to dust
But that's the price you pay
For every year's a souvenir
That slowly fades away

Billy Joel is a huge inspiration to me as a classically-trained rock and roll pianist. I can play just about every intro, riff, and solo he ever wrote. But this song in particular has been touching me lately.

Whether you're creating new memories or reminiscing old ones, enjoy this Christmas season.

May the best you've ever seen be the worst you'll ever see;
May the mouse ne'er leave your girnal with a teardrop in his e'e;
May your lum keep blithely reekin' 'til you're auld enough to dee;
May ye aye be just as happy as I'd like ye aye to be.

What kind of 14 year old reps John Denver?

:laughing: The same kind who reps the Beach Boys.

Shool's out for summer
School's out forever
School's been blown to pieces…

…and it is out, although for the Christmas holidays. I'm pretty damn pumped. Screw my previous morose entries, it's time for some rock and roll.

I have a reputation as a music nerd at school, primarily because I listen to bands that nobody's heard of. On the bus home, my headphones are usually on with some relaxing psych playing through them. Today, a guy sat down beside me and said, "Come on, Spence, let's hear some of your ****." Meant in an entirely friendly way, of course. I happened to be playing Animal Collective, which weirded him out, but I switched to the Smiths and the Eagles, and after a couple songs, ears perked up. I ended up DJing most of the way home. This is the song that got everybody moving:



And I think I something might have finally clicked with the Stones. At any rate, I've been singing this all day.



And right now, I'm rocking out to some of the Cars.



Although I prefer Weezer's version from the movie Cars 2.



Holidays, here I come.

Imagine you have been transported back in time one hundred years, to the fields of France. It's Christmas, 1914, and you're huddled in a trench, trying to preserve what little warmth you have. Then a lone soldier walks into No Man's Land, carrying a truce flag….

A Serbian youth tossed a match into the powder keg that was Europe when, on June 28th, 1914, he assasinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. A month later, the continent was at war. But peacetime was still a recent memory. From late November to early 1915, a series of Christmas truces were held. Soldiers of the Allies and the Central Powers mingled with each other, trading mementoes, singing carols, and even playing football.

Seventy years later, American folk singer John McCutcheon heard the story of the Christmas truces from a backstage janitor at a concert hall in Birmingham, Alabama. During the intermission, McCutcheon wrote a song about the events. He created a protagonist, Liverpudlian Francis Tolliver, and told the story through his eyes -- those of a British soldier far away from home.

My favourite version of "Christmas in the Trenches" is fellow Canadian John McDermott's. I actually had the serendipitous pleasure of seeing him perform one of a series of impromptu concerts at restaurants along Ontario's Highway 401, or "The Highway of Heroes". It's named after the men who gave their lives for our freedom.



'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had crumbled and were gone forevermore.

Sadly, that was not the case. In 1915, the truces diminished in frequency, and by 1916, were nonexistent. The war had grown more bitter after heavy casualties in the Battle of the Somme and the introduction of poison gas.

I had relatives on both sides of both World Wars. To my knowledge, none of them were involved in the Christmas truces, but many soldiers who experienced those events wrote that for them, the war was never the same. They realized that the enemy soldiers were men with families. Men with hopes and dreams. Men who probably didn't want to be spending Christmas in the trenches.

Addendum:

The music video for of my favourite Paul McCartney solo songs, "Pipes of Peace", depicts the Christmas truces. Here it is:



I wonder if Paul playing both the British officer and the German officer was a statement.

A lot of people on MB have been good to me over the past ten months, but a few stand out especially, including Blarobbarg, Briks, DriveYourCarDownToTheSea, Frownland, Goofle, James, Janszoon, Josef K, Ki, ladyislingering, Lisnaholic, Machine, misspoptart, Mondo Bungle, Neapolitan, RoxyRollah, The Batlord, Trollheart, Urban Hat€Monger ?, Vanilla, and WhateverDude.

For now, as Clemente Clarke Moore once stated, happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

2015 is looming ever closer, and with it the prospect of a bit of organization comes to my scrap heap. Here's some of what you can expect from this journal in the new year.

I'll be reviewing albums by Frownland and Plankton, as well as anyone else who throws their work at me.

I mentioned reviewing Billy Joel's entire discography with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but a couple people have expressed interest, so that might happen. Might.
(As in, I love Billy and would have a blast doing it, but being the 2015 Fanboy of the Year doesn't sit well with me.)
We'll see.

I'll continue to post trios of tracks I'm digging at the moment.

And there's a rather ambitious project I've been working on for the past month, which will kick off on January 22nd.

Sweet I hope you do the Billy Joel thing, and don't worry about biggest fanboy I'm doing reviews of every single project, single, EP, album, side project, and anything associated wit The Flaming Lips. So I can't wait to see what you've got in store.

All right, I'll give it a shot then.

Being sick and thus having had nothing better to do, I have managed to accomplish about three weeks of work over the past three days, which means my project will now be kicking off on New Year's Day, and likely wrapping up some time in December 2015.

December 30, 2014 -- 16:17 Eastern Standard Time

Considering the Beatles are my favourite musical act, I talk about them remarkably little. That's about to change. Starting on January 1st, 2015, I'll be counting down my top fifty Beatles songs. By my calculations, it should take me into December.

Be warned, I've used absolutely no criteria except personal preference when choosing these fifty songs. This isn't about iconic moments in the history of the band. Just my fifty favourite Beatles songs. Hopefully, some people will be interested enough to be astounded by my choices. We'll see.

Do not adjust your sets.