Cabinet held a small going away party for our retiring president last night, graciously hosted by one of the party. It was a very nice casual event, and a good way to close what, especially for some, has been a long-running team. The research that brought us the notion that all effective teams need to form, storm, norm, and then perform was updated in more recent years to include the idea that teams, when they disband, also need to formally "adjourn." Teams that have worked together for any serious length of time need a chance to come together to recap and acknowledge what has been done in order to bring closure to that project, period of time, or whatever circumstance the team operated under. This was a good adjourning event.
Today's soundtrack was very enjoyable, with tunes I hadn't heard in a while artfully strung together. Morrison's Madame George is one of my favorite cuts from his 1968 album Astral Weeks, frequently cited on best-albums-of-all-time lists, and certainly a landmark album from a prolific musician. The song runs nearly 10 minutes, and would have meant a very short playlist this morning except for that coffee stop which lengthened my commute a tad.
The Cockburn tune, Beautiful Creatures is unlike anything else he has ever recorded. With an almost symphonic score, very minor key and sombre, and Bruce breaking into a clearly-difficult falsetto for the chorus, it is both hauntingly beautiful and jarring. The lyrics are as poetic and powerful as anything he has written, which (in my opinion) is saying something. A couple of verses, for example:
Like a dam on a river
My conscience is pressed
By the weight of hard feelings
Piled up in my breast
The callous and vicious things
Humans display
The beautiful creatures are going away
Why? Why?
From the stones of the fortress
To the shapes in the air
To the ache in the spirit
We label despair
We create what destroys,
Bind ourselves to betray
The beautiful creatures are going away
I particularly love the phrase, "...the ache in the spirit we label despair." That is how real despair feels, and Bruce's song captures that emotion very powerfully.
I added back all my Christmas music to iTunes and, consequently, my iPod. I have a DVD with all the Christmas music stored on it so I can pull it out of iTunes when out-of-season. That way it doesn't creep into shuffle mixes when I really don't want to hear it. Today, though, it was totally appropriate to get a beautiful harp rendition of a Christmas classic, especially on the heels of the previous darkly beautiful tune.
The full playlist:
- Van Morrison: Madame George
- Bruce Cockburn: Beautiful Creatures
- Hilary Stagg: O Come Emmanuel
- Vega4: Life Is Beautiful
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