shockozulu

Tonight I'm sitting here listening to Led Zeppelin singing Stairway To Heaven live. My back is filled with shivers. It made me start thinking. Surely there is something higher than me or any musician in that band. You can call it inspiration or anything else but to write this song so quickly I believe something had to be working in the band members. This finally caused me to think there is something I am not aware of that I have no control over, that is my Higher Power. I have no idea what it is but I know it exists.

Anyway, I don't know why I wrote this but it's a bit inspired by the music I guess.

What is your experience, or lack of, that is with you?

bemyself

Shock, I totally agree with you - especially with certain music. I could rattle off so many pieces which make me feel just as you described, both from the Grand Ole Days of rock and fusion, esp Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes, Tangerine Dream (went to one of their very rare live concerts in Melbourne in the early 80s - it was, dare I say, sublime).....etc etc etc.

Plus stuff like some of Handel's 'Water Music' (especially 'Zadok the Priest'), many pieces of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart (esp the Requiem), Dvorak, Sibelius (the 'Swan of Tuonela' has killed me since I was a teenager), Arvo Part's Requiem, Gorensky's (sic?) 'Sorrowful Songs', Rachmaninoff - virtually everything, but his (Orthodox) Easter Vespers just about sends me to instant heaven-on-earth.....Jeez, I could go on and on about the music-of-the-spheres motif.

What else does the power-greater thing for me? Definitely, a cracking thunderstorm - 'lights, sound...ACTION!' Having grown up in Sydney - sub-tropical climate - I quite miss experiencing as many, here in south-eastern Aus. Re parts of NSW along the Pacific coast: I must dig out my old photo prints (though not the same as the experience) of possibly the most awesome lightning of my life (and I"m late 50s). It was while staying with friends, many years ago, in a little place called Tilba. A beautiful country, quite close to the Pacific. One night, there was continuous lightning just over the hills, as in over the ocean nearby....it went on for literally HOURS. Very little thunder from memory, so it was like this utterly silent show - flares, entire sheets and curtains, crackling sometimes and at others sort of sweeping and dissolving....

If that ain't a power greater than any of us, I don't know what is!

Boleo

"Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before."

bemyself

Shock, I feel it's tragic that this thread hasn't taken off.

Anyway, I'm just now listening to k.d. lang's 'Hymns of the 49th Parallel'. Which of course includes things like Helpless (Young) and now 'A case of you' (Mitchell)..... and so on.

And lang does them, with such respect for the original writers. But the production is also so glorious.

And having some decent old baby Bose speakers and ancient Yamaha components helps too.

Still.....I hope that others will contribute to this thread, regardless of the 'take' they have on the HP thing.

I loved that you put this one up.

fini

ah jeeez,
someone stole my 'hymns of the 49th parallel' from my car.

but nothing, nothing on that cd compares with her singing Siberry's "the valley" live, which i heard just by chance on a radio show a week or so ago (Q on CBC).
i'm thinking maybe many of us feel no need to go into any details about any HP we may or may not know, or "believe in", and maybe that's why this thread hasn't taken off.

bemyself

Thanks fini, yeh, your final point is certainly true and valid.

I think I just really liked Shock's take on that sense of a HP which - in the first post, can be 'felt' in so much music. And of course, is by no means confined to solely music as most of us know / have experienced.

Oh, though re your Hymns being stolen. Absolute BUMMER! Still, I'll check out the live song you mention - I'm in Aus so can't watch CBC, but no doubt can find it somewhere on youtube.

Meantime, the Higher Power whatever-it-is appears to be just in Autumn, grey clouds Melbourne morning mode here :-) Just changing the seasons. Weather itself (if you're a weather / meteorological nut like me) is to me a sign of the power which we simply cannot control, not one bit. It's Mother Earth / GAIA just doin' her thing :-)

fini

well, to have the thread go more sideways: yesterday after i posted, i thought i'd mis-remembered the cd name, and it's actually "songs of the 49th parallel", and i know i've always thought of it as "hymns from the..."
bizarre. usually my memory is very literal.
and i have no tv, so i don't get distracted by seeing the singers; i just hear them.

you should be able to access that show here:
Q's Juno special live in Regina! | Q with Jian Ghomeshi | CBC Radio

if not, just google 'cbc q kd lang'


i have no difficulty with "power greater than me"....there are oodles.
but when i think of step two or three, then i need...not sure. but do know that a doorknob wouldn't do it for me
my difficulty seems unrelated to a HP as such, but to the idea of a personal one who "does" things.

Threshold

The music and songs I get this feeling from are the ones that feel totally dead on honest. Meaning the writer found a way to share a deep soul experience that I can relate to.

It's not the first time I felt like Honesty might be the H in HP. There is a profound power in it.