“Dona nobis pacem” (“Give us peace”) is a round for three parts to a short Latin text from the Agnus Dei. The melody has been passed orally. The round is part of many hymnals and songbooks. Beyond use at church, the round has been popular for secular quests for peace, such as the reunification of […]
Song Dates
The use of numbers in song is not limited to the number itself, quite often the writer includes a date in the title of the song,either to set it in a period or because that date might be of significance. So in our final, final numerically inspired post we are going to seek out some […]
Honourable Mentions – Numbers
Having decided to conclude the series of numerical songs at 21, I realised that there would need to be at least onepost of ‘honourable mentions’ for songs where they are the only one to refer to a particular number, especially when that number was higher than 21. So here we go. “Land of a Thousand […]
21
Finally, we have arrived at the last of our series of post on numbers from 1-21. The series comes of age today and because this number has for many years been the age at which adulthood begins – at which one symbolically receives the ‘key of the door’, I asume that this right of passage […]
19-20
And so our journey through the ‘teens’ comes to its inevitable conclusion with a combination of the last teen and the first twenty. Tomoorow will see the final post in this sereis of individual numbers, although there might be a couple of posts of honourable mentions. I have chosen to combine 19 and 20 because […]
18
Finally our musical journey through numbers reached adulthood with 18. Surprisingly this number is much less popular with songwriters than it’s predecessor 16. Perhaps that is because it has only recently taken on the mantle of adulthood. So today’s collection may not be as well known as with some numbers but it has still has […]
Gloria
Antonio Vivaldi wrote at least three settings of the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo, whose words date probably from the 4th Century and which is an integral part of the Ordinary of the Mass. Two survive: RV 588 and RV 589. A third, RV 590, is mentioned only in the Kreuzherren catalogue and presumed lost. […]
17
17 is an intersting age, In some ways it is neither one thing nor the other. You have passed through the magical coming of age of 16 and yet have not reached 18 the current marker of adulthood. In the UK you can drive a car but still cannot buy a drink in a pub. […]
16
As we move through the numbers from 11-19, it is inevitable that there would be a cluster of songs around the number 16. Sixteen being the magical age of consent, and when people can get married at least in the Western world. I sadly suspect that the majority of the songs will be taken from […]
Teen Songs
This is the first post in a series about songs that feature songs employing the numbers 11-19. Today we are going to pay particular attention to the numbers 11-15. Again, I am unsure of what I will find but the search is always fun and the discoveries usually quite surprising. “11.59” is a track from […]