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Crossover Music, Easy Listening, & Light Classical
- Thread starter Condobloke
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Condobloke
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A little Simon and Garfunkel
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Condobloke
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....and a little more....i love their stuff. I could listen to it for hours...
LOL Both of those are unavailable in my country.
I do love me some Simon and Garfunkel. I had the chance to see them in the early 1970s and again in the 2000s I saw Paul Simon a few times and drove to NY to see Art's Across America, but only on one night.
So, I'll share a song. This is a cover of a bit of poetry by a guy named Edwin Robinson. The lyrics are worth paying attention to. It's also a fairly easy song to play on guitar, so there's lots of room to jam with it when you're playing with inexperienced players.
The poem ends where Mr. Cory dies, yet the song is quite dark in that they repeat the refrain after that. They also weren't the first to put the song to music, though it's possible that they didn't know that. As I recall, they'd both read the poem in high school (by the way, they went to high school together) and Paul turned it into music with the resulting writing credit.
Our 'Memorial Day' is on Monday. So, that's apt.
I'm bored, so I think I'll ramble on for a bit... This song made me stop and think, even though I've heard it a million times before. Thanks!
Though, the video doesn't really show many green berets. It's also wrong. About 80% of the people selected for the Green Baret training (SFQC) make it through the program. Of course, they don't select just anyone to enter. The people they select are the people they think will finish. The song indicates that only 3/100 will make it through.
This was expressed to me while I was enlisted in as a pretty good way to think about it.
They don't want a high drop-out rate in training. Their goal isn't to get you to quit, no matter what it might look like. Their goal is to mold you into the Marine they want you to be. They don't want you to drop out, they want you to get with the program and do what you're told. They want you to succeed.
Even still, there are some enlistment paths that have HUGE dropout rates...
It's also expensive to properly train someone. It's often said that the pilot is worth more than the plane. You can replace a plane but you need the money and time to replace the pilot. As for actual numbers, training a fighter pilot for the USAF can cost more than 10 million USD. In real math, we pay more than that for a plane these days.
Anyhow, it all starts with the selection process - even within those already enlisted and asking to do advanced training for things like the special forces. One of the reasons so few Marines drop out of Boot Camp is because they have hundreds of years worth of data and history to draw from and so they only accept people who they think are likely to become Marines.
I use the Marines as the example because it's what I know and because they're among the 'worst' at it. 10% to 15% will not make it through boot camp. 5% to 10% will drop out of the US Army's basic training.
Which leads me back to the point...
By the time you've made it through all this training (and a lot more training), and you have some experience, you apply to go to more training to become a Green Beret. So, they've already weeded out a bunch of people simply by not selecting them for more advanced training.
As for extremes, you have almost no chance at becoming Force Recon in the USMC. They accept a tiny percentage of applicants and then have an attrition rate greater than 50%. That attrition rate is, again, not because they want to weed you out (though that may be a little true for the first week). They want to turn you into the best warrior you can be in that role. Something like 0.5% of all applicants make it through the program. They only accept a tiny percentage of applicants.
No, I was definitely not Force Recon. I've met a few.
The US Navy SEALs are also a very tough program. I've met a few of them too.
(I've met any number of people who claimed to be special forces in various degrees but their story falls apart quickly if you ask a few questions. Some folks just want to feel better about themselves, I suppose.)
Ah well...
That's enough rambling for one post.
I'll share a song sort of on topic...
Enjoy!
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Condobloke
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That was the rule (more or less) if you wanted to be on US radio back in the day. There were longer songs but they did not get played on the radio.
Man, the music industry has changed a great deal. Gone are the days of a 'concept album' (sure, some independent artists and labels still have them - usually favored by 'hipsters') and today we (broadly speaking) only listen to a single track or two off of an album. The album concept still exists, but it's one or two songs that they hope do well with a bunch of filler material.
(Again, there are exceptions.)
This made me think...
But, for a while, our more popular songs were longer. As I mentioned, in the 90s the top 40 hit were in the 4.5 minute range.
The top 40 (across the various genres) is currently at about 3 minutes.
Which makes me wonder if we're losing our ability/willingness to focus. Could our collective attention span be in decline?
Further, would the immediacy of information/entertainment have had any impact on that attention span?
And, to keep it on topic (and to share a long song from a band that had many songs longer than 3 minutes)...
This is the London Philharmonic performing Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore. They did an album called Kashmir, where they covered Led Zeppelin songs.
If you're into it, then the rest of the tracks are on YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube's audio compression algorithm detracts from songs like this. If you can get it on CD, that's the way to do it. This YouTube version sounds like it has been flattened, normalized, given a RIAA-type equalization, and had 25% of the bits stripped away to save space.
It's still worth listening to. They made some interesting choices. They chose dissonance when they were more than capable of perfect harmony. I don't know why. The 1st chair violinist has quite a bit of stamina.
Why not...
Here is the title track, which I think is also worth listening to:
I had a slow dance with my first girlfriend to Kashmir, around 1996/97, lol.
Here's Brooklyn Duo with Billie Eilish's "Birds of a Feather"
Here's Brooklyn Duo with Billie Eilish's "Birds of a Feather"
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Condobloke
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Arlo Guthrie, Amazing Grace. Listen to him.....Seriously.
Arlo tells an inspiring story and EVERYONE sings along to Amazing Grace.
Arlo tells an inspiring story and EVERYONE sings along to Amazing Grace.
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