A serenade is a musical performance given to honor or express love for someone.
It comes from the Italian root words sereno (peaceful) and sera (evening). The lover usually sings a song at night in the open air for the beloved, in most cases, beneath the lover's window. The selection for tonight is entitled "The Serenade" by Michael Lington.
Another Serenade is from the poem "Indian Serenade" by the Romantic Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
These two serenades are similar, one in a restaurant and the other beneath the chamber window of his sweet love. In a nightclub, we sit in darkness and listen to singers or musicians cheer us with sweet sounds, like a nightingale or poet's words. The melody of a musician, moves us and softens us, and we know not why. Both serenades are beautiful expressions of love.
The night air is more beautiful after reading and listening to theses selections.
Are you lifted from the grass when you think about the one you love? Doesn't it feel sometimes that you can float or fly?
Who knows how? Click on the title of the poem and let the audio reading serenade you, just like music.
All romantics dream of a better life, a better love. Not just for themselves, but for everyone. Bruce Springsteen wants us to "get ready" for that romantic and spiritual journey. This time "the train" is not just looking for passengers for freedom and liberty (like The Underground Railroad), but for hope and love.
The Land of Hope is the United States of America, the spot that immigrants dreamed of as they came through Ellis Island.
We must continue to have dreams of hope and love. "Once you allow yourself to dream, you can’t go back. Once you buy into the risk of a new tomorrow, a different, hopefully better future, going back is for people with less intestinal fortitude." The second verse of Bruce Springsteen's song continues:
I will provide for you
And I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion for
This part of the ride
Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past
Big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams
Bruce Springsteen invite us to get on board with him. He turns to the crowd and calls: "Hop on this train. Let me see your hands." In so doing, he joins the pantheon of other dreamers whose quotes are listed below. These poets/dreamers all share one thing in common: a love for this world and the people in it, no matter whether you are saints or sinners. Say "Amen" somebody.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will be as one.
~JOHN LENNON, Imagine
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
is rounded with a sleep.
~WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things
"According to Aristotle, certain conditions must be present for friendship to exist. First, friends must have souls. Individuals who cannot experience and express emotion—especially love—cannot experience friendship. Second, friendship must be mutual, with both parties expressing equal respect and compassion for each other. Onesided friendships usually end quickly. Each party must “look out for” the other party and conduct themselves in the other's best interest. Finally, friendship is more than reciprocated good will, meaning one must reach a deeper relationship than merely wishing good fortune to another individual.
Using these aspects of friendship, Aristotle devised 4 different levels of friendship. The first 2 types of friendship are quite similar varieties of incomplete friendship. Friendships at these levels are based on one's own utility and personal gain. People engage in these relationships based on how they can benefit from what other individuals have to offer.
The third type of friendship is solely for pleasurable reasons. This type of friendship often exists within young adults looking to gain pleasurable experiences in life. However, as people age, their pleasurable wishes change, and relationships of this level disband.
The final category of friendship is the deepest and most fulfilling. Complete friendship is the friendship of good people with similar virtue. These people are best friends and wish good fortune toward each other for each other's own sake. This type of friendship lasts many years, as good nature and similar vices are timeless. However, though this form of friendship is most valued, it is also most rare."
The deepest love and affection for another person is also the one that is impossible to forget. In this song, written by Bryan Ferry, he sings about a love that is timeless. Remember me, he says, remember me.
Roxy Music My Only Love Lyrics
Do I ever wonder? More than words can say Heaven knows it´s hard enough to pray Let me tell you something There´s a change in me Even now you´re gone you´ll always be My only love Does it seem so funny For a fool to cry? Do you know the meaning of goodbye? There´s a river flowing By a willow tree When you need to know remember me My only love Let me tell you something More than words can say But they´re all I have, no other way There´s a river flowing By a willow tree When you find you´re there remember me My only love
Whenever anyone asks me what I would like as a gift. I usually answer, "A book". That's a little vague, so sometimes I say, "A poetry book". After listening to this song called "The Book of Love", I realize that all the sorrows in life, all the pleasures and all the joys, and everything else we desire make up our own "Book of Love." According to the song (below), this book of love is heavy. So heavy, in fact that you can't carry it around with you. There are probably some blank pages too, because sometimes there are no words to express the wonder and specialness of love. A wise woman once said, "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
In this electronic age we live in, the book of love would not be made of paper and maybe you could "carry it" around with you, but I think not. The book of love is special and filled with music and sweet memories. The book of love has instructions for dancing, special recipes, sweet songs and heart-shaped boxes. Some people have played this song for their first dance at their wedding. The dance instructions are always included, but not much else. I hope your own book is filled with endless love, smudges and hope until the very last page.
The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
"No one you love is ever truly lost." ~Ernest Hemingway
Hadley Richardson was Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. They met in Chicago when she was in her late twenties; he was younger, a charismatic veteran and newspaperman. He dedicated his books In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises to her.
He wasn’t famous then, of course. He was a doctor’s son and he had a doting mother, but he was determined to be a famous writer. Paris seemed to be the place to achieve this and he asked Hadley to marry him and come with him. They married in 1922 and divorced six years later.
Hemingway once said, "There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris."
Hemingway writes of Hadley around this time: “You’ve changed me more than you know, and will always be part of everything I am. That’s one thing I’ve learned from all this. No one you love is ever truly lost.”
Mary Chapin Carpenter writes of the love and uncertainty of love in her song, Mrs.Hemingway.
His first wife gave Hemingway the creative energy and confidence. The love of the first wife is remembered in this song and perhaps in the writer's book A Moveable Feast. Years later, Hadley herself would remember Hemingway this way to her best friend, Alice Sokoloff, a musician and writer who played piano duets with her in the 1970s, when the two women were neighbors in Chocorua, N.H. Instead of being bitter toward Hemingway, she is full of gratitude to him for giving her "the key to the world."
In the opera Thais, there is a famous melody called Meditation. It was composed in the original version by Jules Massenet for solo violin with harp accompaniment. Thais is an Egyptian courtesan who is contemplating her current life.
She spends a night in meditation. She wonders if she should follow the secular world or the spiritual. Should she choose a life of love or chastity? She decides to become a nun.
The monk who introduced Thais to her new found spirituality makes this starling revelation:
He tells Thais, too late, that he loves her and repudiates his vows. He tells her that "nothing is true but life and the love of human beings."
There is an emotional need to love and be loved. This music, played lovingly by the violinist Sarah Chang, reminds me to communicate the feelings you have about love before you regret it.
There is a special radiance and splendor when the one you love walks into the room. "There is a blush on the cheek whenver you speak", say the songwriters (music written by Guy Wood and lyrics by Robert Mellin) and a "warmth and tenderness". This instrumental version of the song is perfect to imagine the mystic charms of your beloved. When the music stops, the love remains. Only a few people can leave you with that fire we call love. The song was written in 1952. The fact that it is still played today and re-interpreted today reveals not only the immortality of music , but also the enduring power of love. Love outlasts its brief moment in time. These words below are the original lyrics to the song. Listen to the piano and guitar and it makes perfect sense that love and this melody will always inspire others who are in love.
The very thought of you makes my heart sing Like an April breeze on the wings of spring, And you appear in all your splendor, My one and only love.
The shadows fall and spread their mystic charms In the hush of night while you're in my arms. I feel your lips, so warm and tender, My one and only love.
The touch of your hand is like heaven, A heaven that I've never known. The blush on your cheek whenever I speak Tells me that you are my own.
You fill my eager heart with such desire. Ev'ry kiss you give sets my soul on fire. I give myself in sweet surrender, My one and only love.
Six months ago I was invited to a wedding and enclosed with the beautiful calligraphy was an invitation reply card with a request to "name a favorite song for our wedding."
Not being exactly sure how to respond, I chose a song by Sara Evans called: I Could Not Ask For More.
They never played that song at the wedding, but if I were asked again today, I might have chosen another song. I think I would have chosen the #1 love ballad Longer by Dan Fogelberg for the couple's first dance. Listening to that song again after all these years still fills me with a sweetness and joy.
There are no exact ways to measure love, but this song expresses a deep conviction -- that the singer/poet's love has been present inside him for a longer time that anyone can truly measure.
These spoons make a nice gift for the wedding party, don't you think?
"I see your heart and I know your pain. I have been there too."
This week a powerful storm ripped through the Jersey Shore.
Hurricanes can take away your possessions. They remind us that rich or poor, it can all be taken from us, by the forces of nature. We don't really own the land , the sky , or the trees. Those things belong to everyone.
But our time here on earth, we do own. No matter how short our life might be, love gives
our time meaning .. Spend that time with wisdom and joy, not hate.
All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.
