New Year’s music tagged posts

It has become tradition in this space to offer up a musical selection that fits the tenor of this day. Three years ago (or was it 300?) we highlighted  the 4th Movement to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as a way of ushering in the New Year with, shall we say, a bang, not a whimper. (Apologies to T.S. Eliot on that line!)

So today, looking forward to a presidential inauguration, an end to this damn pandemic (let us pray in the manner we see fit…), and just, by golly, another year in which we are still breathing and able to reach out to our fellow human beings traveling along with us on this not-so-long and vexing, though still, let us not forget, often joyous road, I figured, “How about another scintillating 4th movement of an orchestral classic?!” 

And just like that, here appeared Mr...

Last year, I offered up in this space on New Year’s morning a gift from the gods as they manifested (and continue to resound) through Ludwig van Beethoven and his “Ode to Joy.” And if there’s one bit of wisdom I’ve been able to accrue from my thrashings and bumblings about on Mother Earth over this now long-ish life, it is never to allow a good time or idea to go slinking off by itself into the dusky past.

Instead, just slap a “Hey, what a lovely ritual!” or “But it’s a tradition!” tag on it so we have an excuse to celebrate the wonderful again…and again.

So: Another New Year’s gift, slow forwarded a few hundred years from Beethoven to one of our own epoch’s musical geniuses, Eric Clapton, picking and singing his way through a tender song with the help of a few cherished friends.

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Sometimes the trappings of fame and the tragedies of loss manage to sink the most stout tale...