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Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts

Monday, September 11, 2017

A Reflection Re "Heaven, 9/11 Memorial Version"






I can only imagine how, I suppose to a similar extent, my paternal grandfather's father and living siblings felt on September 11, 1922 and subsequent days. From what I understand, my great-great-granddad Julian Czarnecki was absolutely no hero—or if he was one, his bad facets outweighed his good ones. Nonetheless, his death must've really weighed on my great-granddad and his living siblings (one of whom would follow her father only slightly over 2.75 years later).

Great-Granddad was going to be 18 that October (and to compound the worst matters in his life, he turned 25 on a day on which a 25th birthday would not be joyous to anyone—Black Thursday). So on that birthday (and subsequent birthdays), he had to remember the loss of his father (with whom he had a conflicted relationship—or at least I'd be surprised if he didn't have a conflicted relationship with him—and subsequent birthdays would become even worse as the years passed and worse events kept happening—in fact, his 35th birthday had the fresh pain of Black Thursday's 10th anniversary and the only-almost-two-months old invasion of Poland).

As for Great-Granddad's youngest sibling, she wasn't yet even nine months old when Great-Great-Granddad died—and the oldest surviving one had, if you count 13 as the bat-mitzvah age, become a bat-mitzvah that year (and she was the one whom followed Great-Great-Granddad into death on June 23, 1925).

At least none of them were around to see 9/11. However, my great-granddad's widow—to whom he was quite abusive, and with whom she obviously had a conflicted relationship—was, and so were four of his five children (One died seven hours after birth, right before the 10th anniversary of his aunt Regina's death.). While I do not know whether my great-grandma ever met her father-in-law or her sister-in-law Regina, I know that she was well aware that September 11th always carried pain for my great-granddad—as carried every October 24th, and not just because of the September 11th before his 18th birthday—and both were born in Jewish homes (he in Anti-Semitic Polish Russia, she in an Anusi home in Ashley-Hanover Township, Pennsylvania) and raised in Anusi homes, and they thus knew the pain of every passing September 11th (on which Great-Great-Granddad may not have died had his family not disowned him for becoming an Anusi) and October 24th.

I can only imagine how the pain of every other September 11th hit her on 9/11, and I never did ask her because I didn't know our family story—not even that we were and are Jews—not to mention that I saw her only once every year from some time in the 90s until 2005, and I was dealing with an abusive dad (It's like the Passover question that the fourth child doesn't ask—he or she doesn't ask because he or she doesn't know how to ask or maybe even to ask at all.).

I wonder what she thought—or at least would've thought—if she heard this song—I also wonder the same about Pop-Pop (whom was sadly, as Granduncle Tony stated, "Like father, like son.") and Granduncle Tony (whom unexpectedly died on July 31 2014, three days after what would've been his mother's 101st birthday). I also certainly wonder what Great-Granddad would've thought and what Granduncle Red (Francis "Red" Czarnecki, whom died in 1985) would've thought (BTW, he was called "Red" because of his red hair—which, as I later found out, is, so to speak, a dead giveaway of if someone is Jewish in Poland, as is Brown hair for someone whom's a Brown-haired Jew, as Ethnic Poles are indigenously light-haired and light-eyed).

Friday, October 14, 2016

My Favorite Version Of "Hallelujah", Though I'd Change Some Lyrics—And A Few Reasons Why I'd Change Them


  • I'd switch around "minor" and "major" and "minor fall and major lift".

  • I'd change "but" to "though" for all of the verses
  • I'd change Verse 3 to:
"Baby, I've been here before—I can't count how many times I've walked this God-damned floor—and this was all before I ever really knew ya"

  • I'd add this verse (and if anyone is guessing, you're right that this is a "**** you" to Amy Grant's and her songwriters' incorrect theology—plus, an allusion to Job):
"The LORD, Who gives and Who takes away,
"Deserves my praise; that's all that I'll say—
"And as for your 'broken melody'—well, screw ya!
"And what you've done's worse than how I said
"'If Jesus really rose from the dead,
"'There's nothing 'better than a "Hallelu YAH!"'"

  1. For me, this song doesn't have to necessarily be romantic (or at least exclusively romantic).
  2. My paternal grandfather did not like music (or at least didn't like it until. as I found out later, his final days, to the surprise of my father and my grandmother. When he preferred to watch the live version of "The Sound Of Music" over a football game while he was in the hospital, my father told my sister and me, my father was thinking "Who are you?" and wondering if someone had taken Pop-Pop over.)
  3. I think of every floor that I've walked one too many times (because of, e.g., OCD/Anxiety), and I think of everyone whom's tried to smugly (or however else) lord everything over me (whether they've been right or wrong). I have family members (including belated ones) whom insisted on wanting to think that they were right about everything, etc.
  4. Even though (or because) I'm a Christian, I really dislike (and sometimes even hate, even though I shouldn't hate) the hypocrites and the Bible flouters like the "Better Than A Hallelujah" songwriters—even, e.g., Paul praised Jesus in his weakest moments and the Song in Revelation was a praise, even in so far as the martyrs were (and are, and will be) concerned.
By the way, I probably dislike the hypocrites that much because I'm a Jewish Christian—taking away the Jewish context of the Scriptures will automatically dilute the Holiness of Yehovah in the eyes of others, and taking away (for example) that David and others always (or at least overall) ended with praising Yehovah in even the psalms that were lamentations allows for songs that "are better than a 'Hallelu Yah!'"

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Toby Keith May Be A Song Stealer As Well...

He already got into trouble for "I Love This Bar" because he stole an idea. While nothing is new under the sun and one can't copyright ideas, one should at least try to credit the one from whom he got a very-specific manifestation of an idea. For example, he took a manifestation of an idea that Robert Earl Keen had, tweaked it a bit, and tried to make it his own--viz. "Bullets In the Gun".

I even read somewhere that he once said that he can't read sheet music, and the interviewer asked him what he does about publishing his songs, etc. in sheet-music form. After hearing the "Bullets In the Gun" controversy (hearing both songs as well--viz. REK's and "Bullets In the Gun", too) and reading that, I began to believe that Toby Keith is an idea stealer if not an outright song stealer. Listen:





Are at least the lyrics and the idea behind them all too similar too you?