"Be Still My Soul" by Kathrina von Schlegel - Mr. P. Sings Stuff - Ep. 03

 About two weeks ago I woke up from a bizarre dream (the best kind to have) wherein at one point I was standing on a deck with a bunch of older British people. Hogwarts legacy had been in the news and perhaps that's where my brain went. Pretty sure Queen Elizabeth was there too, but no, I don't know what house she was sorted in. Anyway, for some reason everyone started singing "Be Still My Soul". The song was, as a result, stuck in my head all day, at least the tune that is. I never had all the lyrics memorized, though Lord knows I do now. I decided that this hymn would be my next project and that it would be an acapella arrangement. I've never done anything like this before since if I'm doing a cover or a song, it's usually based on an existing work that someone has already recorded or provided sheet music for. In this case, I decided to do everything from scratch, intentionally not listening to anyone else's rendition for the sake of not accidentally plagiarizing their work. Of course, I realize that there's always the possibility that I've unintentionally imitated someone else's recording without intending to. There's only so many ways you can write chord structures for pre-existing songs, and I'm no composer. There's also the probability that my exposure to the song years ago and my tendency to remember tenor parts probably shaped part of how I arranged this, but if so, it was all subconscious.  I'll probably upload a video breaking down exactly what I did because it was certainly an ordeal, but definitely a learning experience.

The song itself started showing up around 1752, translated into English in 1855, and the music is composed by Jean Sibelius (the tune also being known as Finlandia). There is quite a bit of scriptural truth to the song, the most important message being that regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, they do not undermine the fact that God is on His throne and is in control of all that occurs. We trust God "to order and provide" and that "through thorny ways" He will lead us to a goal that is joyful and beneficial to us. We trust that He will "guide the future as He has the past" which, as someone who identifies as Reformed (usually referred to as a Calvinist), this takes on particular importance as someone who affirms the Reformed doctrine of Predestination and election. As for the lyrics "all now mysterious shall be bright at last", I don't think this just means that we are eventually told why certain things happen to us. Rather, I am reminded of Paul's words concerning the full revelation of Christ, the gospel, and the bringing in of the Gentiles to the New Covenant along with believing Jews:

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the administration of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before briefly. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to mankind, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:1-10 NASB2020)

The same idea is repeated over in Colossians (sort of a parallel epistle to Ephesians):

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am supplementing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions in behalf of His body, which is the church. I was made a minister of this church according to the commission from God granted to me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which had been hidden from the past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles is, the mystery that is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:24-27 NASB2020)

It would take quite some time to go through all of the lyrics and demonstrate the Biblical concepts underlying not only each verse but almost every line of the song is steeped in Biblical principles. The song concludes with the hope of the resurrection and being reunited not only with our Lord but with those departed saints who have gone on before. There is a tendency when singing songs or even reading lyrics to almost itemize them line by line and miss the point of what the song is saying because we don't think through the words. So, in conclusion, let me transcribe the lyrics of the last verse and with it remind you, as does the songwriter, to "be still" (or cease striving in modern translations) and let God be God because in Him is our hope for salvation and eternity. In the end, when we are reunited, there will be no more need for suffering or hardship. All of the changes in life will be done with, and we will rest in the glory of our God and enjoy perfect fellowship not only with each other, but most importantly with Him in whom only true peace can be found:

"Be still, my soul, the hour is hast'ning on when we shall be forever with the Lord, when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, sorrow forgot, loves purest joys restored! Be still my soul! When change and tears are past, all safe and blessed, we shall meet at last."

"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a Nightmare of Netflix Proportions! - Mr. P. Reviews Stuff - Ep: 02

 

A little while back I uploaded a reading/recording of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House", one of his most famous stories. As was the case with "Pickman's Model", the story was adapted (and I use that term very loosely) for Netflix's "Cabinet of Curiosities" limited series produced by Guillermo del Toro. If you haven't read the source material, or listened to my recording and review of the first story (episode 5 of the series on Netflix) I'll wait while you do that to get caught up to speed.

Good to go? Excellent!

So, you'll recall that the adaptation of "Pickman's Model" left something to be desired. There were elements of the original story that were preserved, but it was the padding and additions to the story that really ruined the episode for me and many others. "The Dreams in the Witch House" (episode 6 of "Cabinet of Curiosities") has the opposite problem. It isn't the few elements that are preserved that are the problem, such as character names mostly and the ending, it's that the aforementioned list is pretty much the only thing consistent with the source material.

I'm not exaggerating.

Aside from the names of the main characters, there is essentially nothing of the original in this story. Gone are the fantastical worlds encountered during the second phase of Gilman's dreams. Gone are the tenants of the witch house and the sense of dread surrounding Walpurgis Night and the midnight revelries of the witch cults in Arkham. Instead, the main character (who I refuse to acknowledge as being anything like the Gilman of the original story) is a depressed, melancholy, sad-sack of a man who has no motivation in life beyond once again seeing his dead twin sister who died when they were kids. Given the character's graying hair, either he has been stressed out his entire life or it's been several decades since the event. The point is, this is far from the studious mathematics graduate student who postulated theories of traveling between dimensions who is, unfortunately, haunted by the soul of a sadistic witch and her familiar. This is not the one who was dragged into unknown abysses and interacted, unwittingly, with the dark messenger Nyarlathotep. This is a pathetic loser who never amounted to anything and spent his whole life pining after his dead sister instead of getting counseling.

The new characters are even more useless. The nun and her sister are equally pointless. The nun serves to be a caricature of everything bad about organized religion as seen from the perspective of someone who was abused in the church. The nun is a cold-hearted, judgmental, unsympathetic turd and her sister, who is clearly involved with studying the witch-house (possibly involved in witchcraft herself) is the voice of reason who convinces her sister to aid them by asking "aren't all souls worthy of salvation"? With that her sister realizes that she needs to help. It apparently takes a pagan to show a nun that they aren't living up to Christ's example. Then again, I've come to expect this sort of trope from media. Christians are judgmental hypocrites, and it is up to the non-Christians to hold them to their own standard. Unfortunately, there have been enough within Christendom who have validated this trope.

In any case, the ending fits the book pretty closely as far as Gilman's death is concerned and the contents of the alcove in the house containing Keziah's and her familiar's remains, even if those remains aren't found after the house collapses (which doesn't happen in this, unsurprisingly). The rest of the ending is pretty stupid though.

All in all, I still don't understand why they bothered adapting either of these and then veering so far off the source material. I'm not saying that everything has to be 1:1 the same, but this time they didn't even try.

"Bow the Knee" by Ron Hamilton - Mr. P. Sings Stuff - Ep. 02

 

My love for sacred Christian music cannot be understated. I grew up on this stuff, particularly music by this particular gentleman, Ron Hamilton (a.k.a. "Patch the Pirate"). I was raised singing this sort of thing in church and in school for fine arts competition and it forever shaped my vocal style and preferred type of music to perform for church.

This particular song first crossed my path when I was in college at Pensacola Christian College. At the time, I was a member of our collegian male ensemble. Much of what we did was acapella (the good kind, not the obnoxious crap that Pitch Perfect lampoons) though I seem to recall we may have had a pianist that would help us learn the parts and give us a starting key. This was going on two decades ago so my memory is a little fuzzy on some of the details. In any case, this was one of the few songs I remember performing alongside "John the Revelator". I quickly fell in love with the song and even bought the sheet music for the choral arrangement. I believe I only ever performed it once at my old church but the arrangement was done for congregational singing instead of the orchestrated and arranged version here. It was a simple verse/chorus/verse/chorus arrangement with no frills. Where's the fun in that? Still, it was the only arrangement available to me at the time and so the pianist played and I sang. This was also at a time when .mp3 downloads of accompaniment tracks was less prevalent and ordering CDs was much more expensive, although orchestration CD's still aren't cheap.

The message of the song is simple enough. As Christians, we are to submit to the authority of God. However, this isn't to be done out of mere obligation. As Ron sings, part of this is out of duty and a recognition of who God is as the sovereign over all creation. However, there is also a desire to submit out of thankfulness for the grace He has shown and continues to show believers. We are to obey our Lord not because we have to, but because we want to. In fact, this is to be the heart attitude of all believers. For example:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. (Ephesians 5:1-2 NASB2020)

We imitate and emulate the life of Christ because of His sacrifice for us. Yes, it is required that we be holy as God is holy (Leviticus 11:44-45, 20:26; 1 Peter 1:16, etc.) but we do so because we model the life of our Lord who modeled how to live in submission to the father for us (Hebrews 12:1-3). Ultimately, all men will ultimately bow the knee (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10), whether or not they do so out of love or fear is another matter altogether.

"The Dreams in the Witch House" by H.P. Lovecraft - Mr. P Reads Stuff - Ep. 02

Without further delay, I've finally gotten around to finalizing my recording of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House".This one is about twice as long as "Pickman's Model", coming in right at 1:37:00. A playlist will also be featured with the same story broken down into smaller chunks of about 20+ minutes a piece. The main video will also have chapters added to it to make finding a specific point just a bit easier.

This is a pretty classic Lovecraft story which leans more heavily into the cosmic horror aspect of things and mentions a recurring malevolent entity known as "Nyarlathotep" as well as one of the Outer God's of the Cthulhu Mythos named Azathoth. There's also a reference to the "Elder Things" which are first brought up in "At the Mountains of Madness", a significantly longer story I won't be doing any time soon. Some day though. The story also has one of the more brutal fates for a protagonist that Lovecraft wrote, but it is certainly memorable to say the least.

The story is told from the perspective of a third person narrator who was apparently an acquaintance of or perhaps a researcher into the events that took place at the eponymous witch-house. Lot of lore about witches and Salem as well. Lovecraft certainly had a thing for the period of the Salem Witch Trials since he brings it up in numerous stories.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this one as well. I recycled most of the music from the previous video and added one or two new tracks. Part of the difficulty in making these is finding good ambient music. Granted, I could just leave it as is and you could hear nothing but my voice, but since this isn't an audiobook and I'd rather not bore you to tears, I figure a little mood music can help set the mood for certain scenes better than just a single voice can.

(Playlist for the 4 part version is here)