Happy Easter–feat. the Remember O Thou Man Round-Up, and a very folk music-heavy ‘Grim’ Spring/Easter Playlist

Tallyhi and welcome back to your irregularly scheduled chaos. A glorious and blessed Easter to you my friends! Christ our Hope is risen indeed. I hope you’ve all been having a sufficiently blessed and celebratory season thusfar.

You may be asking yourself why I am posting my Easter post two weeks after Easter Sunday. And to that I say:

• If you’re Catholic, what’s good, we’ve still got weeks and weeks of this here season. *high-fives*
• If you’re High Protestant, what’s good, we’ve also still got weeks and weeks of this here season (assuming I remember correctly).
• If you’re some type of lower Protestant or anything else that doesn’t have a full season, what’s good, you’re on a Catholic blog, and we’re still celebrating Easter here.

What this comes down to is I really don’t care about your objections (also that I wrote like half this post only to have WordPress delete it, so that delayed matters slightly). *hat tip* although I do care about you, so how are you doing? What’s new? What did you last eat and what did you eat on Easter Sunday?

okay now we’ve got all that out of the way tallyho

Remember, O Thou Man Round-Up

The first year of Remember O Thou Man we had enough posts to devote a whole Grim post to recapping/collecting them all. The second year only one person posted once aside from me so I just linked it up in passing. This third year we’ve got something in the middle, a modest amount, so allow me to give you the run down and the links:

• Miss K wrote a beautiful piece on how each Lent might be our last, and so we should use them all well.
• Lizzie gave us a lovely reflection on the Great Divorce, and ‘specifically the ideas of Heaven, Hell, and our eternal identities in the realms beyond Death (and she also made me want to re-read the Great Divorce so thanks for that.)
• Sarah’s post on how our sin affects God might not have been intended for this link-up (I find myself slightly uncertain of whether or not it is), but regardless, it is a great Lenten reflection and I recommend.
• Sam put up a fascinating piece on object permanence and holy priorities.
• Miss K wrote a little article I personally found to be very helpful on maintaining peace and courage throughout temptation.
• Sam proved once again that she and I seem to usually be thinking about the same thing with this gorgeous post on Heavenly homeland and a sense of belonging. (we like to joke sometimes that we’re twins, since we seem to think about the same things a lot/have the same opinions on a lot of things. As such I find it extremely funny that we’ve both written multiple posts on this topic (I actually wrote one along the same lines within this same link-up.))
• I spewed forth a variety of barely palatable and over-excited dross as per usual. You can read all my posts for this link-up by clicking on the ‘Remember, O Thou Man’ tag at the top of the post, if you missed any and are curious. If you’ll take my advice you won’t bother, but if you insist, I’d say the best of them were week 1 and the finale.
• Finally, although this was not technically a Remember O Thou Man post, I don’t think, I advise you all to go read this glorious Good Friday reflection by Sam on Christ’s humanity. It’s short and it’s ridiculously beautiful and insightful. You have no excuse. *shoos you in that direction*

Once again, thank you so much to everybody who contributed and participated in this link-up this year, whether by writing, commenting, or just reading and enjoying. It has been nothing but a pleasure to host this link-up these past few years, and I hope to continue it for many years to come. The internet’s generally a rum place, but it makes me quite happy on the occasion something edifying happens on it, and all you lovely people posting amazing reflections about Lent and the four last things is certainly good, true and beautiful, and I feel honored to have perhaps played a small part in spurring people on to do that. Thank you all and God bless you. ❤

A Little Spring/Easter-y Playlist

I don’t have as much time as I would wish to finish this post up, but I wanted to make a playlist of some of the folk music that reminds me of spring/Easter (with a few non-folk songs on it). It didn’t end up being that little of a playlist, frankly…when I make a hyper-specific playlist for a blog post I sometimes have trouble finding material to make it lengthy (not because there isn’t any, but because it doesn’t fit the ‘specific’ in my head). I mean, for me in general 30 songs is small, but for me for a blog post it’s pretty big. I guess spring is just a time I have a lot of music associations for. I think that’s largely because it was spring of 2021 when my childhood folk music obsession really got rekindled (I discovered The Longest Johns in January of that year and it all went downhill from there). Although granted, a few of these aren’t folk.

I’m going to give you a) a Spotify playlist link b) a YouTube playlist link for the few songs that aren’t on Spotify c) a quick run-down of some of my favorites on this list and why I feel they are ‘springy.’ It’ll be a little more succinct than usual, but I reckon nobody will fret that too much, heh.

• Arise, Shine–Simon Khorolisky. This is a contemporary piece, music written by Simon, words a text from Isaiah 60. The whole theme of the song (which is in Russian) is the bit of Isaiah that talks about The Lord being the sun and light of His People. If that’s not a Resurrection type of vibe I don’t know what is. Also the song has glorious harmony (if you were wondering).
• Beeswing–Celtic Woman feat. The Longest Johns. This is a revival period song, and I’m never quite sure why it puts me in mind of spring except perhaps that Celtic Woman just have a very spring-y sound to them. The song takes place in summer…but the girl in the song has a very ‘spring’ type of vibe to her. Maybe it’s the ‘so fine a breath of wind might blow her away.’ It’s actually a really sad song, though…
• I Sit Beside the Fire And Think–Clamavi De Profundis. I don’t talk about these guys much, but they do Catholic music and settings of Tolkien poems and original music about their fantasy world, and I love their stuff, but especially this one. I think I associate it with spring because the poem devotes quite a bit of space (comparatively) to the topic.
• Wild Mountain Thyme–The Longest Johns. Trad song. I mean, it says the summertime is coming. The whole song is about flowers. What more spring do you need?
• Really-hard-to-write-out-Gaelic-song–Caladh Nua. This is another one that just has a really spring-y sound to it. It just feels very fresh and breezy, like you’re going skipping. I also like the message–a mentor of mine likes to remind me sometimes that what other people think of me is none of my business, and it’s a surprisingly insightful statement.
• Now, Colly–Colm McGuiness. Okay be warned–this does have some rude words in it–but I’m pretty sure they’re only rude in England. Also, the song is such that you can barely understand what the words are–upbeat, with a lot of words in a short amount of time, and of course Colm’s thick Irish accent. This is (in case you couldn’t tell) contemporary, and it’s a freakin’ banger. Somewhat autobiographical, I believe, although I’ve always had trouble figuring out exactly what it’s about. This song came out not a month after I got my first vehicle–which, mind you, was in the spring. So I spent a lot of time trundling around (often with the windows open) trying to teach myself how to drive (long story, but if you’ve been here a while you probably have a vague idea of what I’m referencing), exploring my town really for the first time, in early spring–with this song blasting. And that’s why I think of it as a spring song.
• Bright Morning Stars–Appalachian Gospel trad, I think, and it’s the Wailin Jennys. I think it’s the talk of the ‘bright morning stars’ that make me think of spring. I often think, with this song and the Wailin’ Jennys in general, of watching the sunrise on Easter (which I’ve done several times)–the ‘bright morning star’, if you will.
• Joli Rouge–The Longest Johns (only on the YT playlist). I know this song is technically by the Dreadnoughts originally (contemporary), but this version of it specifically is what feels spring-y to me. Maybe it’s the video, maybe it’s the instrumentation (that double bass/banjo/mandolin combo is just too good to miss), maybe it’s the fact that my brothers and I sung this obsessively together in the spring of ’21. I dinna ken. Regardless, I love it. Highly recommend.
• Impossible-to-write-out-Russian-song–by impossible-to-write-out-Russian band (only on the YT playlist). This song, I believe, is about the Blessed Mother–maybe it’s the birdsong in the beginning that makes me think of spring? I really am not too sure. It was a favorite of my late father’s, and it’s still a favorite of mine.
• Bonny Ship the Diamond–The Longest Johns. Trad song, and it’s an old favorite on this blog, featured in one of my very first posts whereat we did a folk-process experiment. I believe I think of this song as ‘spring-y’ because the expedition the song’s about set off in the spring. It also has a get-up-and-go type of vibe that puts me in mind of spring and its new life.
• Send in the Clowns–this one is not a folk song, but a jazz piece from the 70s. I have zero explanation to offer you except that I think I discovered it in the spring. And that it has a sort of feeling of driving around with the windows down on a spring evening. If that makes sense.
• Poor Man’s Lamentation–Lady Maisery. This is a ‘blended trad’. The words are from an old Broadside, the music is by Hannah James. And dag is it good. I’ve said before that slow accordion/harmonium music puts me in mind of autumn, I think. Welp, fast, lively accordion/harmonium music usually puts me in mind of spring. That and I think the album cover’s vibe is also to blame.
• Rufford Park Poachers–you may notice there’s a lot of The Longest Johns on this list. (On Spotify I put a different version, since theirs wasn’t there. I believe this song is early revival.) It’s a fun song–the whole ‘rolling bass note’ thing is really enjoyable to do. Not that I can do it but my older brother used to do it (although our version wasn’t nearly as good as either of the ones I linked). I think the walking in the woods vibe is what gives me a spring-y feel, but once again, I also just have very strong associations between certain TLJ music and spring due to us all being obsessed with it in that timeframe. This is definitely one of those songs.
• Swing Low, Sail High–The Wailin’ Jennys. I don’t think you can properly call this a folk song. It feels more like it goes under ‘indie’ than contemporary folk. But regardless, it is beautiful. You may have noticed there’s two basic vibes on this playlist–really ‘up-and-at-em’ happy sounding or bouncy songs, and then some oddly melancholy counterbalances here and there. This song, to me, has the same type of vibe as when you’re sitting on your porch steps the first night it’s warm enough, and the sun’s going down and (if you’re at my house) they’ve just started up the free warm-weather-evening jazz concerts again at Gypsy Hill round the corner, and you can hear the music drifting through the air on the wind, and the little boys are all heading off to play baseball at the field at Gypsy Hill, and you can hear them all laughing and calling. It’s a moment that carries strange weight. Everything is beautiful, and right, but there’s a subtle sort of hiraeth and bitter-sweetness to the beauty of spring, and particularly its fleetness. Do y’all know what I mean? (Please tell me I’m not crazy.)
• The Dragon is Withered–Clamavi De Profundis. Okay so Rivendell has a very ‘spring’ vibe to it anyway, but this song just does an uncommonly good job capturing Rivendell musically, I think, and so for that reason it feels ‘spring-y’ to me.
• Finally, and I know I said I’d only discuss a few, but I got carried away and talked about most at this point–finally, we have The Mary Ellen Carter. The Longest Johns version, but it was written by the great Stan Rogers in the revival period (if you don’t know who he is by now maybe click the tag link below…except I talk about him almost every post so maybe don’t.) Anyway. What could be more Easter/Spring-y than ‘Rise again, rise again! Though your heart it be broken and your life about to end…No matter what your loss, be it a home, a love, a friend, like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!’

And I’m out of words, time, and braincells, so thank you for reading my friend. 🙂

And a thank you again to all of you dears who participated in Remember O Thou Man. A truly glorious and blessed Easter to all of you dear readers and writers and friends and siblings-in-Christ. I’ll be back next week, who knows what with (it’ll probably be an update of my favorite new books/movies/etc). Until then, take care of yourselves, and may the peace and hope of the Risen Lord be ever new in your hearts!

May you live until you die…