“Tunes weren’t composed just so you could show off how strong your voice is, or how uncurious you are about the right way to sing them.”
Supernal Realm, December 10 – The heavenly being in charge of receiving and sorting people’s prayers and songs to the Almighty cannot handle much more of the torment, observers noted today, because the task involves far more unpleasantness than anticipated, mainly in the form of people putting stress on the incorrect syllables in unfamiliar holy tongue words, and of their butchering the notes of musical liturgy.
Supernal sources disclosed Wednesday that Sandalphon, as humans call him, has reached his wits’ end with the amateurish, incompetent, half-assed, tone-deaf, and willfully ignorant tendencies that characterize so much of the praise and prayers that humanity has to offer.
“I don’t know which is worse,” the angel was heard to remark, “that fact that so many people lack proper pronunciation, or that hey seem utterly unconcerned that it might reflect on the quality if their communication with God.”
“And don’t get me started on people singing things wrong,” he added. “Tunes weren’t composed just so you could show off how strong your voice is, or how uncurious you are about the right way to sing them.”
Sandalphon reserved particular venom for those who appear to think they are singing the songs of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, whose body of work can be found in almost every synagogue to one degree or another, when in fact the versions they have picked up through mishearing now appear more common than the original, authentic tunes, and the “harmonies” or flourishes that the uninformed or arrogant introduce to those tunes have now supplanted the original melodies to the point that many people remain unaware or the original melody.
“There’s a small measure of poetry in the that phenomenon,” acknowledged an archangel who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Carlebach was famously insistent that his music be sung precisely as he composed it, and showed displeasure when people deviated from the original to make it ‘sound better’ in their opinion. But he also faced persistent accusations of impropriety with women and girls that, true or not, ruined the experience of his music for no small number of people, so it’s appropriate, in a way, that he gets to hear everyone ruin his songs.”
“I don’t know what Sandalphon did to deserve hearing that all the time,” admitted the angel.
Heavenly bureaucrats disclosed that Sandalphon has applied for mental health leave as a result of this phenomenon. Officials in Eden acknowledged difficulty in finding even a temporary replacement, and admitted they might have to draft some denizens of Hell to fill the role, as part of their punishment.
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