For my entire life, I have been surrounded by music (we had 3 different live bands play at our wedding!). As a kid, I fondly remember Christmas’s on my Dad’s side where everyone sang songs for what seemed like hours. Anyone who knows my Dad well knows his musical history – Bands like Bandicoot, Rebel, Mark’s Bros, and Fast Forward…. Stories of opening for the Monkee’s at the Gibbon Ballroom before the Monkee’s were famous ( I hear this story all the time, but still don’t know if it is REALLY true), long travels in the Mark Bros. van, and pyro-technics gone bad. I met lots of my Dad’s musician friends who came to the studio to record – many who I remember fondly to this day. Back then I saw a lot of my Dad’s brothers, who also have music in their blood, and dearly miss, Uncle Dan, (who mostly played bass guitar) the guy who was so shy in person but not on stage.
And I have no musical talent, or at least never gave it enough time as a kid to develop it. I remember taking piano lessons and just hating to “practice”. My Dad bought me the most beautiful red electric guitar for my 10th birthday, and I never really learned how to play it. I just did not have the passion for it, that my brother Joe developed in High School and still has to this day. I wish I did, I wish I would have focused on it more. To me, there are few things that are cooler then girls that can really rock a guitar. Yeah being in an all chic rock band would have fit me just fine.
So here we are today. I am watching my kids play and sing music and hoping to see the talent develop into something awesome. CJ likes to sing while Grandpa plays piano. B just bangs on the drums and keyboard. We have a room basement that used to be the “train room” but is now more of the “music room” with drums, keyboard, my old (like new) guitar, etc. The kids like to jam out in here, in a very random, “just make all the noise you can” fashion. M has shown a lot of interest in my guitar lately, we have been hooking it up to the amp and he has asked to take it to friends’ houses…. we are not quite to that point yet.
I went to Thursday mass at St. M’s since the Kindergartner’s had a role. They walked up with Father with food shelf items since it was the Thanksgiving mass and then got to sing a song. I patiently waited to the very end of the mass to hear the song that the Kindergartner’s sang. I had never heard it before, although Grandma H. had, who came with me. It was the song “Edelweiss” from the movie Sound of Music, a movie I have never seen. Seeing the 5 and 6 year old’s sing it and do the actions was adorable. It seemed like the sweetest church song a little kid could sing. I have since done some research on the song…. It is known as “May the Lord, Mighty Lord” when the lyrics were modified for Church use.
The Church Lyrics for “May the Lord” go like this:
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“May the Lord, mighty God, Bless and keep you forever.
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Grant you peace, perfect peace, Courage in every endeavor.
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Lift your eyes and see His face, And His grace forever.
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May the Lord, mighty God, Bless and keep you forever.”
So here is the inspiration behind this blog post, M’s version of the song, not taken at the Church with his classmates, but at home a couple days later. Below is Take 2, (Take 1 had bad audio and a meddling brother), so I am glad that M willingly and enthuisastically performed it again for me.
