Was it in a dream that I heard the rumor of a collection of ABBA songs performed in the style of Gordon Lightfoot?

One of my correspondents made a joke that could be read as implying that J S Bach (1685–1750) was a Protestant. Which got me to wondering: who was the earliest Protestant composer whose name I’d know? Henry Purcell (1659–95) comes to mind, but who was big in Elizabeth’s reign?

I felt a bit silly for not recognizing Jonathan Woodward when he played the vampire in Buffy 7:7 “Conversations with Dead People”. He looked familiar but I thought it was only because he resembles young Bill Murray. Then in the commentary Jane Espenson, a frequent writer for Mutant Enemy shows, mentions that he was in Firefly (“The Message”). Both episodes begin with his character in a coffin, and end with his death by chest trauma. (He’s also in Angel, apparently as a member of W&H’s staff in the last season.)

66 (out of 144) episodes of Buffy have a scene at a dance club called The Bronze, and the producers took advantage of it to showcase local bands. In 7:8 “Sleeper” the musician of the week is Aimee Mann, who again looks like someone I’ve met, if only I could remember who . . . .

“Nominalist Things”

(The site to which Bruce cites is dead, so I’ve no idea whether this is the whole song or not.)

Sir George Martin’s new coat of arms

Wikipedia tells more than you might imagine asking about the heavy metal umlaut. (Cited by Desbladet in a comment on John Holbo‘s blog.)

Michael Jennings watches the Eurovision song contest. I’ve seen this phenomenon at least once, circa 1977 (the winner was the French entry, about a child and a bird), but most Americans will go “huh?”; it may help to mention that the contest gave ABBA their first international exposure.