Skip to main content

Sing-along Café 2024-11-21

Our singing night was short but sweet and fun. We had to go home early so that the crew of folks who were moving furniture to set up Saturday's Christmas Bazaar wouldn't have to stay too late. The Bazaar is being set up this morning (Friday22nd) and it's a pretty big deal. The people who run and help to run the bazaar are Angels Among Us. 

Our theme was Angels and Heaven in songs. It's interesting that many of the songs were bittersweet. Angels Among Us was heartwarming and hopeful, but it made us sad. A lot of angel and heaven activity happens at night and in darkness, and the angels and heaven are light, beacons of goodness and hope. I expected more happy and magical angel stuff, like Heaven Must be Missing an Angel ('cause you're here with me right now. Your love is heavenly.) and Bryan Adams' Heaven (when you're lying here in my arms,...we're in heaven). Then, there were things I couldn't quite understand, like Pennies from Heaven (?), and Sarah McLachlan's Angel, which I love but we needed to look up what it's all about. I had a Trinity story to share about a special performance of Angel. The angel in that song is heroin. Not happy, uplifting, but interesting. And, a segue from our theme of flying away to escape difficulties. I'm reminded that we usually picture an angel as a beautiful young woman with with wings, but the way they're described in the bible is really terrifying. In one place they had four faces, each facing in a different direction, and one is a Lion's face, with wheels and wings and eyes all around. They always appear to people and immediately say something like "Fear not!" I would even be frightened of a pretty person with wings.

Ezekiel's Angels





Whatever our theme, we always find lots to talk about and think about and lots of good music to sing, obviously we sing. We had some tea, and although I didn’t bake or bring cookies, we had some little Halloween chocolates in case we needed a little something. The “regulars” were happy to have Rev. Sydney join us, and we hope that he comes again. It was a lovely evening in lovely company.

Here's a selection of the songs from my Songs with Heaven and Angels Playlist:

  • Heaven Must be Missing an Angel by Tavares
  • Heaven by Brian Adams
  • Angel by Sarah McLachlan
  • Halo by Beyoncé and by Caleb Chan&Brian Chan
  • Angels Among Us by Alabama
  • Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton
  • Earth Angel by The Penguins
  • All Through the Night by The Irish Rovers and by Sheryl Crow
  • Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Eric Clapton
  • Nightshift by The Commodores
  • Too Much Heaven by The Bee Gees
  • Pennies from Heaven by Frank Sinatra
We'll revisit this theme in the future. I'm going to keep adding songs to the list, and next time I want to sing Stairway to Heaven

Next week's theme will be Winter. I was feeling like starting Christmas, but I think we can ease into that by starting with a winter theme. I have a pretty big list of Winter themed songs. 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thursday, April 18 Sing-along Café Review

The theme for the evening was: Songs with La-las (and other nonsense: ooh, doo-dah, na-na, scoobie-doobie, bum-ba-bum, hey!). I call all of these little non-word lyrics la-las. They're often my favourite part of a song. Everyone can sing those words, usually. With scat singing, not usually, and with yodeling, not everyone. But, think about the Beatles song Hey Jude. At the end, everyone can sing along with the na-nas and some of us even like to harmonize with them. When my daughter was writing songs, I urged her to put some nonesense la-las in her songs. Don't worry about finding beautiful, powerful words for all the verses, or all the lines of the chorus. Sometimes, the lack of words makes a melody more powerful.  Here's the list of songs we sang and listened to: Can't Get You Out of My Head   by Kylie Minogue Everything   by Michael Bublé Those Were the Days   by Mary Hopkin Hey Jude   by the Beatles Tom's Diner   by Suzanne Vega &DNA De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

Thursday, April 11 Sing-along Café Review

The theme for the evening was: Songs with Instumentals that We Sing.  The easiest way to introduce this theme is "Sweet Caroline, BA-BA-BA!". Everyone sings along with the brass section, singing like trumpets. There's also a little instrumental interlude that I sing along with. I almost always sing la-las (or ba-ba, da-da, nya-nya, doo, dit, bop...) for the instrumental introductions and interludes in songs. I sing with classical instrumental music, joking that "I know all the words." I'm not the only one. You do this too. Here's the list of songs we sang: Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond A Taste of Honey by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Wipe Out by the Surfaris The Fool on the Hill by the Beatles I'll Never Fall in Love Again by Dionne Warwick Windy by The Association Careless Whisper by George Michael True by Spandau Ballet Down Under by Men at Work Feeling Good by Michael Bublé More Than a Feeling by Boston Baker Street by Gerry Raffer

New Name of My Singing Night: Sing-along Café