Monday Morning Music Break ~ Anthem

Do you ever have a maddening musical phrase 
running through your mind?

Maddening because you can't remember
what piece of music it is or where you heard it.

An example of a rhythmic pattern used in heavy metal. 

The upper stave is a palm-muted rhythm guitar part.
The lower stave is the drum part.

wikipedia 

Well, for a number of nights,
an unidentifiable brainworm
was burrowing through my dreams,
and it kept busting through
the music in my head when I was awake.

The violins looped around and around
filling my mind with gorgeous sound,
but I couldn't grasp the rest of the piece.

And then I realized that an organ
was coming into the snatch of music
after a few seconds.

Bam!  Slam!  
Deep Purple!
Anthem

Downstairs to my CD Collection.
Gotcha!!!

Deep Purple ~ Anthem

You Tube ~ Claudio Benvindo de Medeiros   

I've been a fan of the English rock band Deep Purple
from its beginning in the late 60s.

The band began with a progressive rock sound, 
and over time its music morphed 

into hard rock and heavy metal.

Deep Purple along with Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, 
became known as the "unholy trinity 
of British hard rock and heavy metal."
 wikipedia

Throughout its successful four-decade run as a band, 
Deep Purple's line-up changed repeatedly,
and it showcased successful hard rock stars of the era.

The musicians performing on Deep Purple's 
first three albums were:
Rod Evans - lead vocals
Ritchie Blackmore - guitar
Jon Lord - Hammond organ, keyboards, backing vocals, strings                                        arrangement on Anthem
Nick Simper - bass guitar, backing vocals
Ian Paice - drums

Ritchie, Jon, Nick, Ian, and Rod

 deep-purple.net

Those first three albums 
contained some well-known favorites of mine:
Shades of Deep Purple (favs:  Mandrake Root, Hush)
Book of Taliesyn (favs:  River Deep, Mountain High, Kentucky Woman, Anthem)
and Deep Purple (fav:  Laleña).

Anthem is on The Book of Taliesyn.
The song stands out as one of the first 
that fused rock and classical music.  
Jon Lord composed a baroque section featuring 
an organ and a string quartet for the middle of Anthem.
wikipedia

But Anthem was much more than its music.
Its lyrics capture the intense feelings of love rejected
and of those dark nights of the soul 
spent spinning around in twisted sheets. 

The refrain expresses a futile hope 
filled with longing.
Chances are, if you've ever loved and lost,
that you have felt like this.

"If I could see you
If only I could see you
To see if you are laughing or crying
When the night winds softly blow"
Source:  metrolyrics     
Songwriters:  RICE, TIM / ANDERSSON, BENNY GORAN BROR / ULVAEUS, BJOERN K.

Sadly, Jon Lord died of pancreatic cancer on July 16, 2012.

Lars Ulrich of Metallica commented after Lord's death:
"We can all be guilty of lightly throwing adjectives 
like 'unique,' 'one-of-a-kind' and 'pioneering' around 
when we want to describe our heroes 
and the people who've moved us, 
but there are no more fitting words than those right now 
and there simply was no musician like Jon Lord 
in the history of hard rock. 
Nobody. Period.

There was nobody that played like him. 
There was nobody that sounded like him. 
There was nobody that wrote like him. 
There was nobody that looked like him. 
There was nobody more articulate, gentlemanly, warm, 
or fucking cooler that ever played keyboards 
or got anywhere near a keyboard. 
What he did was all his own."
wikipedia


If you have time for a second cup of coffee or tea
on my Monday Morning Music Break,
here is a second track from The Book of Taliesyn:
River Deep, Mountain High.
It features Deep Purple's gorgeous heavy sound
and showcases Jon Lord on the organ.

Deep Purple ~ River Deep, Mountain High

youtube ~ wutaidreams

Have a good week!