happy Archives | The Cinch Review

This evening, at a Thanksgiving Eve service at our little chapel in the wildwood, we heard a beautiful performance of a piece called Dank sei Dirr, Herr, sung by a mezzo-soprano accompanied by only piano. I was not familiar with the tune, but it was credited to Siegfried Ochs (1858-1929) in the service guide, and a little checking suggests that this is the widely-accepted accreditation these days, although it used to be believed that Handel had composed it.

Anyway, I was quite struck by it, both the beauty of the performance and the composition, and also its moving aptness in a Thanksgiving service. I’m embedding a version via YouTube at the bottom of this post, a grand performance with a singer named Gundula Hintz. The lyric is in German (which I’ll put below the video) but the translation is as follows:

Thanks be to Thee,
Lord God of Hosts:
Thou broughtest forth Your people
with Your mighty hand
Israel safe through the sea.

Lord, like a shepherd
Thou hast led us;
Lord, Thy hand protected us
in Thy goodness tenderly as in ages past.

The words sound reminiscent of any number of songs of praise and psalms from the Bible, but I don’t know a precise source, if there is one. The last few verses of Psalm 77 could be one.

Yet, the message is beautifully historic and specific and at the same time up-to-the-minute, relevant and universal. You might paraphrase it: Thank You, Lord God, for protecting Your people in the past, and thank You for protecting Your people now, every moment of every hour.

Some of us might just add a prayer that we indeed count among God’s people. Continue reading “Thanksgiving”

Happy birthday to Bob Dylan, born May 24th, 1941.

I’m not big on birthdays, to be honest. What difference does it really make that on one day you are technically one age, and the next day you’re technically another age? You’re as young as you feel, and the older I get, the more it pleases me to think so.

There’s predictably been enormous hoopla over Bob Dylan turning 70, and at least 30 new books have been added to the groaning shelves of tomes analyzing, documenting and distorting his music and/or life. I should talk — I’ve written untold thousands of words around those topics, albeit in shorter forms.

It seems to me that the nicest thing to do on Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday is just to give him kudos for being out there in the way that he is, at his age. What peers or contemporaries of Dylan can do as he does — touring constantly, revisiting many of the same places year after year, playing sets that are top heavy with songs from the last decade or so, and filling those seats with fannies time after time? And not all aging 1960s types — not by a long shot. His shows have loads of people under 30, under 25, even under 20. Sure — you always hear complaints from some about him changing the songs, or being indecipherable, or whatever. I’ve been to enough of his shows to know that sometimes complaints can be justified. I hate the bad or too-loud sound at too many of the venues he plays. But the numbers don’t lie. On balance, the man delivers, and gets people to come back, while doing it completely on his own terms, and keeping it fresh for himself. This doesn’t happen in popular music, as a pretty good general rule. Dylan has achieved something that very few others have. Ever. And the older he gets, the more astounding it is.

It’s not the first time I’ve stopped to point to how amazing this is, but the pride he himself takes in this was evident in that unprecedented statement he made about his gigs in China. Maureen Dowd et al aside, he was obviously irritated by some things he had read about there being a lot of empty seats, and that the concerts were attended mostly by expatriate types. NO, he said. We almost sold out, the attendees were almost all Chinese, and, what’s more, they were young! I’m willing to buy Bob’s version, given the pile of distorted lies that the media gives us on any given day (and not only about Dylan). Bob may make up stories about shooting heroin and kicking it, but it’s my belief that he doesn’t lie about the important things. He deserves to be proud of his success as an entertainer, doing it in the way that he likes to do it and giving the customers what they obviously like at the same time. It’s a helluva thing.

Many more, Bob.

Tag: happy

Thanksgiving

Bob Dylan is 70 today (did you know?)