AN ARDMORE NEW YEARS ROMANCE: THREE'S A CROWD

How funny that we should spend the one night of the year meant for farewells and welcomes painting the town red because we otherwise might feel blue. I’ve decided to paint the year-end town of Ardmore soft white as in candlelight and snow. This New Year’s Eve & Arrival, Herr & Her Federman will spend the last night of the year the way they have learned to: as a twosome. This mix is for those who have made the same choice or been given no other one. I call it “An Ardmore New Years Romance: Three’s A Crowd.” 

I don’t mean the title to sound selfish or snooty. It’s just that the last few years, to allude to a title of one of the song’s found herein, New Years Eve has been “Just a Night for Meditation.” So the songs sing of rapture, reflection  and respite. Of course, there will be spirits to enhance the spirit of the evening --wine, perhaps dancing, plus kindred activities. But I can imagine prolonged introspection and so you’ll hear a Tchaikovsky piano piece written for the January section of his suite, “The Seasons,” called “By the Fireside.” Here it’s in an orchestral arrangement by Morton Gould. And as your gaze drifts outside the windows, you’ll hear Debussy’s “Footsteps in the Snow,” arranged--seraphically--for choir. 

Most of the music comes from radio times of the past, when the night air itself was download medium. But I’m sure my parents were able to scrape together enough spare change to buy a romantic record or two. Songs like “In a Sentimental Mood” were malleable enough to be suited to most any nocturnal occasion. In any case, the songs are meant to both soothe and stir your senses. 

A kindly caveat: If the kids are on school break (K-through-Senior-Year-of-College), send them to the safest safe house you can find or nicest party you can trust them to attend. If there is even a faint possibility of alcohol or Mary Jane, tell them you’ll pay for Uber or gladly serve as a designated driver. This leaves worry-free hours for just the two of you. And this music is for those unhurried hours when the two of you are alone, thinking about what’s going or gone and what’s to come. Please try not to think about carbon emissions or Gaza--unless a God-Who-Can’t-Say-No to meaningful entreaty is listening in, or is in constant contact with his newest go-between, Clarence--newly hovering with bells on his feet as well as his wings.

In closing, let me quote a salutation from a Depression Era poem by Lorine Niedecker: “Here’s good health, friends, / and soothing syrup for sleeplessness.” Since I have tried to program music that answers only to the highest powers of creativity within us, insomnia sufferers will, I hope, know this night as one of tolerable, possibly joyful, forbearance. Keep in mind, the hub of my inspiration and “story line” was “Just a Night for Meditation.” So the music is meant mostly for silent or whispered affirmation. 

Unless, or until, Buster gives this a Mega re-berth, it’s available at WeTransfer for the next week. 

https://we.tl/t-geS19Fzeey

This will probably be my last holiday mix--unless the spirit compels me to make another. In the meantime, I’ve begun listening to the avalanche of winter music at Buster’s, Ernie’s and Lee’s blogs. You might also go to Andy Senior’s Radiola from which I “borrowed” two songs.

http://radiolablog.blogspot.com/2017/12/new-years-eve-dance-party-2009-redux.html

Prepared for:    http://big10inchrecord.blogspot.com