Teejay - O Come Emanuel.mpg

This is the last one in my project -- and again, a lesser-known carol. My gravitation toward these "lesser-knowns" was by accident, not design.

While researching this carol, I came up with a total of 17 verses (!!) written throughout the years, with their respective authors' identities lost to time. John Mason Neale did the English translation (from the millennia-old Latin) in 1851. I wrote two more verses myself, but in the end, decided not to use them, and to winnow-down the existing list to a [somewhat] manageable six.

Right from the outset, I wanted this to be the last one -- because the message it sends is one of reality: the world is a nasty place, but there is Hope in abundance. I shan't get *too* theological here, but with respect to anyone with an alternative Faith, I suspect you could change some of the words, and arrive at an end result which was not at all antithetical to your beliefs... and to me, that's what I love so much about this song -- Faith in your Lord will get you through.

The musical arrangement was a nightmare: I had too many things I wanted to do, too many versions to try. In the end, I decided "well, it's the last one, and you've got six verses to play with! Do 'em all!!" That led to a problem with tying them all together into one cohesive tune, and throughout July and August in 2010, I was utterly at a loss as to how to achieve some sense of unity.

Then, one night in August, I was watching Al Reinert's documentary "For All Mankind", about the Apollo missions. (To anyone interested in the subject -- this is absolutely the *finest* documentary on the topic in existence. I have many; but this is the zenith. And. Brian Eno did the soundtrack!) Anyway... while watching, I felt the tumblers in my mind dropping into place once again.

That led to my end result here -- incorporating, oh, lessee: NASA recordings, Kraftwerk, Def Leppard, OMD, Wire, Pere Ubu, Marley (Bob, not Jacob), Bowie, Kraftwerk again, and a couple more...

The video I made was also the toughest one in the project. Part of the reason was because I had already used most of my (co-opted) images on the previous tunes... but also, because to achieve my storyboarded video version, I had to animate stuff which NASA had animated 40 years previously, but which was unavailable to me. Heh: I LOVE PhotoShop!!

But it's done now. I *hate* to be done, because I've had so much FUN with this project since January 16th 2009, when I laid the first tracks... but as John Cleese said: "Right. That's it, then!"

Merry Chistmas.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Teejay
• Riedl
• Christmas
• Carol
• Come
• Enamuel
• Reconstructed
• K23M4