Magnificent

A hurried aside: we're taken with the U2 song Magnificent. Last month's performance of the song in Boston is posted on the U2 site.

Lyric:

Magnificent
Magnificent

I was born
I was born to be with you

In this space and time

After that and ever after I haven't had a clue

Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue



Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar


I was born
I was born to sing for you

I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ...

Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar


Justified till we die, you and I will magnify

The Magnificent

Magnificent


Lyric source: here.

J.N. Findlay

I discovered a wonderful tribute to a professor I had long ago--brought back wonderful memories--here's a snippet, and a link to the site.


Findlay "in 1978 he was well into his 70s, a short, round, balding man with a South African accent and an unmanageable wisp of white hair at the top of his head. He dressed in oversized, boxy, faded grey and black suits that at the time appeared to be 20 or 30 years old. He would lecture (on Husserl , Hegel, Kant, Plato, Wittgenstein, and Axiology) in a room with six blackboards, writing out each of his words as he spoke them, frantically filling the boards. When he completed the sixth blackboard he would race back to the first, erase it and begin writing again, until he was completely out of breath and his suit, hands and face were covered with chalk dust."

The full tribute is here.

Robert Burns: Ae Fond Kiss

Wonderful (2006) rendition of Robert Burns' Ae Fond Kiss (1791). Lyric here.



Here's a lovely variant version from 2009.