Imagine The Longest Time

I went to the Friends and Family Concert by East Bay Harmony this evening after the food bank. I had volunteered to help sell raffle tickets; the F&F Concert is their big fundraiser. The concert was at the Lake Merritt Dance Center, in a beautiful ballroom with a big stage.

East Bay Harmonizers listen to Mark Bernfield, the director, introducing "Loch Lomond"

The songs they sang were:

Come Go With Me
Happy Together
Fyer Fyer (a 16th century madrigal - "I cry help me... and no help comes")
Weep O Mine Eyes (another 16th century madrigal - "I love you and you don't love me")
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
That’ll Be the Day
Na Na Hey, Hey
Son of a Preacher Man Ring of Fire
E Oru O ("The king comes to the marketplace")
In the Still of the Night
Ning Wendete ("I love you, you don't love me, why is that so?")
Loch Lomond
Imagine
The Longest Time
Blue Moon (this was introduced with "True love only happens once in... a baker's dozen?")
Ain't Misbehavin'
Because (arranged by a current member of the chorus)
Gonna Build a Mountain

The encore was "Imagine" with the audience singing the melody and the chorus singing the backup. It's an Oakland-Berkeley chorus and I suspect that since 2001 that song has a special place in its heart.


Most of the concert was the full chorus, with about forty members, but several songs were sung by small groups, four or five people. Only the women sang "Preacher Man" and only the men sang "Ring of Fire."

One of the five-member groups sang "The Longest Time," which has a special place in my heart. In the fall of 2001, I was learning this song with the chorus while I was falling in love with Zirpu.

"And the greatest miracle of all
Is how I need you
And how you needed me, too..."