Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Somewhere Over the Rainbow
My Jesus, My Shepherd

I have been following, though not very closely because time don't permit me to, the current American Idol competition. SH told me about Jason Castro's ukelele-version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and I went "Oh, dear". When I watched it over Youtube.com and saw him with the ukelele, I went "Oh, no". But as he sang on, I was won over. He was fantastic.



Here is the late Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's original version of the arrangement that Jason used, which I fell in love with. There is such a gentleness in his voice.



This year's Idol Gives Back is being carried out separately from the competition proper, due to possible conflict and when I found out that they did Darlene Zschech's "Shout to the Lord" to close the show, I had to check it out in Youtube.com. It was well done, though they did substitute the opening, "My Jesus, My Saviour" with "My Shepherd, My Saviour".



pearlie

7 comments:

  1. We didn't watch Idol Gives Back but I'm not surprised they substitued "Shepherd" for "Jesus" in the song. There is a real move to remove the name Jesus and The Blood from everything and anything they can.
    Susan

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  2. Hmm ... I think there's one too many falsettos in that version (please read this like how Simon Cowell would say it) ... I have to disagree with Simon, I just can't feel it. The ukelele? (now throw rotten tomatoes at me)

    By the way, I was doing a background study on Greco-Roman worship, maybe you knew this already, I thought only the Cross was an affront, but you know the Greeks find the idea of resurrection as offensive too. More on this after I finish my study. Interesting ...

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  3. How can one sing about Jesus and leave out his name...sickening. :(

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  4. On Thurday night the 8 AI contestants opened the show and they sang it using Jesus' name.. it was amazing to see a worship song sang on AI.

    I have seen some negativism around the blogdom about the version without Jesus' name but I was praising God all the same that these young singers (and a gedillion TV viewers) were exposed to such a wonderful song. Some of the AI contestants are Christians.. wonder if that had any impact on the song selection?

    And I liked Jason's version of Rainbow.. I think that he is a believer but I'm not sure.

    And I think that it is okay to sing about Jesus and not say "Jesus".. many hymns and worship songs do that - like Worthy is the Lamb or the I Come to the Garden.

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  5. Thanks KB for summing up my thoughts as well. I come from an environment where these things are the ordinary (all publicised Christian events here and bibles are required to be marked "For non-muslims only" but some just indicate "A Christian event"), and I understand what they need to do since this show goes out internationally. In doing so, they have brought a worship song that is for our Lord Jesus to the world, downloadable on iTunes and spreading via Youtube. This is a good thing.

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  6. And KB, I read somewhere that Jason is a Christian.

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  7. Melissa,
    Haha, you being too Simon there :) though I don't think Simon would say "I think" - hahahahaha
    I thought his falsettos are ok, unlike Michael made yelling at the end of his song.

    Tell me more about your b/g study when you are done.

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