Hooray It's Christmas

I really like the "other" verses of Christmas carols--you know, like you're out with a randomly gathered group of people ringing other randomly selected people's doorbells to sing them some songs (much like I, coincidentally enough, was last night), and after you finish the first verse, everybody just kinda hums except for the one person who actually knows verse two. Well, I'm not that person.

As evidence, I offer last night's adventuring (which is probably the only time Christmas caroling has ever involved trespassing for me): At first, I was doing pretty well, holding my own. In fact, they let me hold the music. So whenever we finished the first verse, I would switch songs, the guitar player would start the next song, and I knew all the words. Soon, though, it became obvious that, of my many skills, holding still is not one of them. So, at the behest of Guitar Guy, I was replaced as music holder.

At the next house, we sang "What Child is This?" a song which, I'm pretty sure, everybody loves but only kinda sorta knows the words. After struggling through the verse, we got to the chorus (aka the part I kinda know), and then--to my horror--jumped straight into verse two. Verse two???

Speaking of verse two, "Silent Night" has a verse two, too. One of the lines in verse two is glories stream from heavens afar. I could have sworn that the line was glories stream from heavens above. You know how when you start singing the wrong word you just kinda switch to the right word in the middle? Well, I do that at least, so several times last night I definitely sang glories stream from heaven's a bar.

Anyway, even though I don't really know them, I really love the other verses of Christmas carols. It's probably just because those songs are really well written in general, and since I haven't heard verse three of "O Holy Night" 72 000 times in my life, I actually listen to the words. The words to verse three (or two, depending who you talk to) of "O Holy Night," by the way, are:

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,

Here come the wise men from Orient land.

The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Behold your King, Behold your King.

Last night, after the caroling, a certain set of girls in our group sang this song a capella, each taking a verse. They did a great job, so much so that I wish that I had a recording of it, especially this verse (hint hint, Colleen...). I think what really hit me about this verse is how it just completely encapsulates the gospel message. We are now the wise men, drawn by the light of hope to give whatever we have to the King.

plj

december is here, and so am i

So, a few updates that are short. Very short, I guess, but stuff y'all would probably care to know.

1. I failed at NaNoWriMo this year. Sadpanda times, indeed. I'll have to try again next year.
2. I finished my senior paper. It's notbadokish. If you like reading 40 pages of boring, it's online over at Books & Papers. It's the first entry under papers, titled "Finding God's Agenda for Homosexual Students."
3. I defend said senior paper on Thursday afternoon. I have no idea what that means, but I'm pretty sure it'll be a gimme putt.
4. I will be done with college a week from Monday. That's just crazy stupid.
5. I will be moving out to El Segundo, California, during the first week of 2008. If any of y'all know anybody out there who wants to throw money my way in exchange for some work, let me know. ;)
6. I love Miles Davis, green tea, and Febreze NOTICEables air fresheners.
7. I plan on writing much more once school is fading into the background...it's scary how soon that is.

Anywho, in the meantime,

Peace, love, and joy to you all.

A Sentence for September (23/30)

It wouldn't really be me "working" on a big project for school without me writing, recording, and uploading a new song ("Oliver Sipple") to the virb.

[mostly] New Music (virb.com Update)

I uploaded a couple of tracks I've been working on to my virb page, which you can find here.

If you've never been there before, it should all be pretty new to you, but, for those who have the stomach for more, here's what I added:

1) The City-States Tracks, which are "Vaticanae" and "Singapore," which are a little bit mellower wannabe Sufjan playfully serious songs.

2) The Fat Tim and the Secular Humanists tracks, which are a band performing my stuff, doing yet another version of "Listerine" and a cover of the Radiohead song "Creep."

3) A music video for the Fat Tim and the Secular Humanists "Creep" cover, which I'm embedding right about here:




Hope y'all enjoy!

"A Music Video???" Yeah, Something Like That

So, Susan apparently somehow managed to wrangle bootlegged video of one of my ultra-rare live performances out at the McKitrick House. Anywho, I thought mayhaps you'd be interested in checking it out: it's of me performing a newish song called "Miss Communication (; I think you know why)". Since the song has now been leaked by some ne'er-do-well musical pirate ;) , I figured that I might as well pop a "studioer" recording up on my VIRB page tonight.

Anywho, here's another link to Susan's blog, which is always worth a look, and here's a link straight to the vid on YouTube. (btw: the first few words I say, which are kinda lacking on the recording, are something like "I got your e-mail...")

Peace, love, and joy to you all.

Music Lives Now on Virb.com

Hey y'all,

Just thought I'd let you know that I've got a few tunes hosted over at virb.com in case you hadn't already heard. I'll be periodically adding more and more stuff over there, and actually fleshing out a profile eventually. I'll keep you posted here, though if you want to obsessively check for updates there, that's fine with me: we all know that I could use the ego boost from the extra profile views.

So here's a link: Click me for a mind-numbing musical experience.

705Live: I'm Not Skinny

The other day, I sat down with a guitar and a couple of friends and we sang stupid songs. From this, my love for stupid songs that I've written was rekindled. So I came back into my room, sat down, and recorded several tracks I'm calling 705Live. Some of them are silly...some are less silly. But these are all me, and I like them.

This first edition of 705Live features a silly song which only took me three-and-a-half years to write. "I'm Not Skinny" started as the third edition of 5 Good Minutes with Tim Margheim in my earliest adventuring into youth ministry. It's one of my classic pieces, but it's always felt like it was missing a verse to me. Then, earlier this semester, I was inspired to write another verse (I'm pretty sure you'll figure out which one just by listening), finally bringing a sense of wholeness to the work.

Anywho, hope y'all enjoy!



Peace, love, and joy to you all.

Pretty Much Entirely Out of Control

This is what I would make if I was smart enough.