Monday, September 23, 2013

Women's voices: Guide my feet, hold my hand

Yesterday’s collaboration took us into the realm of something larger than ourselves, or beyond ourselves. The jury’s still out for me on this issue of the Higher Power, but let me just say that I do hope to God that humans are not the highest form of intelligence around, because that would be a miserable, utterly unfunny joke and we’d be completely doomed. Um.

Carrying it farther along, then, let’s listen to Faith Hill’s “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”. This is pure gospel, a genre I love. I swear—no matter how crabby, pissed off or depressed you feel, put on a gospel song and you can’t help feeling better. Possibly because you can’t possibly resist the urge to get up and move to the music. Once you start moving, you’re on the road to recovery.

There are lots of recordings of “Precious Lord”, including one by Nina Simone. But I really get into this one by Hill. It has all the hallmarks of a revival meeting. Everyone needs a bit of revival every once in a while.


(Sorry about the DiCaprio part; but this is the only vid I could find.)

Another song with a gospel feel is Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”. And my favorite cover of that is by Eva Cassidy.



This is another one that gets you moving. You are, aren’t you? Because if you’re not, I’m going to worry…



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