This week, Christians are celebrating Holy Week, and so I thought what better time to feature a religion dominated record from that most religious of song-poem labels, Halmark. I don't know what it was about Halmark that attracted so many more religious oriented song-poets than utilized the other labels, but there's no doubt of the difference. Pick up any two or three Halmark releases and you are likely to find at least one, and maybe two or three songs with a Holy theme.
(My apologies to Jewish readers, in that I have corrected the above paragraph, in which I indicated that Passover was also this week. I was sure I had heard that information, and even looked it up double check, but only looked that the dates, not the month, which is April and not March. Sorry about that.)
I have very little to say about today's offerings - really only a comment on one of them - so I will just line them up and let you enjoy them. Keep in mind that Halmark rarely labeled the performers on on their releases, preferring to provide the names and addresses of the song-poets. As it happens, these four songs all feature Jack Kimmel, in one case duetting with his wife Mary Kimmel:
Side one features "I Am Thankful" and "Christ Jesus Touch":
Download: Halmark Productions - I Am Thankful
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Download: Halmark Productions - Christ Jesus Touch
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Side two starts with the one song I'd like to offer a comment on. It's called "Things Just Don't Happen". So first "Things Just Don't Happen"? That phrase means that whatever things you are expecting won't be happening - it's an expression of dismissal of a possibility or, from the other side of the coin, disappointment about what didn't occur. I assume the song-poet's thoughts, based on the rest of the lyrics, was "Things Don't Just Happen", which is a completely different thought - things happen for a reason, they are... planned, caused.
And this is yet another lyric of the type I mention last week, artless lyrics whose writer gave no thought to whether they could be fit into musical phrases. My favorite is probably "it's not a guess on the issues of life", but there are a few others. In fact, eventually, the singer has to narrate words that simply don't work musically, at all.
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The EP ends with the only non-religious number of the set, "Dancing, Loving, Dreaming". Unless I'm reading too much into the lyrics, it sounds like this is the song of a man returning from time in the armed forces, and looking forward to his reunion with the one he loves.
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1 comment:
I Am Thankful.
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