Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

I like lots of different kinds of music. This is sometimes hard for people to grasp when I first tell them, because I usually go on to clarify that I do not like most rap, hip-hop, pop, country or heavy metal; but I like nearly everything else, and contrary to popular opinion, there is a lot "else".

All this to say that I was in the car today listening to KVNO - I always listen to KVNO in my car because my cd player doesn't work and that's the station that generally plays the best music - when I realized something; Mormons make wonderful music. Seriously, do you ever listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? They are amazing! Anways, as I was driving home from work today, they started to play a song called Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Probably most of you know already, but Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is a short poem by Robert Frost, Randall Thompson (a "Quasi-Romantic" Composer) wrote a beautiful choral piece for it about 35 years later in 1959, and sometime after that, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed it to perfection. My advice to you is, find this somewhere and enjoy it...either that or let me play it for you next time you're over. To conclude, I'll include Frosts' poem here.


Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.