O Holy Night - Beautiful!

This is one of my favourite Carols and this version is just amazingly beautiful with the lovely voices of the Celtic Ladies, the Choir and the Orchestra. Enjoy and listen to the words!

 

Hallelujah - Which Version?

I was lying in bed yesterday when I heard from downstairs a song I recognised but a version a didn't. Yes it was the X-Factor winners version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah. Personally I am a great fan of the definitive version, in my view, by Jeff Buckley. Buckley's voice here is perfect for such a song with the raw emotion he manages to muster.

Now this is song everyone knows, or at least has heard somewhere along the way. However if you listen to the lyrics you find that what the song is about is not what the melody itself would bring out. It is a very catchy chorus that seems quite positive. Hallelujah means 'Praise the Lord' after all. However it is a deeply subversive song about emotional and sexual torment and even violence among other things. Very cleverly written by Cohen.

This leads me on to the X-Factor version. Well all I can say is:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Another clone comes out of the manufactured pop factory of Simon Cowell and his cohorts. Yes she can sing, that is obvious. But to do that to the song! I know she didn't write that version so she is not totally to blame. But please! To design a competition so that it guarantees the Christmas #1 is frankly criminal and then to do it with this song deserves a criminal record. Which it is, do you get it ;-) Ho Ho!

Anyway for a good article about the songs History click HERE!

For Buckley's version on youtube Click HERE!

Been Quiet of late - Little Inspiration but Merry Christmas to all!

I have been really struggling to write anything recently. I have been moved/angered by much in the news and personally but have had little inspiration to write it down. My creativity has upped and left. I have been so busy with life, Marriage, Working, running a Cell Group, Worship Team and Christmas event that I have no apparent time to write anything of length and depth except the odd review and video link.

I hope to get back into the swing of it next year. I will be tackling the subject of Election/Predestination in my Cell Group in the series from Wayne Grudems book. That should be fun and will post my thoughts on that early next year.

In the mean time if I post nothing more this year then have a great Christmas and remember what it is really about!

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel— which means, God with us. Matthew 1:23

"...you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." (Luke 1 v31-33)