Tag: song

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National Brotherhood Week (parody sung by Tom Lehrer)

Tom Lehrer via YouTube
Tom Lehrer via YouTube

Tom Lehrer performs his parody about National Brotherhood Week – that difficult week in February when Americans, “…are supposed to stop whatever we’re doing … burning, killing, whatever and love everybody else … and it’s really quite a strain.”

Some of Tom’s lyrics:

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Moslems and everybody hates the Jews!

But During National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, step up and shake the hand of someone you can’t stand. You can tolerate him if you try … It’s only for a week so have no fear. Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year! read more

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Range, power, soul – Johnny Manuel’s awesome voice has it all

Johnny Manuel sings
Johnny Manuel’s cover of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Have Nothing’ earns him a standing ovation – from the America’s Got Talent judges and everyone else in the room. Amazingly enough, Simon positively beams. Manuel has a beautiful voice, and a range almost impossible to believe. Unless you hear it for yourself, so listen.

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10 year old girl sings a sweet, pure and strong “Hallelujah” that might make you cry

Killard House School choir
Source: Killard House School via YouTube

Ireland has music deep in its soul. Phenomenal 10 year old Kayleigh Rogers leads her special classmates of The Killard House School in singing such a sweet, pure and strong Christmas rendition of Hallelujah that it brought me right to tears. It will do the same for you, if you’re lucky. God bless.

The BBC comments about Kayleigh’s stellar performance:

Kayleigh is one of 200 students aged three to 16 at Killard House School in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland … (she) often sings at the local Christmas concert at First Presbyterian Church, Newtownards, but this year she lost her voice and had to pull out of last Sunday’s service. Instead her headteacher played the video above, which had been filmed just weeks before at the school, and it left many of the congregation in tears. read more

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Lovely Peruvian Renata does Michael Jackson cover in hauntingly beautiful native Quechua

renata flores' bandThe fabulously talented Renata Flores Rivera offers a Michael Jackson cover of “The way you make me feel” in Quechua, the ancient native language of Peru.

Fusion online mag writes

Flores’s mother, Patricia Rivera Canchanya, kicked off the campaign this year through a cultural association, la Asociación Cultural Surca, which she founded 11 years ago to promote arts and Peruvian culture in their home city of Huamanga (also known as Ayacucho). Rivera is also a musician, and set up a music school through the association. She said she saw an urgent need to pass on Quechua to younger generations, before the language is forgotten in Peru. read more

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Michael Jackson’s banned 1995 song about racism “They Don’t Care About Us”

Michael at prison lunchD.B. Anderson tells us about the suppression and history of “They Don’t Care About Us”, the anti-racism song Michael Jackson wrote and recorded two years after being strip-searched by police in 1993.

“They Don’t Care About Us” was denounced by The New York Times even before its release, and did not reach much of its intended audience because the controversy caused by the New York Times article would go on to overshadow the song itself. Radio stations were reluctant to play it and one of the short films Jackson created for the song was banned in the US read more

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My favorite rendition of the “Cup Song” is the Irish school version

Coláiste Lurgan students
Coláiste Lurgan student singsColáiste Lurgan in Conamara, Ireland put together this amazing community performance of the Cup Song (Amhrán na gCupán in Gaeilge). 600 students and staff tap out the syncopated rhythm and harmonize the chorus to a beautiful young colleague’s lovely Gaelic lyrics, and they’re joined by guitarists and drummers too. 2.5 minutes of pure pleasure. Treat yourself!

The original is pretty good too. Anna Kendrick performing in Pitch Perfect

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Watoto children honor Trayvon with hauntingly beautiful music video and original song

Watoto recreates Trayvon's walk


Watoto recreates Trayvon's walkThe loving and wonderfully talented young performers from Watoto from the Nile have produced a hauntingly beautiful song they call “Warning”. In their music video, the young people follow in the wake of Trayvon’s fateful footsteps as he walks to the 7-11, singing –

… Watoto here with a Warning … right now our Nation’s in mourning. Oh Martin Family, we’re with you … I put my hoodie oh I weeping … because this case is so misleading. We come together we must care … Trayvon Martin your spirit is in all of us. read more