Spinning Some Discs

My husband bought a new needle or something for his old turntable (he's the audiophile, not me!) and we listened to a few LPs one night this week. He has lots of rock and roll and I have lots of opera and classical from the days before we were married. We listened to an LP he bought me a few years ago in Kansas City--the soundtrack of Ben Hur in the deluxe boxed set with the hardback book about the movie. It was in good shape, as guaranteed by the shop. My old LP of La Damnation de Faust from Decca with Frederica von Stade and Jose van Dam et al was a little worn and had some scratches.

We pulled out a couple of more unusual discs:

This is the cover of Seals & Crofts 1973 album with the controversial pro-life song, "Unborn Child"--which you can hear on YouTube here. Seals & Crofts were/are of the Bahá'í Faith and as this article notes, were therefore concerned about the rights of the unborn as part of the human family:

Jim Seals and Dash Crofts wrote their music to reflect—though never to proselytize—their Bahà’í faith, which sees all humanity as connected in one family. They understood the unborn child to be simply a part of that universal whole.

There was quite a backlash:

Dash Crofts told interviewer Bill de Young in 1993: “Warner Brothers warned us against it. They said, ‘This is a highly controversial subject, we advise that you don’t do this.’ And we said, ‘But you’re in the business to make money; we’re doing it to save lives. We don’t care about the money.’”

According to de Young, “The critics tore the record to pieces, and Seals and Crofts with it. . . . Unborn Child hurt Seals and Crofts’ reputation—it was as if they had crossed that thin line, that sacrosanct divider that separated their music from their religious beliefs.”

Oh little baby, you’ll never cry, nor will you hear a sweet lullabye.

Oh unborn child, if you only knew just what your momma was plannin’ to do.
You’re still a-clingin’ to the tree of life, but soon you’ll be cut off before you get ripe.
Oh unborn child, beginning to grow inside your momma, but you’ll never know.
Oh tiny bud, that grows in the womb, only to be crushed before you can bloom.

Mama stop! Turn around, go back, think it over.
Now stop, turn around, go back, think it over.
Stop, turn around, go back think it over.

Beautiful!

And the LP that had the best sound and fewest pops and/or scratches: A Classic Case: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays the Music of Jethro Tull with Ian Anderson playing his flute:

And in keeping with the beginning of the holiday season we listened to one side of a Deutsche Grammaphone album of Christmas Concertos conducted by Herbert von Karajan, which had a warm and glorious sound:

My husband has plans for more LP listening--he still has some "Yes" albums in storage to retrieve and sample!

Happy Thanksgiving!!