Previous Posts providing an Annotated Index to music on TumbleStone Blog dealt with the First Five, the Next Five, Numbers 11 to 20, Numbers 21 to 25, Numbers 26 to 35, and Numbers 36 to 40. What follows are the next five, posted between April 2022 and April 2023.
41) Remembering Helen, 14 April 1960 – 17 September 2021 (14 April 2022) – My sister Helen died from cancer on 17 September 2021, aged 61. She often went stone hunting with me, and was with me when I found my most treasured stone, a rare fossil coral stone, on Gemstone Beach in June 2020. I tumble polished many of her finds. At her funeral, a large bowl of those polished stones was at the entrance to the church. People were able to take one as a keepsake. At Helen’s burial, people could also take a stone to place on her coffin. I ended this Post with a piece of music: “Attending Helen’s funeral made me think about my own, about what I would want to be in it, and how I would want people to feel about it. I decided that I would like people to walk out of my funeral thinking about the rest of their own lives with hope and renewed enthusiasm, something along the lines of Lee Ann Womack’s song, ‘I Hope You Dance’. I suspect Helen might have wanted something similar.” Lee Ann Womack was born in Texas in 1966 and emerged as a contemporary country music artist in 1997. “I Hope You Dance” (released in 2000) is known as her crossover signature song, using pop music elements instead of traditional country.
42) “Well that was hard!” 36 Milestones for a Completed Thesis – Part One: Stones 1 to 10 (Timaru & Kakanui) (17 August 2022) – In my former role of formal or informal supervisor of research students at the University of Waikato, I sometimes gave polished stones to students as “milestones” to mark progress during their academic journey. As I put it in this Post, “Milestones lie ahead of you on your journey somewhere, marking the passing distance, providing feedback that your end goal is getting closer. When reaching a milestone, finishing a phase of research or a draft of a chapter, then a sense of achievement and a feeling of satisfaction are gained. All milestones are also ‘stepping stones’, places to stand from which to launch forward. The final milestone on a journey is also the first stepping stone of the next journey.” This Post is first in a Series of three featuring 36 milestones marking Lynley’s completion of her PhD. It describes three stones from Timaru and seven from Kakanui, the second Post deals with 12 stones from Gemstone Beach, and the third Post refers to 14 from Slope Point. The description of each stone often includes some connection to an aspect of undertaking doctoral research or writing a thesis. I had taught Lynley since she was a second year student and I had supervised her Master’s thesis. I acted as an informal advisor for her doctoral thesis for a number of years. In keeping with the theme of the Post, I included Dougie MacLean’s song, “Stepping Stones”, where he states “We do not stand alone”, even when we are “out in the deep unknown”. A Dougie MacLean song has featured earlier in the Blog – see #29. MacLean is a Scottish singer-songwriter who has performed since the mid-1970s. One of his most well-known songs is “Caledonia”, often dubbed Scotland’s “unofficial national anthem” (I later used this song in another Post in 2022). MacLean also composed “The Gael” which became the main theme to the movie “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992). A 40-minute documentary on MacLean’s life and music, “The Land: The Songs of Dougie MacLean”, was aired by the BBC in 1993. “Stepping Stones” appeared on the album “Riof”, released in 1997 by Dunkeld Records, MacLean’s own label. In 2011 Dougie MacLean received the OBE for services to music and charity in Scotland. His official personal website is here, and his Wikipedia entry is here.
43) “The Sea Is Bound To Wash Upon The Sand” – A Song From My Fossicking Holiday (8 April 2023) – This Post was written during my three months Southern Sojourn in 2023. I had been spending time listening to “How Long Will I Love You?”, enjoying it, and the link to the beach in a small section of lyrics is obvious. As I write in the Post, “It appeals to the romantic in me, musically and lyrically. The reference to the sea washing upon the sand gives me an excuse to link it to fossicking on the beach for stones. The movement of the stones in the sand and waves produces the smooth colourful pebbles I seek. And those highly treasured finds from the beach – how long will I love you? Always!” No stones appear in this Post. “How Long Will I Love You?” was written by Mike Scott, a member of The Waterboys who recorded it in 1990. The Waterboys is a British group that formed in 1983. I had previously only known their 1985 release, “The Whole of the Moon”, the song that is their most successful commercially. The group’s Wikipedia entry has this interesting observation: “The early Waterboys sound became known as ‘The Big Music’ after a song on their second album, ‘A Pagan Place’. This style was described by Mike Scott as ‘a metaphor for seeing God’s signature in the world.’ Waterboys’ chronicler Ian Abrahams elaborated on this by defining ‘The Big Music’ as ‘…a mystical celebration of paganism. It’s extolling the basic and primitive divinity that exists in everything (‘the oceans and the sand’), religious and spiritual all encompassing. Here is something that can’t be owned or built upon, something that has its existence in the concept of Mother Earth and has an ancestral approach to religion. And it takes in and embraces the feminine side of divinity, pluralistic in its acceptance of the wider pantheon of paganism.” Finally, to return to “How Long Will I Love You?” – Ellie Goulding did a very popular cover in 2013 which became much more successful commercially that the original Waterboys version.
44) “Somewhere In-Between” – Another Song From My Fossicking Holiday (8 April 2023) – This Post was published the same day as the previous one, reflecting the music I had been spending time with during my Southern Sojourn. The song is “San Luis” by Gregory Alan Isakov, from the album “Evening Machines” (2018). No stones feature in the Post, but it’s very relevant to my time down south. As I note: “The scenes in the song’s ‘official video’ present a man immersed in an overwhelming natural environment. That’s familiar to me – fossicking on a beach between the powerful waves and the high cliffs, with the intermittent concussion of the booming breakers roaring across banks of stones, the fossicker encountering the rawness of the sun and wind and rain, with the thin sharp cries of seabirds somewhere in the distance. The beautiful and the vast. Somewhere in-between the horizon and the beach beneath my feet.” Gregory Alan Isakov (born 1979) is a South African-born American singer and songwriter. His family immigrated to the United States in 1986 and he was raised in Philadelphia. Isakov’s music combines indie and folk, featuring instruments such as the guitar and banjo. He has released seven albums to date. Wikipedia notes that, “Acclaimed for his lyrics, his music often explores themes such as nature, introspection, and personal experiences.”
45) “Precious Time” – Forty-Three Fossicks Plus (29 April 2023) – Another Southern Sojourn music Post, like #43 and #44 (above). “I’ve been granted precious time away from home in Whanganui, away from what was my normal life, to spend days and days fossicking on beaches in the South Island, especially Gemstone Beach in Southland.” The term “precious time” is taken from the lyrics of “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” by Arcade Fire, a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, founded in 2001. The song appeared on the group’s sixth album (2022) “We”. All of the band’s studio albums have received nominations for Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys. According to Wikipedia, their first album, “Funeral”, is widely considered by music critics to be one of the greatest albums of the 2000s.
The next five musical pieces used in TumbleStone Posts can be found here.
