An Essay on Music
I love music. Not that that makes me really unique or anything. For instance, just America’s music biz made $488,700,000 the first six months of 2000, the year I was in Nauvoo, and I wasn’t the only one giving them money. Additionally, I happily inform you that I am very much of the world village in this respect, and some of my money has made it’s way to musicians in Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Columbia, Japan, Brazil, Sweden, New York City and, of course, my beloved Korea. I love Korean music. Don’t even get me started or I’ll make a meaningless (to you) list of Korean bands with names like JuJu Club, Seo Taiji and Boys, Pipi Band, Kim Jeong Seo, Ahn Chi Hwan, Spooky Banana . . . .1
Speaking of international intrigue (or whatever it is we were doing), I love Canadians. I served with some great Elders from Lethbridge and emailed for some time a girl named Michelle from Calgary. Determined to impress the skeptical Canadienne with my trans-borderly sophistication (that’s “savoir faire” to those of you in the immersion program), I went to my cd collection and counted up all those by Canadian artists:
“One . . . and . . . um . . . . Just one.”
So much for that.
I now own many more Canadian cds (thanks in great part to my wife’s music collection being joined to mine in something vaguely reminiscent of holy matrimony). Joining Loreena McKennitt have since come such luminaries as Sarah McLachlan, more Loreena McKennitt and BNL.
BNL is a quirky, funny, upbeat band who has a huge friend in Holly, who left BYU–Hawaii for a semester in Nauvoo. Holly roomed directly above Jared and me, and her family lived close enough to Nauvoo that she drove, rather than flew (or Greyhounded), to the JSA. This meant she could bring her stereo with her. (As well as a whole host of cds and whatever else she chose to fit into her shiny New Beetle.) This meant that Jared and I often had the great pleasure of listening to Holly’s reasonably good taste in music. I remember one night, lying on my bed, listening: Let’s see . . . Alanis (another Canuck!) . . . matchbox 20 (haven’t I been subjected to “Push” enough already?) . . . Tori Amos (Lynsey would have been proud, at last count, she was the third greatest Tori fan in the US) . . . BNL? It sounds a lot like BNL, but . . . but. . . . I’ve never heard this before.
I asked Holly about it at dinner and learned it was the album Gordon I was hearing. She, it turns out, has been a BNL fan since Gordon came out, which is the equivalent of being a fan of Planet Earth since the Garden of Eden. Sure, maybe you weren’t there for the Creation, but you’ve still been a true fan since the beginning. In my case, I’ve been a BNL fan since I first heard “One Week” on the radio, which is the rough equivalent of being a fan of the planet Earth’s since the invention of frozen yogurt. Not quite as impressive.
One day as I was listening to my BNL album while cleaning the bathroom, Greg came in. Ah, Greg! The very epitome of the perfect RM! He still had a distinct missionarily aura about him! He had come off his mission mere moments before the semester at Nauvoo began, and was something of spiritual icon to the rest of us.
Like any RRM,2 he had a genuine curiosity, but stated as, “Say, what’s the world been up to while I was gone?” is a tad unnatural and potentially embarrassing as you might imagine.
And so it was very natural when he asked, “Say, this is cool music! Who is it?”
“Barenaked Ladies,” I blurted, forgetting the euphemistic initialism and turning red simultaneously. “They’re Canadian,” I added by way of justification.3
Not to keep justifying, but potentially offensive name notwithstanding, they really do make good music.4 Well, mostly. One song off the album I brought to Nauvoo does have the M word in it. (If you don’t know what the M-word is, you’re a better saint than me and I refuse to tell you. Look it up. Or, don’t.)
Everything I listen to isn’t “borderline evil”—I have a varied collection of instrumental music notably free of Satanic tendencies—classical, baroque, jazz, bluegrass. And I enjoy a good LDS band as well as anyone—I anxiously await the next albums from Olea and Sunfall Festival, would vote for Ryan Shupe if he was nominated for lyricist of the late 90s and have a yearly candlelight vigil as I plead for Deseret Book to rerelease Briddeon’s album on cd. Oh please! I know it’s sappy, but I like it!
Music can be a very personal thing. Many people I know are more willing to proselyte their favorite bands than their religion, and take more offence if you slam their musical god than their “worshipped” god.
The First Presidency is no stranger to the draw of music. In the front of your family hymnal they’ve written that “Music has boundless powers for moving families toward greater spirituality . . . [we] should fill [our] homes with the sound of worthy music.” It’s not a difficult task, folks, filling our homes and hours with the sound of worthy music. Plenty of people are peddling the stuff.
Towards the end of the semester, we received word that a classical guitarist was coming to play at the Visitors Center and we were invited! Oh boy! I love classical guitar! I have a cd by a classical guitarist by the name the name of Eliot Fisk5 and I love it. It’s one of my absolute favorite Sunday albums.
Since we didn’t know the name of our upcoming guest, I naturally considered the possibility of its being Eliot Fisk. Someone playing in Nauvoo must be LDS, I figured, but I had no evidence whatsoever that Eliot Fisk is LDS. It couldn’t possibly be him. But just to be safe, I’m going to bring my cd and a Sharpie anyway. After all, who else could it be? Eliot Fisk is the only classical guitarist I can think of off the top of my head! Who am I to accuse myself of ignorance?
Needless to say, it wasn’t Eliot Fisk, but “Brother Lawrence Green” (in town recording a cd in the Seventies Hall and other such spots), and his classically rendered versions of hymns were wonders to see. To hear as well, of course, but there is an especial beauty in live music. Nothing like an orchestra being right there in the room with you to make Beethoven come alive. It was a wonder to see Brother Green’s amazing flying fingers relay melodies of simple, heartfelt hymns in beautiful complexity. I loved it. I went straight home and listened to Mr. Fisk again, already nostalgic for the Brother Greene experience.
So as I said, I love music. I’m sure you do too. Someday I’ll introduce you to Moonpools & Caterpillars and you can pay me back with something equally wonderful. In the meantime, let me leave you with a thought from those Improperly Dressed Ladies:
There are luxuries we can’t afford / But in our house we never get bored / We can dance to the radio station / that plays in our teeth
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Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.