14. Timshel

Mumford & Sons performing Timshel in a street.

We cannot live, except thus mutually
We alternate, aware or unaware,
The reflex act of life: and when we bear
Our virtue onward most impulsively,
Most full of invocation, and to be
Most instantly compellant, certes, there
We live most life, whoever breathes most air
And counts his dying years by sun and sea.
But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth
Throw out her full force on another soul,
The conscience and the concentration both make
mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole
And aim consummated, is Love in sooth,
As nature’s magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

- Love by Elisabeth Barrett Browning

13. Jurassic Park theme

John Williams’ beautiful theme for Jurassic Park (1993). Me and my family went to see this movie at the cinema and my mother covered my eyes when one guy got eaten by a dinosaur. I wasn’t pleased because it was a really exciting part but I understand her reaction now.

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise

- Eternity by William Blake

12. Ensimmäinen Joulu

This song is from the heavy metal Christmas album Raskaampaa Joulua. It is one of my favorites mainly because of the overall feel-good vibe and the cool instrumental part. The vocalist on this song is Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot).

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
  That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

- from On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by John Milton

11. Dentist!

Steve Martin playing a sadistic dentist who sings about his career choice.

As Christmas snows (as yet a poet’s trope)
Call back one’s bygone days of youth and hope,
Four metrick lines I send—they’re quite enough—
Tho’ once I fancy’d I could write the stuff!

- Christmas Greetings to Laurie A. Sawyer by H. P. Lovecraft

10. Innan Jag Kände Dig

Melissa Horn & band performing live in a studio. I like the organic and stripped-down feel in this video.

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Winter-Time by Robert Louis Stevenson

9. A Song About Brownness

A friend of mine introduced this song/jam by Reggie Watts. I was and am still fascinated and entertained by this artist’s random humor and exploration in music. This piece, according to Watts, is a song about brownness.

To Mary Jo Salter

Beyond the ice-bound stones and bucking trees,
past bewildered Mary, the Meer in snow,
two skating rinks and two black crooked paths

are a battered pair of reading glasses
scratched by the skater’s multiplying math.
Beset, I play this game of tic-tac-toe.

Divide, subtract. Who can tell if love surpasses?
Two naughts we’ve learned make one astonished 0–
a hectic night of goats and compasses.

Folly tells the truth by what it’s not–
one X equals a fall I’d not forgo.
Are ice and fire the integers we’ve got?

Skating backwards tells another story–
the risky star above the freezing town,
a way to walk on water and not drown.

- Skating in Harlem, Christmas Day by Cynthia Zarin

8. Under Flaming Skies

Stratovarius is the band that really pulled me into the world of music and inspired me to pick up an instrument.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand–
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep–while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

- A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

7. Duran Duran

Jenni Vartiainen & band performing an acoustic version of Duran Duran. Props for the inclusion of an accordion in this version.

Lapsistain rakkain tää näyttämö on
Mis kuutamo kujillaan kulkee
Taipunut havu, kesä hoivassa sen
Valkomeren niin aavan
Joka aavekuun siivin
Saapuu mut kotiin noutamaan

Päällä talvisen maan hetki kuin ikuisuus
Mi pienen kissan jaloin luokseni hiipii
Tääl tarinain lähteellä asua saan mis
Viulu valtavan kaihon
Ikisäveltään maalaa
Laulullaan herättää maan

- Taikatalvi by Tuomas Holopainen

6. Band of Brothers theme

The Band of Brothers theme is composed by Michael Kamen. It brings forth a bittersweet atmosphere that works really well with the story of the fellowship of soldiers and the agony of war.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

- Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

5. Walk

Walk by Foo Fighters from their latest album Wasting Light (2011). The singer/guitarist Dave Grohl feels the weight of the world and goes for a long walk.

I’m learning to walk again
I believe I’ve waited long enough
Where do I begin?
I’m learning to talk again
Can’t you see I’ve waited long enough
Where do I begin?

- Walk by Foo Fighters