REMEMBRANCE, RIVERS AND RAINBOWS

Hello, Music Lover!

September 11th has come round again, and I felt it was appropriate to remember someone who has passed on. Misty has been requested by Marianne, whose parents Harold and Lilian were a happy couple, and who died in the past few years. Lilian followed her minister husband to Africa to do missionary work in Angola, where Marianne was born, one of five children. Her mother always liked this song, particularly the music, which she loved to play on the piano. We’ve shown the mist over Africa here, recalling a time when “I’m following you”, and while Lilian must have been lonely at times, their time in Angola was also, as the song says, a “wonderland” of adventure for both her and the children. The silhouetted couple are Harold and Lillian on their wedding day, and Kathy, who is Marianne's sister, put this one together.

Misty was written as an instrumental by Erroll Garner and has since become a jazz standard. Johnny Burke later put lyrics to the tune, and it became the signature song of Johnny Mathis. 

Like many folksongs, it is impossible to determine exactly when Shenandoah was composed, but by the mid nineteenth century, the song had achieved widespread popularity, both on land and at sea. According to the American Library of Congress, it first appeared in print in an article by William L. Alden, titled “Sailor Songs,” that was published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (1882). Since sea shanties were work songs used by sailors to coordinate the efforts of completing chores such as raising the ship’s anchor or hauling ropes, all it needed was a sweeping melodic line, possibly with a solo lead, and a rousing chorus. The text didn’t have to make much sense. Certainly, no-one travelling down the snaking Shenandoah River in Virgina would make his way to the sea down the wide Missouri River, which is half a continent away and originates in the Rocky Mountains!

Some believe that the song refers to the river of the same name. Others suggest that it is of Native American origin, and tells the tale of Sally, the daughter of the Indian Chief Shenandoah, who was courted for seven years by a white Missouri river trader. Still others have theorized it was composed by French Canadian voyageurs. Just imagine – maybe they weren’t singing “Shenandoah” at all, but something like chere naine d’or (my dear little golden dwarf.) Regardless of these textual discrepancies, "Shenandoah" remains an American classic.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow is of course from the 1939 film musical The Wizard of Oz, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song that year. About five minutes into the film, Dorothy finds herself unable to get her preoccupied aunt and uncle to listen to her relate an unpleasant incident involving her little dog Toto and the town spinster, Miss Gulch. Dorothy's Aunt Em tells her to "find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble", prompting Dorothy to wander off. After a short bit of musing with Toto, she launches into the song about a place she heard about once “in a lullaby”.  So that’s why we decided to have a mother singing to her baby in this collaborative square: the sky is the limit of all things possible, and anything can be for her little baby. The song does make a lovely lullaby, as well.

Well, that's it for today. Happy listening!  Susan