The Real Group, 1984. Source.

I’m always enchanted by the a cappella singing of the Real Group—their rapt intoning of the Swedish psalm Härlig Är Jorden is one of the most exquisite pieces I know (click here, with a bonus of Bill Evans).

Another gorgeous song of theirs is Words, by Anders Edenroth, tenor in the group—here’s a 2005 performance in Stockholm, soon after he composed it:

Words
A letter and a letter on a string
Will hold forever humanity spellbound
Words
Possession of the beggar and the king
Everybody, everyday
You and I, we all can say
Words
Regarded as a complicated tool
Created by man, implicated by mankind
Words
Obsession of the genius and the fool
Everybody, everyday,
Everywhere and everyway

Words!
Find them, you can use them
Say them, you can hear them
Write them, you can read them
Love them, fear them

Words
Transmitted as we’re fitted from the start
Received by all and we’re sentenced to a life with
Words
Impression of the stupid and the smart
Everybody, everyday
You and I, we all can say
Words
Inside your head can come alive as they’re said
Softly, loudly, modestly or proudly
Words
Expression by the living and the dead
Everybody, everyday
Everywhere and everyway

Words!
Find them, you can use them
Say them, you can hear them
Write them, you can read them
Love them, fear them

Source: Musescore.

Complementing the, um, words is the finely-crafted music (score matched to audio here, with link to harmonic analysis—and Spanish captions to boot!). The narrow, hieratic pitch range of the verses (with plentiful appogiaturas, gradually venturing beyond a minor third!), adroit rhythmic variation alternating between syncopations and regular quavers, as well as subtle chromaticisms (cf. this post), the melody eventually branching out for the chorus (“Find them…”),

with motifs recombined and elaborated from 1.39…

Here it might be unseemly to note that words aren’t always useful—see e.g. Adam Chau’s caveats about focusing on the discursive/scriptural modality in religious studies, as opposed to “red-hot sociality”. Just saying, like (with words)—cf. Laozi (here and here), as well as “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture“.

Click here for more a cappella singing around the world. Cf. The art of the miniature, and my introduction to Dream a little dream.