The (Sentimental) Geek That Is Me

Friday evening, the “Celebration of a Life” in honor of Ted Kennedy was broadcast on television. It was in the spirit of an Irish wake, but on a much larger scale. Held at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library in Boston, with Teddy’s flag draped casket right in front of the podium, there was singing, stories, laughter and tears. It truly was a celebration. And it was exactly the sort of thing that Teddy would have loved. All of the speakers did a good job of revealing additional facets of Senator Kennedy. It’s hard to say, but I think the funniest moments came from Senator John C. Culver. He and Teddy were on the Harvard football team together. Let’s just say the story of the salmon salad sandwiches coupled with a storm tossed sea was priceless. The singing was great, including the finale of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” which no one wanted to stop singing. But the most touching was when Nick Littlefield, an attorney and former senate chief of staff for Teddy, sang “Love Changes Everything” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Aspects of Love”. Mr. Littlefield explained that it was a favorite of Teddy’s and that Teddy sang it the last time they were together. We all could understand the relevance of the lyrics because of the way Ted’s life had been transformed by his wife Vicki.

Today, we went to iTunes to see if we could find a recording of “Love Changes Everything” that we liked. There were versions by Sarah Brightman, Michael Crawford and myriad other artists. But none of them had the heart, the passion, nor the personal connection to Ted and Vicki which had captured our hearts. Then I remembered what I had done in a similar situation last January. So I began hunting for a video clip of Mr. Littlefield’s performance. Sure enough, it was already available on YouTube. I went back into the archives here on Pink Granite and found the post where I explained how I stripped a video down to just the audio for a song. (It’s a good thing I turned it into a post because I didn’t remember all the steps!) In just a few minutes I had Nick Littlefield singing “Love Changes Everything” playing from our iPod.

Here’s the video:



Thank you Mr. Littlefield.