I did dock a star because the messages in the book that accompanied the song occasionally came off as a little too..mushy. I’m really not that harsh a critic, not of books like these, but the beautiful words of inspiration were, a couple of times, replaced by words that were definitely too syrupy for my taste. I prefer truly moving messages and stories to speak for themselves, but it occassionally seemed like the authors wanted to hammer the point home, overdo the sentimentality, and even make their message serious and cheerfully bouncy at the exact same time (trust me, that doesn’t work). For ex: throughout the book, the lyrics of the song are printed in large bold letters in order to differentiate them from the authors’ separate words of inspiration. Usually, the pages featuring the lyrics had no other words on them, but at one point, right above the words of Womack’s moving song, the authors’ placed a bulletin that said, “Attention! This is BIG stuff!” Considering the fact that Leann’s song more than speaks for itself and doesn’t need any extra emotional boosting, I found those additional words annoying and almost jarring to the flow of the song and its message.

Elsewhere in the book, as I mentioned before, the sentimentality goes into overdrive. One page is dedicated entirely to love and begins with the words, “Love, love, love. You have to love.” Gag, gag, gag, I needed to retch. It’s nice to compliment the song with additional words of motivation, but we don’t need an interpretive page with every selection of the song. In another part of the book, while speaking of youth, the narrator says, “Ah, youth..new skin, wide smiles, clear eyes..the future so bright. If only we could bottle it up, sip it now and again..” This sounded more to me like a bad commercial for a fountain of youth than a motivational speech. I don’t mean to sound cynical, I usually love gift books, but the tone in this one was sometimes just too sweet for my taste.

I also didn’t particularly care for the version of the song in the bonus CD. There’s a mainstream version with soft rock music and female voices in the background (which I prefer) and there’s a country version with male voices in the background and the occassional awful twangy instruments; this one’s the latter. If you like country music, good for you, but I don’t like the country version of this song.

There are plenty of good points of this book to make up for the disappointments, of course. The song is wonderful, whether you hear it or read it, and some of the separate words in the book were lovely to read. My favorite part of the book’s text, other than the song, was a beautiful little haiku that the authors wrote called “You”, celebrating every individual. The photographs are also gorgeous, from grinning children to nature scenery. A beautiful package, altogether.

Now, if they’d only make a gift book celebrating the beautiful song “Private Malone”..

Rating: 4 / 5

The book is implicitly and explicitly anti-Christian. It is implicitly so in that it emphasizes doing things yourself while it does not acknowlege God, as demonstrated in the following quotes.

“It’s crossing your fingers when… it’s up to you-you and your gut and your mettle, and your level or resilience, and your wealth of wisdom-to persevere. To get to the other side.”

“A PROMISE IS ONLY AS STRONG as your own faith in your own self, in your own god.”

One of the most blatantly anti-christian sections is the flippant and erroneous interpretation of Eve’s sin. I quote:

“LIVING MIGHT MEAN TAKING CHANCES, BUT THEY’RE WORTH TAKING Ask Eve. Evolve. Take a chance, take a ticket, take a fast train to the coast. No guts, no glory.” That chance was not worth taking! It resulted in our current mess.

Much as I decry the godless philosophy of this book, I do wish to affirm the theme “I hope you dance!”, but please, seek the Truth. Dance for the Lord. Dance with Jesus Christ!
Rating: 1 / 5

“Lord of the Dance” is just success gone crass…way too much in the way of blinding glitz.

Even Seigfried and Roy would be aghast.

There are too many egotistical close ups of himself grinning into the camera and not enough of the other fine dancers in the show.

The first “Riverdance” show was much, much better.
Rating: 1 / 5

I’d never been able to figure out WHY the one time I saw the Lord Of The Dance(the original one)on PBS I didn’t really like it that much. I described as a “cheap imitation of Riverdance.”

Since Lughnassadh was last week and I took Lugh(aka Lord Of The Dance)as my Patron Deity,I decided to give LOTD another try. I rented it from the library and have just finished watching it. Here’s my analysis:
1. It’s MORE overtly Pagan than RD
2. It has a storyline that is easier to follow
3. The Triple Goddess is quite easy to recognize, The Maiden, being represented by the Young Girl who plays the Irish Whistle SO ENCHANTINGLY, The Mother, being represented by the female lead, The Crone, being represented by the Womon who dresses in green and has glorious red hair and sings sweetly and mournfully to us
4. Michael Flately makes a PERFECT Lugh, flamboyant, as a God of Fire/Sun(another one of His names is The Shining One)should be. Protector of the weak, when he defends The Maid Of The Woodlands. It doesn’t get any better than that
5. The dancing is INCREDIBLE
6. The stage set is great
7. The lighting isn’t QUITE as good as Riverdance

BUT…
And it’s a big but! IT’S STILL NOT AS WONDERFUL AS RIVERDANCE. And the reason why it’s not as wonderful it the SOUL-HAUNTINGLY LOVELY MUSIC OF RD. Now if Michael Flately could manage to get Bill Whelan to compose the music…it stands a good chance of perhaps being even better than Riverdance.

But I believe that BOTH tapes belong in people’s collections. If you like RD, you’ll probably like LOTD as well.
Rating: 5 / 5