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The Magic of Water
Like a blue pearl, the earth shimmers against the black curtain of the universe. Encased in the life-giving elixir we call water. Even if this water cover is actually only very thin compared to the diameter of our planet, it covers 71% of the surface of the earth. 385 million years ago, the first living creatures permanently left the sea and conquered the land for themselves. Today, about 80% of people live near the coast. Many of them have settled down in huge metropolises near the shore of the great oceans all over the world. So it is not surprising that water is not only a basis for all life, but it has always had a great fascination for us humans. This is also reflected in music, where oceans, rivers or lakes play a major role. Often also in connection with the feeling of longing, desires or dreams.
I would like to take you on a little journey around the magic of water and the world of music. But I am much more happy about your ideas and suggestions.
So what comes to your mind, musical, amazing, impressive on the subject of water: in water, under water or simply in connection with water?
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79 Replies
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We Can Drink Water, Of Course.
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Hi Pascal, you are right: probably the most important aspect (which we unfortunately always tend to forget when dealing with water). Thanks for the pictures.
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Well, I feel responsible for covering some of the dry (ha, ha) scientific facts about water:
1) It has the highest specific heat capacity of any common substance, meaning that you have to heat water up for a long time to raise its temperature significantly. That’s why ocean temperatures tend to vary much less than land temperatures.
2) H2O is a very polar molecule, with a positively charged side and a negatively charged side, which makes water really good at dissolving stuff.
3) Unlike most materials, water is less dense as a solid than as a liquid. If it were the other way around, ice cubes would sink to the bottom of your drink, and ponds in winter would freeze from the bottom up rather than icing over.
4) In the outer solar system (beyond the asteroid belt), ice is one of the most common substances making up planets, moons, and comets. In the interiors of some planets and moons, some of it is likely to liquefy to form subsurface oceans.
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Thanks David for the extra dry but as always very good and informative explanatory notes.
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My apologies to Jung for beating him to the punch on this:
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Jung will be able to cope. At least you didn’t pull out the surfboard, David.
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Hi David, the video you posted is not viewable where I am. Was it one of these? ????
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Jung, it was Cool, Cool Water from the Sunflower album. Interesting that that phrase is used in the song that you posted as well! Maybe they’re related?
The current touring version of the Beach Boys will be performing in my town in a couple of weeks, but the only “real” members are Mike and Bruce. I can’t decide whether I should go.
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Hi David. I wasn’t familiar with Cool, Cool Water actually, just had a listen. Nice. I may have heard it years ago.
The last time I saw a partial Beach Boys show was in 2000 that Mike Love and Dean Torrence put on. What I can say is you can be sure of a great show with all the Beach Boys spirit as Mike Love and Bruce Johnson use top notch musicians and vocalists to back their performances. It certainly would be better of course if Brian Wilson and Al Jardine were there. It is kind of interesting when the band split and Mike took the Beach Boys name, that Bruce Johnson who was a friend of Mikes went with Mike, and Alan Jardine who was a close friend of Brian’s went with Brian.
It seems the split was inevitable as Brian Wilson always had a creative and evolutionary drive to his approach to music whereas Mike Love was more about remaining status quo with the Beach Boys music and not messing with the Beach Boys formula. The Beach Boys never would have created Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations if it wasn’t Brian’s drive for creativity and pushing the envelope. Their later albums like Surfs Up and Holland are critically acclaimed, and Brian’s Surfs Up song is considered a masterpiece by the critics, but by around that time the record labels abandoned Brian’s vision preferring the commercial benefits of the old Beach Boys music releasing compilation albums of their old hits at the same time Pet Sounds, Smile, and Surfs Up etc were released undermining Brian’s creative efforts in the charts and record stores.
A lot of people criticize and dismiss the Beach Boys music as all about fun and surfing, but you can blame that on the record labels greed and power to curb creativity and force acts under their control to conform to their formula for making money, as the Beach Boys music after 1965 was very innovative.
Brian Wilson’s latest endeavour is a new album of his songs reimagined on piano arranged and played by Brian.
You Still Believe In Me
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Thanks, Jung, I’ll give that concert some more consideration. I read that one of the Cowsills will be handling some of the vocals, so that might help to tip the balance. And who knows how many more chances there will be to see ANY of the original members performing? (Although I imagine Mike Love will want to be buried with a live microphone…)
I didn’t know about that new Brian project. What a neat idea! I hope it inspires Paul to do something similar with some Beatles songs; that would really be fascinating. Recently I heard Paul questioned about how he chose which songs to do on guitar and which on piano, and he said it was just a matter of which instrument was closer when he had the idea.
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The magic of the deep blue seas and oceans
What would it be like to go back to the place where all life began? Only for a few minutes, perhaps, but completely without technical aids or devices. What kind of world would open up to us?
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Hi Jurgen, what a great post, and it’s really interesting you kicked it off with the Fountains of Bellagio with “Time To Say Goodbye”. Thanks for posting it.
Back in 2004 on a big family road trip, we stopped in Las Vegas and took in the fountain show at Bellagio where they played “Time To Say Goodbye” that I filmed here. It was the last time I was able to do a vacation trip with my mom before she got dementia that year. So this has become a very cherished memory for me with my mom from 2004, including touring through San Francisco a few days later with her.
When I see this clip years later, I realize that whole trip was about saying goodbye to my mom as we knew her. We didn’t realize it at the time the profound implications of a loved one getting Alzheimers. The last 13 years with my mom while she had dementia was really a long goodbye.
Fountains of Bellagio “Time To Say Goodbye” street level view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XxaFLhKfk
In the video at the end my mom says in Korean, “wow wasn’t that wonderful”.
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Hi Jung, I’m very sorry that I have awakened such memories with my selection. After all, you experienced the show live and I hope that you can keep it as a loving memory.
Originally I wanted to post a fountain show from Hamburg. They have very nice performances there as well. Unfortunately, most of the videos I found are not of very good quality. That’s why it became the show in Bellagio (really an interesting coincidence that you were already there).
The water organ in Hamburg was built in 1953. There is a so called water organ player. This player operates levers synchronously to the music. These levers then activate the individual jets or fountains. I have attached a video how the whole thing works. Unfortunately, the video is only in German, but at least the first few minutes give an interesting insight into how the whole thing works. The individual levers are labeled with letters and one or more levers are assigned to each tone sequence. The score of the piece of music is thus translated into a sequence of letters that must be pressed. It is probably quite difficult to play synchronously, since the water comes out of the nozzles with a time delay. This means that the player must actually press the levers even before the musical notes sound.
PS: If you still have some space in your garden, maybe another nice hobby: water organ player
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Hi Jurgen. No worries at all, these are good memories you brought back, so I should thank you for that.
A few years ago we had a week long training that was held in the Las Vegas office, and so I got to spend a week there. One evening I went to the Bellagio and spent well over an hour at the fountain show just taking in the feelings the place evokes in me. I first saw the show in 1999, then 2004 with my family, and been there a few more times on different occasions over the years. Certainly my favorite place to visit when I go there next to the Montblanc boutique and other pen shops. LOL.
Come to think of it I do have many fond memories associated with fountain shows. The other one that I recall from young childhood is the fountains they have at the Seattle Centre just under the Space Needle, in the evenings they use to have the fountain show with lights and music, not as spectacular as the Bellagio, but still charming in it’s own way. We use to hang out there a lot when we visited Seattle when we lived in central and eastern Washington state. There is also the water, light, and music show they have at the Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington State I visited a lot. At Niagara Falls in the 80s I remember the light shows they did at night at the Falls at both the Canadian and US side which were quite beautiful.
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Hi Jung, I still have one more Fountain Show in stock. Maybe you don’t know it yet.
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The Magic of Islands
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The Magic of the Depth
The ocean and the human imagination have in common that their depth is finite. But their diversity is immeasurable.
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The Mariana Trench is a deep-sea trench in the western Pacific Ocean and measures about 11034 meters (36 200 ft) at its deepest point. On January 23, 1960, exactly 62 years ago, the Swiss Jacques Piccard and the US American Don Walsh explored the Mariana Trench and dove down to an incredible depth of 10916 meters (35 813 ft).
And what was happening in the music world at the same time? On that day, Johnny Preston took the number one spot on “The Hot Bilboard Charts” with his song Running Bear. The song also became a chart hit in GB.
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„Mein lieber Bär, was für eine Musik…“ (My dear bear what a music…)
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Ah, I hadn’t thought of Running Bear in quite a while! I used to have a cassette of all those “teen tragedy” songs of the late 50’s / early 60’s: Last Kiss, Tell Laura I Love Her, Teen Angel, Patches, Leader of the Pack, Dead Man’s Curve, Moody River, etc. For some reason the melodrama has always appealed to me.
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Hi David. Nice that the song has awakened youth memories in you. I hope only good ones. I didn’t know Running Bear at all and I don’t know the songs you listed either. The music scene in the 50s and 60s was completely different for us than for you. Many American songs from this time were only known to us through corresponding movies. Such as songs by Frank Sinatra or Doris Day.
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Hi Jurgen, that Norway video is breathtaking. It looks like Canada but more exotic. Perhaps people in Norway might feel the same of Canada. Another place to add to my list of places to visit one day. In 2012 I took a trip down to the Yucatan Peninsula and remember seeing that forest from the air. Didn’t realize there was such an amazing world of intricate underwater caves below the forest. At the time it was mostly hanging out at the beach and visiting ancient ruins. I’ve heard of the Mariana Trench. Wow, 36,000 feet underwater, that’s the height of the highest jets that fly in the stratosphere. It’s amazing there are whales that can dive deeper than our nuclear submarines! That was an amazing video showing what you see the further you dive at those depths. I wonder what undiscovered creatures might be lurking in the darkness at 36,000 feet. I’m not familiar with that song, Running Bear, but is a catchy tune. I haven’t heard Blondies “Tide is High” in ages, nice tune too! Thanks for the whirl wind tour of the deep blue! ????????
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Yes, Juergen, for some reason songs about teenage romance that ended in the death of one or both parties were quite popular in the U.S. back then. Most of them seem kind of corny and/or contrived now, but for me this one is still a tearjerker. (And in keeping with the theme of this topic, water plays a key role, just as it does in Running Bear.)
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Hi David, thank you for the song. A beautiful melody. Perhaps the penchant for drama or sentimentality reflects the attitude to life at that time. I have not heard the term „tearjerker“ before. Sounds interesting. It would have to be the English equivalent of „etwas drückt auf die Tränendrüse / Das Lied drückt auf die Tränendrüse“
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Yeah, “tearjerker” is an informal expression for anything that makes you want to cry.
I’ve read that the popularity of this type of song at that time may be related to the deaths of young icons such as James Dean and Buddy Holly. Many of them involved car crashes.
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The Magic of Rivers
“Nobody can build you the bridge on which you have to cross the river of life, nobody but you alone.” Friedrich Nietzsche
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This river song is originally by Peter, Paul & Mary, but this version from the movie “Airplane!” is more fun to watch:
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Yeah David, that’s really funny (I love ZAZ). First of all I have to wipe away my (laughing) tears. I almost forgot a contribution on the subject of diving and the deep blue sea:
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