Part 2....
Many moons ago when I was between 9 and 11, my sister and I were cleaning our room and as an Alabama A&M University football game was being broadcast and half time arrived, the announcer said the band would be playing Earth, Wind & Fire's hit song "In the Stone". My first thought was, "I have never heard of this song and I know all their songs...how is this a hit?".
My greater challenge was that the performance was instrumental. While I connect with lyrics after composition, enjoying HBCU band performances before that day and since are still filtered through knowing a song's lyrics. It was love at first listen, but I was still curious about the lyrics.
As the song opened with its grand horns and then percussion, I was transformed...that music that composition, that arrangement was transcendent and beautiful and somehow possessed "Funk". I am right now being transported to the very spot in my room I stood looking at the radio (to me then still a magic box like the tv) as the composition and its performance blossomed in my ears. The radio was for me then and on good days now a portal to a spectrum of concepts and emotions that begin and end with LOVE.
It would be weeks maybe months later before I heard the song being played for the Soul Train dancers and would become briefly acquainted with its lyrics. I can still remember thinking that Saturday morning watching Soul Train, "WEUP doesn't play this song". The beauty of the composition could still be felt through the TV broadcast which had been so different from hearing a HBCU's band perform it live.
Having played in the band connected me with things in the music that it has taken me many years to realize everyone simply won't hear. Besides Stevie Wonder's music I connect first with composition (and melody) and then lyrics. I am the only woman I know who does that...casual polls among friends and musicians suggest women classically connect with lyrics, first and then melody.
In adulthood we all, I believe, reclaim the parts of childhood or youth that we can. Music is both a background and foreground of our lives...if you love the Elements like I do then you may have enough years behind you to remember records (33's, 78's and 45's), reel to reel tape, cassettes, cassingles, CD's, CD singles and now we listen to a waveform known as the MP3. The music we once enjoyed via these tangible mediums we now enjoy as intangible, ominuously collected by 80 Gigs or more on an iPod or some other off brand MP3 player.
I got a new computer almost 2 months ago now and a friend helped me reconstitute my music library until I take myself back to the Apple Store for a data transfer session so that my music library can be moved from my PC to my Mac. In addition to the music we put on here, where there were deficiencies of my faves I immediately upload from my hard discs, but then there is...
As the song opened with its grand horns and then percussion, I was transformed...that music that composition, that arrangement was transcendent and beautiful and somehow possessed "Funk". I am right now being transported to the very spot in my room I stood looking at the radio (to me then still a magic box like the tv) as the composition and its performance blossomed in my ears. The radio was for me then and on good days now a portal to a spectrum of concepts and emotions that begin and end with LOVE.
It would be weeks maybe months later before I heard the song being played for the Soul Train dancers and would become briefly acquainted with its lyrics. I can still remember thinking that Saturday morning watching Soul Train, "WEUP doesn't play this song". The beauty of the composition could still be felt through the TV broadcast which had been so different from hearing a HBCU's band perform it live.
Having played in the band connected me with things in the music that it has taken me many years to realize everyone simply won't hear. Besides Stevie Wonder's music I connect first with composition (and melody) and then lyrics. I am the only woman I know who does that...casual polls among friends and musicians suggest women classically connect with lyrics, first and then melody.
In adulthood we all, I believe, reclaim the parts of childhood or youth that we can. Music is both a background and foreground of our lives...if you love the Elements like I do then you may have enough years behind you to remember records (33's, 78's and 45's), reel to reel tape, cassettes, cassingles, CD's, CD singles and now we listen to a waveform known as the MP3. The music we once enjoyed via these tangible mediums we now enjoy as intangible, ominuously collected by 80 Gigs or more on an iPod or some other off brand MP3 player.
I got a new computer almost 2 months ago now and a friend helped me reconstitute my music library until I take myself back to the Apple Store for a data transfer session so that my music library can be moved from my PC to my Mac. In addition to the music we put on here, where there were deficiencies of my faves I immediately upload from my hard discs, but then there is...
Being in line at a store and seeing an EWF Greatest Hits CD for $5 (brand new) and flipping it over to find an interesting hodge podge of what Columbia Legacy labeled "Greatest Hits". "A&R guy, give me your job so I can show you how its done even if you are trying to offer something different and yes I appreciate you for not putting 'Let's Groove' on there" I digress...amongst this 'hodge podge' was my jewel, 'In the Stone".
In my car there is a CD player. I rewind relentlessly to hear every lyric because while the chorus is clear, "true love is written in the stone", Maurice White's amazing and signature phrasing doesn't allow me access to every word (of this poem). His voice is an instrument and very melodic, but like many artist it is not always accessible by the natural ear...phrasing a lyric to match the melody just doesn't allow it to always be well... articulate (we love you Anita Baker).
However I have damn near put my ear to car speakers trying to hear and understand every word and since I've uploaded the $5 CD to my computer and iPod, I have continued my mission to decipher every word. There is ministry in there...I just know it ! ...There is healing in there...I just know it !
Well in this tech savvy world I don't have to expend much more time or effort to figure out the lyrics...alas (as we all know and I learned from HS students a while back) there are websites for which you key in your selection and voila...lyrics
In my car there is a CD player. I rewind relentlessly to hear every lyric because while the chorus is clear, "true love is written in the stone", Maurice White's amazing and signature phrasing doesn't allow me access to every word (of this poem). His voice is an instrument and very melodic, but like many artist it is not always accessible by the natural ear...phrasing a lyric to match the melody just doesn't allow it to always be well... articulate (we love you Anita Baker).
However I have damn near put my ear to car speakers trying to hear and understand every word and since I've uploaded the $5 CD to my computer and iPod, I have continued my mission to decipher every word. There is ministry in there...I just know it ! ...There is healing in there...I just know it !
Well in this tech savvy world I don't have to expend much more time or effort to figure out the lyrics...alas (as we all know and I learned from HS students a while back) there are websites for which you key in your selection and voila...lyrics
So hear to preach and teach us what the word of God is saying to us from the Stone...the Bible...are the Elements...Earth, Wind and Fire...
"In the Stone"
written by Maurice White, David Foster and Allee Willis
I found that love, provides the key
Unlocks the heart and souls of you and me
Love will learn to sing your song, yeah
Love is written in the stone
Every man I meet is walking time
Free to wander past his conscious mind
Love will come, and take you home, yeah
Love is written in the stone
Do you believe, my friend, in what you claim?
People of the world all doubt the same
Bringing questions of their own, yeah
Truth is written in the stone
In the stone you'll find the meaning
You're not standing tall
In the stone the light is shining
Forever touching all
Life experience a passing day
Time will witness what the ol' folks say
Getting stronger every day
Strength is written in the stone
Deep inside, our hearts for you to keep
Lies a spark of light that never sleeps
The greatest love you've ever known
Yea is written in the stone
In the stone, you'll find the meaning
(why) You're not standing tall
In the stone the light is shining
Forever touching all
Never, never my darling
Never you'll be alone
Never, never my darling
Never you'll be alone
Ever, forever my darling
True love is written in the stone
Never, never my darling
never you'll be alone
Ever, forever my darling
True love is written in the stone
Never, never my darling
never you'll be alone
Ever, forever my darling
True love is written in the stone
Never
Ever
Written In The Stone
Never
Ever
Written In The Stone
No comments:
Post a Comment