Six degrees of listening while reading: a playlist to accompany my ‘Murmur’ chain

At the start of each month I like to join in on the Six Degrees of Separation meme with a book chain over on my Leaping Life blog and accompanying playlist here.

This time we start with Murmur. My first thought was to pick Careless Whisper but that felt just too darn cheesy. So I have instead gone for this very beautiful piece, The Murmuring Oak by Cim Frode:

 

Next up is Discoverers of the Universe. In a complete contrast to the first track, I am picking for this one Queen’s Flash (“saviour of the universe, dah, dah, de, dah, de, dah, dahhhhhhhhhhhhhh……):

 

On we go to Evening in the Palace of Reason, for which there could be only one choice, J S Bach’s A Musical Offering. This video is much longer than I would normally post, but this particular performance is just gorgeous. Dip in and out of it if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing:

 

My next book choice is Mornings in Jenin. It is the perfect opportunity to showcase the wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble created to “enable intercultural dialogue and to promote the experience of collaborating as a matter of common interest”. Here they are playing the beautiful Les Préludes by Liszt:

 

On we go to Good Morning, Midnight. If you will indulge me, I’d like to pick two tracks. First up is Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen with the toe-tapping Midnight in Moscow……

….followed by Good Morning from the film Singin’ in the Rain. This is dedicated to my nephew Mitchel who used to know all the words and actions to this film off by heart – when he was only about 4 or 5. We have very fond family memories of his performances. Here he is in ‘I’m haaaaaaappy again!’ mode:

 

 

On we go to Giovanni’s Room. I can’t resist picking a dance routine by Giovanni Pernice of Strictly Come Dancing fame. Here he is dancing a samba with Georgia May Foote. It’s fab-u-lous!

 

And we finish with Someone at a Distance. I’m going with Crowded House’s Distant Sun – an ‘under-the-radar’ pop classic:

 

So that’s it for this month, folks. Tune in next time for some more groovy picks. 🙂