DESCRIPTION:
What do you if you write a secular humanist anthem but don’t have a 24 voice atheist mens’ choir to belt it out? Set up two microphones and record the song 24 times from different places in the room in slightly different voices. Then add some overwrought Presbyterian organ and, presto, as good as the real thing … almost. This was recorded in my basement in 2004 for a CD of traditional music I produced for my friend Walter Kealy. Walter played the tune on harmonica and I added some keyboard orchestration. But since the song was only a minute and half long I decided to write some lyrics and tack a vocal arrangement onto the harmonica bit doubling the length. This is the song part.

“And would that grief and pain the stuff of songs and stories only,
And every heart a boundless sea never troubled by the storm.
So ere the world on her sad course bears witness to our falling,
We one and all from mean desire should turn and think anew,
And learn to soar beyond the cares and woes bequeathed at our low birth,
To where our thoughts unbound from fear reveal a common purpose,
And joy and tears a blessed wine to water all our dreams.”

Stock video nabbed from videezy.com (just because it was 1:25 long)
Edited online using wevideo.com
Tune is “The Nameless Lassie” by the Scottish composer William Marshall (1748 –1833)
Organ arrangement, voices and lyrics by Kevin Closs