Sing: Lyrics and Two Performances

Sing

My Chemical Romance (watch official video here) 

(Listen to Glee performance here)

Sing it out — 
Boy, you’ve got to see what tomorrow brings.

Sing it out — 
Girl, you’ve got to be what tomorrow needs.

For every time that they want to count you out,

And use your voice every single time you open up your mouth.

Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls —

Every time you that you lose it, sing it for the world

Sing it from the heart

Sing it 'til you’re nuts

Sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts

Sing it for the deaf

Sing it for the blind

Sing about everyone that you left behind

Sing it for the world

Sing it for the world

Sing it out — 
Boy, they’re gonna sell what tomorrow means

Sing it out — 
Girl, before they kill what tomorrow brings

You’ve got to make a choice if the music drowns you out.

And raise your voice every single time they try and shut your mouth.

Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls —

Every time you that you lose it, sing it for the world

Sing it from the heart

Sing it 'til you’re nuts

Sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts

Sing it for the deaf

Sing it for the blind

Sing about everyone that you left behind

Sing it for the world

Sing it for the world

Cleaned-up corporation,

Progress dying in the process

Children that can talk about it

Living on the railways

People moving sideways

Sell it 'til your last days

Buy yourself the motivation,

Generation nothing, 
nothing but a dead scene

Product of a white dream

I am not the singer that you wanted,

But a dancer,

I refuse to answer

Talk about the past, sir,

Rooting for the ones who want to get away

Keep running!

Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls

Every time you that you lose it, sing it for the world

Sing it from the heart

Sing it 'til you’re nuts

Sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts

Sing it for the deaf

Sing it for the blind

Sing about everyone that you left behind

Sing it for the world

Sing it for the world

You’ve got to see what tomorrow brings

Sing it for the world,

Sing it for the world

Yeah, you’ve got to be what tomorrow needs

Sing it for the world

Sing it for the world

Farewell, Brian Jacques, Master Storyteller

I was introduced to Redwall by a fellow reader who became one of my best friends.  She and I shared a love of many things, including books — and especially Brian Jacques, whose death on February 5 has lost this world a fabulous storyteller.

I remember traveling to the Bailey's Crossroad, Va., Borders to listen to him read.  Carole and her husband Steve came with their two children.  The children were young, in elementary school, and the place was packed.  The kids sat as close as they could and the adults peered from the edges, mesmerized as he recited the description of Cluny the Scourge in Redwall.

When I say "recited," what I mean is "performed."  I never heard such a sonorous voice, rich and interesting.  He whispered, he shouted, he drew us in close to share asides, he used his entire body to tell the tale.  I don't think I took a single breath for fear of missing a syllable.  I went to my reading eye and watched Cluny appear before me, just as Jacques described.  It was incredible, and I silently thanked the blind children who inspired him to write such rich, detailed stories.

i also wasn't surprised to learn that his descriptions of food were influenced by his experiences living through food rationing during and following World War II.  Only one who knew want could create feasts so abundant and varied.

Afterward, he signed his books.  Now, he was recuperating from carpal tunnel syndrome from signing so many books, and the event organizers asked that each person bring only three books to the table.  He apologized, and we know he would have signed every book we carried had he been able.

When my young friends met him, they were wearing the masks and waving the scabbards they had made in the workshop the bookstore had provided.  Jacques was delighted, and he gladly posed for a few photos with the children after he finished autographing their books. 

He listened to the questions and comments by the children and their parents, really listened, and thought carefully before he answered.  Some authors have canned answers, or questions they won't consider — but not Jacques.  I could see the wheels turning as he thought, and responded.

He promised to keep writing books for as long as we kept reading them.  We did, no matter how we grew (up or out).  My young friends went on to college, and yet they would read those books with their parents, with Carole twisting her tongue around Basil's Scottish brogues and Foremole's near-mumbling.  I watched in fascination, wondering how Jacques heard them in his head, knowing he would be thrilled with Carole's performance.

I am going to miss this wonderful author and the excitement of finding another of his books on the shelf.  I will miss the dormice, the hares, hedgehogs and badgers — even the stoats and weasels, without whom there could be no story.  Jacques' writing made the world a better, and more colorful, place, and his talent will be truly missed.

Fill in the Gaps, the 2011 Edition

In February 2010, I finalized my Fill in the Gaps Book list.  I made a few adjustments when I realized I had read a few on my original list, and I removed a few when I discovered I was heavy with books by a single author (see strikethroughs below).  I also made a tiny dent in the list (see checks below) and added a few new titles (see green entries below marked with an "N").

I'm still determining the status of All That Dickens and Should I Dumas to That Extent, but I think I'm good with the balance of books on the list.  As you can see from the strikethroughs, I have a few more books to choose, so I'll take suggestions.

In the meanwhile, this is the status of this daunting task.

Chris' Fill in the Gaps Book List

1001 Nights / Arabian Nights Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe Highsmoor Peter Ackroyd Foundation Isaac Asimov Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen √ Sundays With Vlad Paul Bibeau √ The Lost Symbol Dan Brown The Early Fears Robert Bloch The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck A Little Princess Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett Cold Sassy Tree Olive Ann Burns The Land that Time Forgot Edgar Rice Burroughs Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell The Plague Albert Camus Ender's Game Orson Scott Card Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather O Pioneers Willa Cather Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Michael Chabon The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever Girl with the Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier The Woman in White Wilkie Collins Moll Flanders Daniel DeFoe The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens David Copperfield Charles Dickens Little Dorrit Charles Dickens Oliver Twist Charles Dickens Great Expectations Charles Dickens The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas The Man in the Iron Mask Alexandre Dumas The Last Cavalier Alexandre Dumas A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers Middlemarch George Eliot Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert Where Angels Fear to Tread E.M. Forster The Corrections Jonathan Franzen The Quiet American Graham Greene N The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith Goodbye, Mr. Chips James Hilton Lost Horizon James Hilton Les Miserables Victor Hugo Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston The Lost Weekend Charles R. Jackson √ The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson The Portrait of a Lady Henry James Three Men in a Boat Jerome K Jerome Up the Down Staircase Bel Kaufman On the Road Jack Kerouac Please Don’t Eat the Daisies Jean Kerr Under the Dome Stephen King The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling The Man Who Would Be King Rudyard Kipling A Separate Peace John Knowles Little Drummer Girl John LeCarre The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing Sliver Ira Levin Elmer Gantry Sinclair Lewis The Monk Matthew Gregory Lewis What the Dead Know Laura Lippman          The Call of the Wild Jack London √ The Best of H.P. Lovecraft H.P. Lovecraft One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Road Cormac McCarthy The Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers √ Atonement Ian McEwan Lonesome Dove Larry McMurty Moby-Dick Herman Melville Peyton Place Grace Metalious The Seven-Per-Cent Solution Nicholas Meyer Beloved Toni Morrison Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Suite Française Irene Nemirovsky A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy O'Toole Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak Bel Canto Ann Patchett Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand The Fountainhead Ayn Rand All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque Home Marylynne Robinson The Human Stain Philip Roth The God of Small Things Arundathi Roy Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie Sarum Edward Rutherford Frankenstein Mary Shelley A Town like Alice Nevil Shute Prayers to  Broken Stones Dan Simmons Enemies, A Love Story Isaac Bashevis Singer Angle of Repose Wallace Steigner √ Dracula Bram Stoker The Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Suzanne The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington The Man Who Fell to Earth Walter Tevis Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy War and Peace Leo Tolstoy All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh Night Elie Weisel Journey to the Center of the Earth H.G. Wells Trainspotting Irvine Welsh The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton The Inimitable Jeeves P.G. Wodehouse