Marc Martel

You’ll notice this week that it’s all starting to get to me by a couple snippy random thoughts. Bear with me. I just need a bit of a vent then I should be okay. Luckily I had some funny thoughts too the last couple of weeks.

I think selfies with a face mask are pointless. There, I said it. How do we know who is behind the mask, both literally and figuratively?

I guess my mom and I are reading too many romances on Kindle Unlimited because I keep getting ads for these cheesy, ridiculous cliche romance novels on the front of my Kindle. It’s always some shirtless buff man and he’s always “the bad boy” who “she wants to make good.” Good grief. This is why women don’t have realistic expectations for relationships. They read too man romance novels where the woman actually changes the man. That’s not reality folks. Escapism is good, but those type of books make me want to facepalm everytime I see them.

My dad is 35 years older than me and he has unending energy. I wish he could bottle it up and give me some. He and my son went for a bike ride in the hills of Pennsylvania, picked up an old couch for my brother, made several stops, got home late and the next morning my dad was up at the crack of dawn, ready to go and do more. It’s exhausting just watching him some days

My adult cat is like a moody teeanger, spending much of her day glaring at us all. My kitten is like a speed addict – bouncing all over the walls and furniture and then crashing hard when she comes down from her high.

I asked my husband to edit my novella (Quarantined). I told him to feel free to fully edit it (like for content) and not just copy edit it (like for typos and grammatical errors). It came back with words, lines, and sections scribbled out. Ouch. Next time I’m telling him to refrain from going into full-on editor mode (which used to be his day job). Seriously, I’m really excited for him to actually help me tighten up my work. I hope he will do it with The Farmer’s Daughter too.

There is nothing more depressing than seeing a photo from my local library with the aisles roped off with signs that say “Do not enter.” Heartbreaking. I miss being able to look at and pick out books on my own.

I don’t think a lot of 6-year olds talk like mine. “I just love these pants! They are so lightweight and soft and comfortable.” Lightweight?!

I think one of the worst ways to combat racism is to tell people that marrying outside their race is “a betrayal to their race” or mocking people for adopting children outside their race. It really feels like some people are trying to drag us backwards back into the early 1960s. Jesus, come quickly. We’re not improving. We are getting worse.

I’m addicted to watching reaction videos to Marc Martel performing Queen songs. It’s so much fun to see first-time reactions to his voice and how he sounds so much like Freddie Mercury. This was a new one from this summer and the look of delight on the man’s face was fun to watch.

I didn’t watch any news for three days for my birthday weekend and continued into the next week and it was wonderful. Our world really is a dumpster fire right now so I extended it another few days. I like my head in the sand since I can’t trust the media to tell me the truth anymore. This video explains how I feel about ALL national media right now (yes, Fox and CNN and everyone else).

I had no idea that the author George Eliot was actually a woman named Mary Ann Evans until two weeks ago. In related news: I was never assigned a George Eliot book to read in high school or college. I did however have to read 1984, Hiroshima, and The Awakening.

So what are your random thoughts for the week? Let me know in the comments.

When I saw Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant were going on their Christmas tour this year with someone named Marc Martel, I was like, “who is this dude? Is he even Christian?” Yes, I was that judgmental. But, my thinking was that normally they feature Christian artists whose view of Christmas is Christian leaning. So I googled Marc and at first I was like “He’s in a Queen cover band and sang some of the Freddie Mercury parts for the movie Bohemian Rhapsody? I guess he’s not Christian.”

Oops. That was judgmental again. Yes, I know.

But, it turns out that Marc is both in a Queen cover band and a Christian, who got his start in a Christian rock band he toured with for 13 years. He can also pretty much mimic some of my favorite artists, including Keith Green, a Christian singer from the 1970s and 1980s.

For those of you who may not know him, Keith passed away in a plane crash in the early 80s, along with two of his three children. I remember the day he died because my mom cried, later telling me she didn’t understand why God had taken him away so soon. He was only 28 when he passed away but the legacy he’s left behind is incredible. His lyrics were very deep and convicting for Christians, something we could really use today as a church.

I fell into a sort of YouTube spiral with Marc’s music last week and when I heard he was influenced by Keith I had to look up and see if he’d ever sung a song by him. He had indeed. The recording was made before Marc knew as much about videography so he’s a bit out of focus, but I wanted to share the video here, along with one of Keith so you can see how close Marc’s voice is to his.

and Keith

Here are a few videos of Marc singing in the style of Freddie Mercury.

Here is a recording he did last year with Kevin Max, of DC Talk fame. Love the blend of their voices.

And here is a horrible video reproduction but an amazing version of Michael W. Smith’s “All Is Well” he sang while he was on tour with Smitty and Amy this fall and winter.

And for something different – here he is singing like Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury in the style they would both sing Nessun Dorma (if Freddie had ever sung that song).

And a bonus….this rendition of Unchained Melody will haunt you — in a good way. I’m not a big fan of this song, to be honest, but the way he does it – wow. I’d listen to it over and over and I have. He definitely puts his own spin on it.

Okay, one more bonus: Marc singing “Is He Worthy” by Andrew Peterson.

Amazingly, Marc does not seem to have a record deal (despite being chosen to sing lead in a Queen tribute band back in 2011 or 2012 by the remaining Queen members) but he puts his own covers and music up on YouTube and iTunes, so you can find him there. Just be warned if you start clicking his videos on YouTube you are going to fall into a YouTube spiral of his videos because you simply want to hear more of him.

Well, did I introduce you all to someone new or were you already aware of Mr. Martel? Let me know in the comments and also check out my post from earlier this year about David Phelps, one of my other favorite singers of all time. Incidentally, the Phelps post was my most popular to date on this blog other than my post about small family farmsdisappearing, which was viewed more than 3,500 times.