music

  • This blog provides a structured psychological overview of Mark David Chapman, the individual responsible for the 1980 murder of musician John Lennon. Drawing upon documented interviews, legal testimony, and secondary analyses from criminology and psychology scholars, the essay examines key psychological themes associated with Chapman, including identity instability, obsessive ideation, parasocial attachment, and the role…

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  • Strange Fruit

    I don’t think there is a more powerful song then ” Strange Fruit” which deals with racism. Especially the original version sung by Billie Holiday. The lynching of black men in the American South was an all-too-familiar occurrence in the 1930s, even though it rarely made news. So when Billie Holiday had a hit record…

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  • It thought it was time for me to do a Saxy blog(pardon the pun). Om June 28 1846, Adolphe Sax patented the instrument named after him, the Saxophone. However this nearly didn’t happen, not because he forgot to submit it but because he must have been either the luckiest or unluckiest man,depending on how you…

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  • It is hard to believe this musical giant passed away this day 34 years ago. I still vividly remember the news reports. It had only been a few days after it was announced he had aids that the world heard that Freddie Mercury died at the age of 45 at his home in Kensington. The official cause…

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  • Robert Johnson, often hailed as the “King of the Delta Blues,” occupies a mythical space in the annals of American music. His life and career, marked by mystery and immense talent, have been immortalized not only by his songs but also by the legend that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads…

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  • Het Dorp

    In general, I am not a great fan of songs in the Dutch language, and I don’t know why not. It could be because Dutch is not the most poetic language. However, there is one exception, “Het Dorp” by Wim Sonneveld. The original was titled La Montagne by Jean Ferrat. But the lyrics from Het Dorp evoke…

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  • Where’s the orchestra?

    Some people might recognize the title of this piece as the title of a Billy Joel song, and you would be right. It is a beautiful song which has a sad intonation, in a way it is a haunting piece of music, a story of something that is no longer there. Billy Joel’s grandfather Karl…

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  • The Nazi Musical Genocide

    The Holocaust was and still is the biggest crime ever committed in the history of mankind.Additionally it also killed music by killing the talent that produced and created music. Some of the composers and musicians in this blog were killed only because they were Jewish.or because they defied the Nazi rule, for as musicians they…

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  • Max Ehrlich (1892-1944) was one of the most celebrated actors and directors on the German comedy and cabaret scene of the 1930s. But his brilliant career was brutally interrupted by the rise of Nazism and his resulting deportation in 1942 to Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands. Amazingly, there behind the walls and barbed wire,…

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  • I don’t believe people who say that they don’t like music. They might not like certain types of music, but everyone loves at least one bit of music. Without music, life would be boring. I am always amazed by the number of tunes and songs composed using only eight notes or less. The music scale…

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