Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone all the best for the year just begun.

I got to work almost immediately upon waking with a new song, “Forgotten Promises.” The lyric is finished, the melody not quite, but it's getting there. This one has a Country feel, which is new for me.

Lots to do this year, what with songs and stories to finish. I also want to participate more regularly in my discussion lists and groups, as well as to blog here more reliably. I need to try again to join the NFB Music Division. Strangely, the couple of times I’ve e-mailed to inquire about joining, my message has gone unanswered. But, this time I’ll be more persistent. Maybe an inquiry to the musictalk list would be fruitful.

Anyway, I start 2011, as I start every year, with good intentions. Sold two poems in 2010. This year, may the momentum continue and grow!

A Musical New Year

Just as it is traditional to sing "Auld Lang Sine" at Midnight in English speaking countries, in European countries it is traditional to play The Radetzky March at New Year's Day concerts, usually at the end.

Ring Out, Wild Bells!

photo by listener

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

- Alfred, Lord, Tennyson: In Memoriam A.H.H., CVI

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

- Robert Burns