Yesterday my husband accompanied a voice recital. The singers were two high school graduates who are voice students of a friend of ours but who will soon be leaving home to pursue vocal study at the college level. This song in particular touched our hearts. It is the opening number of the musical Parade and is sung by a young Confederate soldier who is leaving his sweetheart to fight in the Civil War. We may live in Illinois now but both my husband and I were born and reared in the South and still consider it home. So the love for home and pride in one's roots that is so amazingly evoked here touches something very deep in our hearts.
Second, this is a song about saying goodbye. We will be saying some of our own goodbyes in the next few weeks as we leave the church we have called home now for almost 13 years. But there are names we have carved in our hearts and memories that we will always cherish. So to our own "Lila" we say farewell. We miss you already.
Farewell, my Lila
I'll write every evening
I've carved our names
In the trunk of this tree
Farewell, my Lila
I miss you already
And dream of the day
When I'll hold you again
In a home safe from fear
When the Southland is free
I go to fight for these old hills behind me
These Old Red Hills of Home
I go to fight, for these old hills remind me
Of a way of life that's pure
Of the truth that must endure
In a town called Marietta
In the Old Red Hills of Home
Pray on this day as I journey beyond them
These Old Red Hills of Home
Let all the blood of the North spill upon them
'Til they've paid for what they've wrought
Taken back the lies they've taught
And there's peace in Marietta
And we're safe again in Georgia
In the land where honor lives and breathes
The Old Red Hills of Home
Farewell, my Lila
Farewell
"The Old Red Hills of Home" from Cheryl on Vimeo.
3 comments:
I'm just one of your anonymous friends here - but I'm certainly wondering if you're going to be sharing more about where your adventures will take you next. I know it's a very small Lutheran world - however my husband serves in a very "non-Lutheran" area - so I'm always a hundred steps behind what others seem to know instinctively. Whatever your plans - I hope you'll still be sharing your musically blessed family with us on the blog.
Anon, I will be sharing a little more about where we are going in the weeks ahead. And I will also most definitely continue to share music here, both my family's and that of the parish to which we are going. If I didn't my post frequency would go way down! Thank you for reading and for your interest. More to come.
Hey, Cheryl. I'd love to see this again. I know why you took it down, but is there a link somewhere still I might use? If not, maybe you could uploaded it into the cloud and give me a link to wherever you copy it.
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