Few thoughts and a few songs

Tomorrow I'll see if I can rustle up something more profound and serious to say. No promises.

For now, here is some more music with a few thoughts.

These are all obviously meant to be fun, but this first one does make me think of a passage in the novel Gilead. The down-and-out character Jack Boughton tells of going to a tent meeting. At that meeting, a man next to him "went down" as if he had been shot. Jack says he thought that if he'd been standing a couple of feet to the left, it would have been him, which is funny and sad all at once. The other man gets up and says that he is clean and that he was the worst of sinners. Jack is just embarrassed at the time, but when he tells the story, he tells it wistfully. He says that if God had saved him there, he could have looked people in the eyes. I can't help thinking of that every time the GVB sings, "Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean."



This next one is related, though even less serious and more rousing. I'm told that despite the slight bluegrass sound of the piano (Gordon Mote is incredible) and the guitar, it is really Gospel and not bluegrass. "Child Forgiven"



And last of all, for pure fun, without a stitch of serious content, here is "Swing Down Chariot," combining the talents of the GVB and Signature Sound Quartet. But y'know what this one made me think of? Some of what Anthony Esolen (see his bio at Mere Comments from the sidebar--no independent link available) has written about male bonding and masculine activities. One of the neatest things about Bill Gaither is the way that he has acted as a mentor for younger singers over a period of many years. The "men doing something hard and skilled together" feeling comes across very strongly to me in this video. Notice Marsh Hall and Wes Hampton practically high-fiving each other at the end. (Advertising note: The Youtube videos of SSQ and GVB have motivated Eldest Daughter to buy their DVD, Together.)