When I Fall in Love

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! To finish 2022, I'm playing a ballad called "When I Fall in Love," composed by Victor Young and Edward Heyman. This one has been around for 70 years now, but you might know it because of the famous version by Nat King Cole. I hope you like it!

Listen to the song here
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Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! On this Christmas morning, I'm playing an Advent hymn called "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus." The lyrics were written by Charles Wesley in 1744, but they have been sung to several different melodies. The melody I'm playing here is a Welsh hymn tune called "Hyfrydol," composed by Rowland Prichard. I hope you like it!


Listen to the song here
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Sonata in C Major

Why are you seeing this post today? There's two reasons why. First of all, I've kept coming back to the thought that I haven't added anything here since Together Forever in.... when was it? Probably August. I didn't want any of you to think that I had permanently gotten stuck in 1987 after posting that.

Secondly, I've heard reports that one can never tell when this sonata is going to end -- it seems like it's "going on forever." Since I'm the one who learned all the different parts, I have to know in my head where the end of the song is, so I'm not really the best person to comment on that. I want to know what you think, as the listener.

Third of all, we're coming up to the day when Tea with Liya will have been open for 5 years (since November 8, 2017). In fact, I thought at first that the 5-year mark was going to be November 15th or 16th, but then I realized it was coming up on Tuesday! So it's a good thing that I'm adding this song now. It wouldn't be right for me, out of all people, to miss the 5-year mark, right?

Listen to the song here
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Together Forever

If you've been around in the last few months, you don't even have to ask what's happening today - you know the rules and so do I. In fact, I don't even have to put a single R in this sentence to make you know what's happening today.

"Huh," one of you is saying. "You just quoted the lyrics for Never Gonna Give You Up instead of Together Forever. You should really stay quiet, since you're another one of those people who can't even tell the difference between two songs." Well, I'm about to prove that the two songs you're thinking about are pretty well connected.

Together Forever often gets referred to as "the other Rick Astley song." Of course, I've been around long enough to know that musicians generally don't make 2 songs and then disappear. What these commenters mean to say, most likely, is the other song that he became famous for around the same time. After all, it was 1988, and Rick had just been broadcasted around (quite literally) the entire world. Listeners had quite a reason to be excited when the radios announced that he had a brand-new song.

Listen to the song here
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Never Grow Old

The more time passes, the more I realize that there are some years that are never coming back. I used to not spend time thinking about such things, but they just seem to get more and more obvious whenever I think about the past. And unfortunately, it's not just events that disappear into the sands of time, but people too. I'm sure if anyone coming here has lost a relative, they've had to face the reality of being separated from the past, and eventually even forgetting some of it.

Listen to the song here
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I had the opportunity to play this song at a memorial service once. It makes you think about how eventually, over the years, you'll witness the deaths of most people older than you. Sometimes it seems like it would be more convenient if age wasn't a factor.

James Cleveland Moore Sr. was having similar thoughts when he wrote this song. While studying to become a minister, he heard his father singing at his church. Moore realized that because his father was getting older, eventually he would reach a point where he would no longer be able to sing in public. That thought inspired him to write a song about "a land where we'll never grow old." He dedicated the song to his parents and published it around 1930.

Music was a big part of Moore's ministry in the southeastern United States. He was known for singing, writing music, teaching others to sing, and leading music associations in Georgia. For him, music was a way to give hope to people. Even though there's nothing we can do to control the passage of time, "there's a beautiful home," where we "never shall die." "All our sorrow will end ... 'tis a land where we'll never grow old."

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya

Don't Say Goodbye

I told you in June about my plan for my next few posts. Although you might not have realized it, I'm taking that statement seriously. And that only means one thing.

Rick's back!

If you're closing the page as I say this, you've got the freedom to do that, but you've just defeated the point of the song. What's happening in the lyrics is that a girl is about to say goodbye and we're trying to convince her not to. So if you're heading out right now, you're saying goodbye before I can even persuade you to stay.

If you know anything about Rick Astley, who sang this song 35 years ago, you know that he's the kind of person who doesn't just say goodbye to people. (Giving up has never exactly been his thing.) So the least he can do is expect someone else not to leave him. It's a fair position to take, right?

Listen to the song here
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La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin

Here's a short little song by Claude Debussy, one of the most influential composers of his time. You may remember me talking about him on a Bill Evans song. The title refers to a girl with flaxen hair (blonde hair). But somehow, the melody reminds me of a cat walking around. I don't know why. I just got that image in my head.

This one was written in 1910, and it was known to be simpler than most of Debussy's other writing. For example, it has some more common chord patterns (though not the most obvious ones), and it doesn't change into a lot of different keys. It isn't that long, either.

Listen to the song here
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Whenever You Need Somebody

I don't care about the things that people say. It's this song I think about each and every day. (Hmm, perhaps not every day, but pretty frequently, that's for sure.) Maybe I should stop quoting lyrics from this song and tell you something about it instead.

I'm late, again. If you were paying close attention, you would notice that this is coming out on Tuesday instead of Monday. But my plans haven't been affected all that much by what day it is. The time for the return is here.

The return of Rick Astley. One of the great voices is back.

No, I didn't come up with that line. I saw it in an ad. You're probably expecting me to tell you something about how Rick wrote the song, how he felt about the success of it, etc... but what if I told you that this wasn't Rick's song? 

I'm going to have some angry fans on my doorstep now. "But it's the title track for the album!" "I clearly remember watching him sing this on live TV when I was 13!" Unfortunately, even though my cover was mostly inspired by Rick's version, I must admit that the song isn't an original from him.

Listen to the song here
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Spring Song

I've discovered that I should start writing up here. If I don't, then previews of the post (like on Google search, or on the side of my homepage) will just show the piece of HTML for the audio, instead of anything I actually said. I also hope you will forgive me for forgetting to set this post up on Sunday.

Listen to the song here
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Today's song was written by Felix Mendelssohn as part of a collection called "Songs Without Words." There were 8 different books of these that were published at different times in Mendelssohn's life. In the 1830s and '40s, when they were written, pianos were becoming more popular and larger numbers of people were learning to play them. Mendelssohn's songs became a favorite because they weren't too hard for new pianists to play. (If I ever feel like this one was too easy to play, maybe I should check out the ragtime version that I heard about while looking it up.)

Some of the volumes in the collection were dedicated to family members or to other musicians that Mendelssohn knew. However, not all of the songs got their own names like this one. Most of them were simply designated by the tempo and the key.

Mendelssohn was once approached with an offer to have lyrics written for these songs. He turned it down, saying that what he was expressing with his music was not too indefinite to put into words, but rather too definite. Perhaps he was trying to say that music can connect with a person in a way that words can't really convey.

Maybe I should rework the saying about being remembered for how you make people feel. "People might forget the lyrics of your songs, and they might forget how you play your instrument, but they will never forget how your music made them feel."

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya

No More Looking for Love

Listen to the song here
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This one's by Rick Astley.

"Rick?" you're going to say. "Man, I was young when his songs were coming out. I forgot about his existence decades ago."

Well, someone told me recently that a lot of old songs from the 70s and 80s can actually be better than modern music. So I'm partially playing this for him.

I'm also in a state where I've just found a good singer and am now perpetually determined to listen to their songs. There's a big 2018 throwback happening here. You may remember that after I played the song "River" and found that a lot of people were listening to it, I proceeded to play several more of Josh Groban's songs on my YouTube channel. Well, guess what? Now, after this one, you'll be getting new posts of Rick's songs every week!

Oh. You don't want that. I'll only play them every 2 weeks, then. To extend the parallel even further, my computer is attempting to correct me on the spelling of Astley like it did for the spelling of Groban back in 2018.

That's where the comparison stops, though. "River" had just come out weeks before my cover was recorded. Today's song was on Rick's first album that was released in 1987. So I'm also playing it for another someone who asks me on a regular basis, "Were you listening to songs from the 80s again?" 

Speaking of 1987, did you ever think about how that was exactly 35 years ago? You're not the only one to notice. Apparently, the CD of that album was just re-released to celebrate that it's been 35 years. Once I heard that, I was determined. If I'm going to play Rick Astley songs, I might as well get rolling and do it now. So, if Rick is celebrating, one could argue that I'm playing this song for him, too.

We're done, right? Now that we've added Rick himself to the list, there couldn't be anyone else I'm playing it for, right? Unfortunately, I have to tell you that you forgot someone.

You forgot Liya.

Maybe after all my years of studying classical music and all my years in jazz bands, I'm supposed to be on another level in which I don't like these 80s songs. But that doesn't change the fact that I actually like them. (In fact, if you want to hear a little bit of music theory, I noticed while learning this song that it's in the key of F, but it's using notes from the Bb major scale. That bears a striking resemblance to a lot of jazz and blues tunes that I've played. Maybe I'm not falling too far from the tree.)

What I haven't said yet is that I'm playing this song for myself. And I'm playing it for you, the person who's listening to this recording, so that you can keep filling your teacup with music.

~Liya

Suite in G Minor

Listen to the song here
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It was July when I recorded this one. That was almost a year ago, but I'm still putting it up before all of the newer songs I've recorded. I don't want this song to be forgotten and stay on my list for years.

This song is pretty long, but that's because it has 6 different parts. Similarly to this composition by Handel, the 6 parts are all dances that were meant to be played together. They're supposed to be connected by all being in the same key (G minor), but I noticed that Handel used similar melodic lines in some of the different pieces.

The last part (which starts at 18:39) has an interesting chord pattern called a "cycle of 4ths." It's called that because it goes in a circle -- the last chord is the same as the one you start with. I've seen this pattern in some jazz standards, too, like Autumn Leaves. You can find pieces of the circle in almost any jazz standard you listen to. Some things never change in music, no matter how many years go by.

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya

Prelude and Fugue in C Sharp Minor

Listen to the song here
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Like the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, this song has two parts that go together. (If you want to know why Bach's collection of preludes and fugues is called the Well-Tempered Clavier, you can go there.) The second part of this song (the fugue) has been called one of the most complex pieces of music Bach has ever written. Most fugues have one or two short melodies that are connected together and repeated throughout the song, but this one has 3. It also has 5 voices (melody lines playing at the same time) instead of 3 or 4. This leaves room for a lot of overlapping melodies, something which Bach took full advantage of.

I found this video of the fugue, with an analysis attached, which explained some more about the composition choices Bach made. It said that Bach tried to add some symbols of the suffering of Jesus. For example, it has sequences of descending notes in the highest voice, which were a common lament melody. This opening melody (which, of course, returns throughout) has a shape that was often used to represent a cross at the time.

There is also a lot of use of the number 5. The opening subject has 5 notes, and the whole fugue has 5 voices, which might match with the 5 wounds from the cross. If you listen to the whole song, it definitely sounds like it could be a mourning song (especially in a key like C# minor, which Bach might have even chosen on purpose).

Since it's Easter, I thought now would be a good time to post this one. It looks like I recorded it last year, but I probably left it in my folder because I was waiting for Good Friday. That means I really should have posted it on Friday, not Monday, but I'm sure you'll still listen to it.

 
Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya

I Know Who Holds Tomorrow

Listen to the song here
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This hymn was written by Ira Stanphill in 1950. In the lyrics, he says that we might make plans for the day, week, or even year, but we really don't know about tomorrow. We can't know whether our future is going to be positive or negative. (I think that's something a lot of you could say about the past few years. I could give you a lot of examples of events I couldn't predict.) In fact, I read that this song was written when the author was going through a difficult time in life. His wife had just left him to pursue her own career instead of his ministry.

I've heard other stories about artists coming up with their best ideas during a time of suffering. Maybe that's evidence for the fact that negative experiences might eventually lead to something good. So we really shouldn't be worrying about all that might go wrong in the future. We don't gain anything from that, since we have no control over it. The only thing we can control is the choices we make now.

Worrying won't change a thing, and the only way to be confident about the future is to trust God. That way, we can know who holds tomorrow even if we don't understand what will happen.

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya