• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: Remembrance

June 10, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Listen to "Rembrance."

When reading Schleiermacher, I was reminded of my friend Steve Petrinko, who was my main cohort in my college band The MayTricks (previously covered in a number of music blog posts). Working in close proximity like that at that time of life (we were also apartment-mates for a couple of years) meant lots of philosophy discussions, and being young and opinionated, we clashed on a number of things, one of which was religion. He's Russian Orthodox, which like Judaism focuses a bit more on practice and tradition than on believing weird things, but like all Christians he does ultimately get behind articles of faith, and he argued that the appeal of faith was emotional, not intellectual.

Thus this song came to mind, one of Steve's best, and explicitly religious: it's a Christmas song, about the fact that Jesus came and can't really have gone away. However, I didn't get the religious aspect at all until years after this was written.

Here's the story of my interaction with this. After I left Ann Arbor in fall 1994 to go to grad school in Austin, Steve found a new bass player (better than me!) and kept our old band going under the new name "Fingers," and this was one of the songs he wrote for that group. When I visited the following summer, I got to hear him and Cliff our rhythm guitarist singing this together in a very tight dual vocal arrangement that impressed the heck out of me, and this is definitely one of the nicest melodies Steve has written. They had started recording an album that summer, recording in an actual studio (plus Steve's home setup had been upgraded since we finished our last MayTricks album), but by the fall, Fingers had broken up and the album was abandoned.

Some years later, visiting Ann Arbor again, I cajoled Steve into letting me take the lead in getting one of the tunes from this project (not this song) finished up, but the rest of it just sat there, as Steve recorded "Remembrance" and his other songs with all new people in a very different style. In 1999, when it looked vaguely possible that I might move back to Ann Arbor, Steve and I discussed playing together again, and I brought up doing this song as a duo. I did think, though, that the verse lyrics were too opaque: I honestly didn't know what the song was about, and there were too many syllables, and I thought the winter imagery was trite, so I wrote new lyrics of my own to make it a love song. Steve absolutely hated them: "I'm thinkin' that you're my right arm, and if that's news, then I'll be damned away. I'm thinkin' I could keep that harm I keep for you all safely wrapped away." I also made the chord progression less prickly and wrote a vocal harmony line for the chorus.

Well, I ended up not moving to Ann Arbor (I moved to Madison instead in 2000), so the issue was moot, but when I thought of asking Steve to put this tune on the podcast, we remembered that unfinished Fingers version. Though I was especially looking forward to hearing that dual Steve/Cliff vocal, sadly, Cliff's singing had never been recorded (and he died in a rock climbing accident in 2004). So, Steve did a mix of the recording as it stood (all instruments recorded, except no guitar solo, and only a lead vocal on there), and I filled in the last gaps (the backing vocal and the solo, which I did on a handbell set I had coincidentally unearthed in my basement just a few days previous), got Steve's blessing, and that's what you're hearing. Given how great those 1995 performances were on this (dig those crazy lead guitar... guitar synth? sounds) and how often this melody goes through my head, I'm extremely happy to have been a part of finishing it.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Nakedly Self-Examined Music

Trackbacks

  1. Partially Examined Life Ep. 39: Schleiermacher on Religion | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    October 30, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    […] End song: "Remembrance" by Fingers. Read about it. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Bibliophile on Pretty Much Pop #143: Pinocchio the Unfilmable (Yet Frequently Filmed)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • MartinK on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in