Summer Service of 5 August 2007

                                                                        The Errors Of Comedy

                                                                        David Mix Barrington

 

 

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

PRELUDE         They All Laughed                                                                                   G.& I. Gershwin

                                    Recorded by the Amherst College Zumbyes

 

LIGHTING OF THE CHALICE

 

*HYMN               Where My Free Spirit Outward Leads                                  #324

 

*OPENING WORDS                                                                                                             #439

 

*COMMUNITY GREETING

 

*HYMN               Old Hundredth (tune at #370)

 

                  From all that dwell below the skies                        De todos bajo el gran sol

                  let songs of hope and faith arise,                               surja esperanza, fe, amor

let peace, goodwill on earth be sung                      verdad, y belleza cantando,

                  through every land, by every tongue.                   de cada tierra, cada voz.

 

MEDITATION                The Space Within                                                                 #600

 

READING         The Argument Clinic                                                                            Monty Python

                                    Julia Mix Barrington and DAMB

 

OFFERTORY Summertime                                                                                               Gershwin

                                    Karl Drumm, piano                                                                               (arr. Drumm)

 

READING         From Stranger in a Strange Land                                             Heinlein

 

INTERLUDE  Rhode Island Is Famous For You                                              Schwartz-Dietz

                                    DAMB, vocal, Karl Drumm, piano                                           (arr. Drumm)

 

SERMON          The Errors Of Comedy

                                    David Mix Barrington

 

*HYMN               Every Night and Every Morn                                                       #17

 

CLOSING WORDS                                                                                                                 Cathcart-Klein

 

POSTLUDE     The Tears of a Clown                                                       Wonder-Cosby-Robinson

                                    Recorded by the Amherst College Zumbyes

 

 

                 

                                                                                          MUSIC NOTES

 

In its ÒclassicÓ period, American popular song was closely tied to the theatre and deeply concerned with verbal wit.  George and Ira Gershwin wrote They All Laughed for the 1937 Astaire-Rogers film Shall We Dance and Summertime for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.  Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz wrote Rhode Island is Famous for You in 1948 for the now-forgotten Broadway musical Inside U.S.A. Ð I learned of it from Northampton-based singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, who recorded it on her 2006 album Sing You Sinners, but probably the best-known recording of it is by the improbably named Blossom Dearie (1926-).

 

The Zumbyes are Amherst CollegeÕs male a cappella group, founded about 1951.  The April 1980 album JokeÕs On You features several of my classmates.  The 1970 Motown hit Tears of a Clown was originally recorded in 1967 by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and was co-written by then-teenager Stevie Wonder.

 

                                                                                          THANKS

 

To Karl and Julia for participating in the service, to Karl as well for all his work preparing the music, and to Patti for general support, and to everyone else IÕve forgotten.

 

                                                                                          TEXTS

 

Texts of the readings and sermon from this service will be made available at http://www.cs.umass.edu/~barring/uu, where you may already find links to material from my other summer services.