‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends and say my glory was my friends’ (WB Yeats)
‘The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.’ (Bob Marley)
Some of us spend our whole lives trying to figure out just exactly who we are.
For some creative artists that pursuit can be both furious and fruitful – consider the late much lamented David Bowie.
But there is a high cost in psychic and emotional wear and tear in living such lives.
Better to my mind to find out who you are early and then just be.
Easier, of course, said than lived.
So, I find that when I encounter that rare person who is entirely comfortable in their own skin and content to be nothing other than themselves I am both surprised and enormously impressed.
And, my ultimate example of such a person would be Roebuck ‘Pop’ Staples; singer, songwriter, guitarist extraordinaire and Patriarch of the greatest Gospel group of the modern era, The Staple Singers.
I first saw him some time in the mid 1980s at one of my favourite music venues/watering holes of those times ‘The Borderline’ a small basement club in Charing Cross Road London.
Somehow, that night, Pop through his prophetic guitar, beguiling voice and grace filled songs turned a ramshackle crew of booze hounds and music aficionados into a joyful clapping on the off beat congregation.
The inner lit warmth of Pop’s faith and the transparent sincerity of his belief in the fellowship of mankind made for a transformative experience.
I had expected to be affected by his history and his talent.
I had not expected to be so moved by his person.
Actually to feel I was a better person simply by having been in the same room as him.
With Pop there’s no tortured theology, no secret knowledge for the elect alone.
Instead there’s faith, fellowship, fraternity and guitar playing throbbing with power and portent.
What more can I say?
Well, just that if you’re looking for some resolutions for 2017 (and every year thereafter) you might listen closely to the lyric above.
And if you want some watchwords as the year progresses you won’t do better than to remember and embody some more wise words Pop lived out every day of his life:
Respect yourself.
Reach out touch a hand – make a friend if you can.
In these troubled times that will certainly do for me
Music by Shostakovich conducted by Rostropovich, played by Maxim Vengerov, Bob Dylan and Judy Garland
Our painting today is by Rembrandt who may be the most searching anatomist of the human heart who has ever lived.
There is such depth of humanity in Rembrandt’s etching of Mother and Christ Child.
The scene glows with immediate and eternal love and intimacy.
Our first music selection today is one of the great works of the 20th Century.
Shostakovich lived through dark times yet, perhaps because of this, his work while never denying the darkness always returns to the light.
Maxim Vengerov is a musician to his fingertips and urged on by Rostropovich he wrings every scintilla of emotional power from the work.
Onward!
So, at last – the twelfth day of our Sleigh’s journey and it’s Christmas Eve!
I hope you have enjoyed the music and reflections on the way here.
I have agonised over the music choices in this series and have many years worth stored up for Christmases to come (you have been warned!).
But today’s choices were the first I wrote down and were my inevitable selections for the day before the great Feast.
First, the Keeper of American Song, Bob Dylan, with his inimitable spoken word rendition of Clement Moore’s, ‘The Night Before Christmas’.
It is safe to say that Bob’s pronunciation of the word ‘Mouse’ has never been matched in the history of the dramatic arts!
Of course, in the process of his more than 50 year career Bob has continually been reinventing himself and in so doing has gloriously renewed American culture.
The clip, above comes from his wonderful, ‘Theme Time’ radio show where over a 100 episodes he displayed an encyclopaedic knowledge of twentieth century popular music and a wicked sense of humour.
Bob also recorded for the season at hand the deeply heartfelt, ‘Christmas In The Heart’ album which gets better and more extraordinary with every hearing.
It is clear that Bob, who is well aware that it’s not dark yet (but it’s getting there) is consciously rounding out his career by assuming the mantle of the grand old man of American Music tipping his hat to every tradition (hence the deeply stirring Sinatra covers CDs).
The only safe thing to say about Bob is that he will have a few surprises for us yet!
And, indeed this year he assumed in typically enigmatic way the mantle of a Nobel Laureate. The man never known to make a foolish move managed by not attending the investiture ceremony to harvest more publicity than all those who did!
In his nicely judged speech he managed to be both filled with humility and unblinkingly directly compare himself to Shakespeare!
Now that’s the one and only Bob Dylan!
Now we turn to Judy Garland with a Christmas song without peer, ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’. Her singing on this song seems to me to be almost miraculous.
It’s as if her singing really came from the secret chambers of the heart all the rest of us keep under guard.
No wonder she has such a deep impact on us – we know she is expressing a profound truth about the human condition – our need to love and know we are loved.
Judy Garland paid a high price in terms of personal happiness for living her life and art with such an exposed heart and soul but she fulfilled a vocation given to very few and left an indelible mark on her age and will surely do for aeons to come.
Today, not a poem but the concluding passages from, ‘A Christmas Carol’ by the incomparable Charles Dickens – a writer for all seasons and situations.
‘Hallo!’ growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?
‘I am very sorry, sir’ said Bob, ‘I am behind my time,’ ‘You are?’ repeated Scrooge. ‘Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.’ ‘It’s only once a year, sir,’ pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. ‘It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.’
‘Now I’ll tell you what my friend, said Scrooge, I am not going to stand that sort of thing any longer. And therefore, he continued, leaping from his stool and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again, and therefore I am about to raise your salary!’
Bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.
‘A merry Christmas Bob! said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ‘A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!’
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed; and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards, and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every One!
And who am I to do anything other than echo Mr Dickens and Tiny Tim?
So, to all the readers of the Jukebox I wish you a peaceful and joyous feast – however you choose to celebrate it. God bless us, Every One!
Music by The Voice Squad, Patty Griffin and Emmylou Harris
Our Nativity painting today is by a great Master from Sienna, Duccio Di Buoninsegna.
Since I first discovered the work of Duccio as a teenager I have been in thrall to the luminous beauty of his works.
His paintings seem to me to have been deeply pondered in his heart which gives them qualities of stillness and humility which I find overwhelmingly moving.
In particular, something about, ‘Duccio Blue’ sets my heart aflame.
For music to take you away from the daily tumult I offer you a precious work of the heart.
‘A Stor mo Chroi’ as performed by The Voice Squad (Phil Callery, Fran McPhail and Gerry Cullen) insists that we each attend to what is truly important in all our lives; the love we offer and the love we share.
Where else is your treasure to be found?
Onward!
We are nearing the end of our journey now with our Sleigh still moving forward following a star.
As you approach the end of any journey there is space for reflection on the path already traveled and anticipation of the welcome to be found at the destination.
The Holy Family, weary and anxious about the straitened circumstances surrounding the impending birth of Jesus had to hold on and have faith that somehow all would be well and they would be a family.
Above all Mary had to have faith that her encounter with the heavenly realm at the annunciation and the event foretold by the Angel Gabriel was miraculously true and that she would indeed be a mother to a saviour (though one she would have to nurse and nurture like any other human child).
There would have been no Christmas birth without Mary’s assent at the Annunciation. From that leap of faith heaven and earth became joined and history eternally altered.
Mary was in a very real sense the first disciple: accepting God’s call and following it never knowing the joys and sorrows it would entail as her son too accepted his destiny.
I was an altar server from the age of seven and I can still recite the responses to the Latin mass if I close my eyes.
I can also recall the way certain prayers had a profound impact on me that was probably based more on their literary and musical cadences than any theological understanding given my youth.
The prayer that always moved me the most was the Loreto Litany Of Mary, the reciting of which even in an almost empty church seemed to set up a palpable spiritual vibration in my being.
‘Mother most admirable, Mother of good Counsel, Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Saviour, …. Mirror of Justice, Seat of wisdom, Cause of our joy, Spiritual vessel, vessel of honour ….. Mystical rose, Tower of David, Tower of ivory, House of gold ……. ‘
Those flowing phrases will never leave me.
Now a music choice which shares the Litany’s hypnotic attraction.
From Patty Griffin, one of the brim full jars of American song, ‘Mary’.
I spoke earlier about nursing and nurturing and I can think of no more apposite artist to express those qualities than Emmylou Harris as she invokes in, ‘Light Of The Stable’ the glorious mystery which kindled a light which still burns bright today some two thousand years and more since it first shone in Bethlehem.
The poem today is, ‘Christmas Night’ by a contemporary English poet, Lawrence Sail.
‘On the wind, a drifting echo Of simple songs. In the city the streetlamps, haloed innocents, click into instant sleep. The darkness at last breathes.
In dreams of wholeness, irony is a train melting to distance; and the word, a delighted child Gazing in safety at a star solid as flesh.
A painting by Andrei Rublev (approx 1360s to 1420s)
A Poem by Charles Causley (1917 to 2003)
Music by Herbert Howells (1892 to 1983), Big Joe Turner and Fats Waller
Our painting today is by Andrei Rublev whose Icons and Frescos are supreme works of devotional art.
They are works to be still before.
If you surrender to these works they will work in your soul.
Rublev, following the Orthodox tradition, sees the events of The Nativity not as historical episodes but as living events the faithful community participated in as they celebrated the liturgy.
The calm and peace of the image contains immense and complex feeling.
The birth of The Saviour is shown as a cosmic event which is yet an acceptance of human mortality and frailness.
Herbert Howells music has an English reticence which belies the oceanic depths of feeling it can summon from the listener.
His, ‘A Spotless Rose’ especially when sung with the aching purity of The New College Oxford Choir tenderly ushers the cosmic into our mortal consciousness.
Onward!
Today I think it’s time to remember that Christmas is a time for celebration.
A time to meet up with old friends and make new ones.
A time to sing and dance and laugh.
A time to shake our fists in the face of the dark, cruel winter as we affirm our faith in the inevitable restorative power of the light.
For many years I did much of my celebrating in bars, pubs, Honky Tonks and Road Houses soaking up the music and the booze as the nights progressed. The music choices today reflect that biblious spirit.
First, the Boss Of The Blues – Big Joe Turner. Big is no empty boast; Joe was over 6ft 2 and weighed more than 300 pounds so when he arrived in a room you knew he was there!
You would also know Joe was around because his voice could break through walls and wake the dead.
Joe had to develop his shouting style when he worked in the hectic, heaving bars of wide-open Kansas City in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Even though the joints Joe worked in such as the Kingfish and the Sunset would have been rammed to the doors with free spending, free fighting customers Joe never had any problem getting heard from behind the bar.
As, ‘The Singing Barman’ he formed a famous partnership with pianist Pete Johnson immortalised in the standard, ‘Roll ‘Em Pete’.
If I had been a customer I would have ordered (in honour of the Rudy Toombes song) One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer – knocked them back and settled in for a night of peerless blues.
Joe’s career lasted some 60 years and he was variously styled as a bluesman, a jazz singer, a Rythmn and Blues stylist and a pioneer rock ‘n’ roller – whatever the label the big man went his own sweet way launching every song into the stratosphere with the immense power of his vocals.
From the moment, ‘Christmas Date Boogie’ opens we know we are in good hands.
Big Joe is very much the master of ceremonies marshalling the instrumental forces around him. They are all fine players given their chance to shine but there is no doubt who is the star of the show!
You can just imagine the big beaming smile of Joe as he tears into this Christmas frolic.
Resistance is useless – where’s the Bourbon?
I’ll let the very fine Irish poet (I think you may have guessed by now that I am somewhat well disposed to Irish poets) Michael Longley introduce the next music Titan:
‘He plays for hours and hours on end and thought there be Oases one part water, two parts gin He tumbles past to reign, wise and thirsty, at the still centre of his loud dominion – THE SHOOK, THE SHAKE, THE SHEIKH OF ARABY’.
The subject of the poem and the artist featured in our second music selection is, of course, the one and only, one man musical encyclopedia and indefatigable party starter: Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller.
A short list of his accomplishments would have to include his very considerable prowess as a pianist, organist, singer, songwriter, composer and comedian.
Yet any list of talents and achievements would undersell Fats impact on his contemporary artists and his audiences.
Fats was beyond category – he was Fats Waller and The Lord of any room he chose to light up.
He could in the course of a single number go from being rollickingly rumbustious to wistful gentle melancholy.
Sadly his early death meant that the true depth of his talents were never fully sounded but nevertheless he leaves a unique legacy of wondrously entertaining recordings.
If you ever need cheering up and reminding of how good it is to be alive just press the button next to Fats name and you will feel a whole lot better – I guarantee it.
Today’s poem is, ‘Mary’s Song’ by Charles Causley.
‘Warm in the wintry air You lie, The ox and the donkey Standing by, With summer eyes They seem to say: Welcome, Jesus, On Christmas Day!
Sleep, King Jesus: Your diamond crown High in the sky Where stars look down. Let your reign Of love begin, That all the world may enter in.’
Music by Chopin played by Claudio Arrau (1903 to 1991), Joe Tex and June Christy.
Our painting today is, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ by Peter Paul Rubens.
More accurately, it is the the modello (a sketch shown to a patron for approval of the composition) for the altarpiece painted by Rubens for the convent of the Dames Blanches, Louvain now in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
There is a wonderful humanity in this work.
Though the event depicted was of universal importance it was witnessed, experienced, by, ‘ordinary’ men and women (and let us not forget animals as the peering camels here humorously demonstrate) on a day when the sun rose and set like any other.
Miracles take place (far more often than, ‘common sense’ will allow) against the background of every day events.
Rubens manages to make each of the individual characters in the scene vividly present.
I feel as if I could walk directly into this company and be made welcome.
Devotees of Chopin and his piano works, especially The Nocturnes, can spend long hours debating which great pianist has searched their depths most successfully.
I have never wavered in my conviction that the magical recordings made by Claudio Arrau must wear the crown.
His version of The Nocturnes has the quality of meditative prayer.
After the above and yesterday’s stop to gaze reverentially heavenward it’s time to turn to more earthly considerations.
The Greeks, as you might have expected, had different words to describe the varied forms of love we express and experience.
Yesterday we were concerned with Agape – the love of God for man and man for God. Today we will find songs that express Eros – sensuous, sexual love and the appreciation of beauty and Philia – the love expressed in affectionate regard and friendship.
Now we turn to a tremendous southern soul sermon from a master and mentor for the genre, Joe Tex. ‘I’ll Make Everyday Christmas (For My Woman)’ glows bright with Joe’s gently enveloping passion.
Joe’s forte was telling stories in song using humour and homespun wisdom so that you felt he was gifting you the hard won lessons of a richly lived life.
Joe had a country preacher’s sense of the hunger in the audience for parables that would make sense of the roadblocks and confusions assailing them in their lives and provide a route map for the way ahead.
They knew that Joe didn’t pretend that he had never been a rounder and a rogue as well as a true romantic and love disciple.
We often, rightly, pay more attention to the testimony of someone who admits to failure and frailty than those in their whited sepulchres who are quick to admonish our every fault.
Joe sings the song with a steadily growing intensity almost as if the promise he was making was as much to his own better self as to the woman it was made to.
When the record finishes its hard not to say, ‘Amen! Brother, Amen!’ and vow to make sure you too take care to make everyday Christmas for your own woman or man.
Next, the delightfully cool Miss June Christy with, ‘Christmas Heart’. June was a veteran big band vocalist who followed Anita O’Day as the singer with Stan Kenton.
As a solo artist she made a magnificent album, ‘Something Cool’ which should be on the shelves of anyone with an appreciation of the art of jazz singing.
I have always found something deeply engaging in the understated, wistful tone June Christy brings to a song.
It seems she has stripped out all unnecessary flourishes so that we hear the essence of the song as she steers us gently to understanding through her embrace of the melody and lyric.
The lack of hectoring or self regard in, ‘Christmas Heart’ makes its dreamlike plea for Christmas to be a day when all the wounded find rest and balm all the more affecting.
You never really need to ask who is your neighbour – just look around you.
Today’s poem is, ‘Carol For The Last Christmas Eve’ by a favourite poet of mine, Norman Nicholson from Millom in England’s rural Cumbria.
Never fashionable Nicholson’s work will endure.
‘The first night, the first night, The night that Christ was born, His mother looked in his eyes and saw Her maker in her son.
The twelfth night, the twelfth night, After Christ was born, the Wise Men found the child and knew Their search had just begun.
…
But the last night, the last night, Since ever Christ was born, What his mother knew will be known again, And what was found by the Three Wise Men, And the sun will rise and so will we,
A Painting by El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos 1541 to 1614)
A Poem by Patrick Kavanagh (1904 to 1967)
Music by John Dowland (1563 to 1626) played by Julian Bream, The Chieftains with Nanci Griffith and The Trinity Lavra Choir
Our painting today, ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’ is a work of blazing, visionary brilliance by El Greco who had the artistic bravery characteristic of genius in all ages.
El Greco depicted the human body and used colour and perspective in a manner that was wholly individual.
The awe inspiring intensity of his vision breaks down any conventional, ‘tutored’ response.
To my mind his art is a true veil shredding glimpse into a co-existing reality : present then and present now.
This painting, more than any other I know, captures the enormity of the event which took place some two thousand years ago.
It is a peerless hymn of exultation and adoration.
Today’s spirit refreshing music comes courtesy of John Dowland who can genuinely be described as a Renaissance Man in view of the time he lived in and the depth of his talents as a composer, Lutenist and singer.
His works will enter your consciousness like a pebble dropped into a pond with ever widening circles of effect.
Julian Bream is another musician with, ‘The Touch’.
Music played by Bream flows purely and naturally from his fingers to our hearts.
Further music comes from two countries: Russia and Ireland which share a reverence for poets and prophets, visionaries, bards and shamans.
Both have produced more than their fair share of saints, scholars and wayward genuises.
In both lands a sense of the numinous pervades the air and prayers ascend unceasingly heavenward – even in the increasingly secular modern age.
Of course, both countries are filled with a hundred times the number of would be writers to actual page blackening writers and both have to deal with the drunken consequences of frustrated spirituality encountering the demon drink.
Still, veil-piercing poetry and song are central to the cultural life and achievements of Ireland and Russia.
Both peoples love to carouse until they are stupefied yet both are capable of being stilled to silence and tears by a simple lyric or an exquisite slow air.
Let’s listen now to the exquisite, ‘Wexford Carol’ performed by the veritable custodians of Ireland’s traditional music, The Chieftains (here accompanied by a Texas rose, Nanci Griffith).
The Wexford Carol may well date back to the twelfth century though it’s widespread popularity is due to the work of William Gratton Flood, who was musical director of Enniscorthy Cathedral in the late 19th century.
The Chieftains play with an authority born of thousands of hours of perfecting their craft as traditional musicians – always respectful of the source material while being alert to each other’s role in bringing a tune to shimmering life.
The Chieftains, led by Piper Paddy Moloney, who has proved to be a natural born networker, have recorded many inspired collaborations with leading artists in many musical genres (though their greatest collaboration is probably with an artist from their own island – Van Morrison).
Here, Nanci Griffith sings the carol with a beguiling gravity befitting the immensity of the events portrayed. Listening I feel as I were marching in a torchlit devotional procession with the same moon that shone over Bethlehem above the sentinel trees of the forest around me.
Next, from a powerhouse of Otthodox Russian monasticism, ‘The Song Of The Magi’. The choir is from the Trinity Lavra (monastery/hermitage) of St Sergius in Sergiyev Posad some 50 miles from Moscow.
This has to be the sound of the breath of the Russian soul. Russian Othodox services provide doorways to contemplate the divine – an opportunity in stillness to be lifted into a different realm of being.
Giving ourselves over to such an experience can be profoundly uplifting and over time transformative.
Russian spirituality opens itself to mystery and awe accepting that grace cannot be willed but only gratefully accepted.
The Magi travelled long miles in search of a new kind of King and gave their gifts to a babe in a manger. Perhaps, listening to this work we could learn to give the gift of an attentive soul.
The poem today, ‘A Christmas Childhood’ is provided by one of the great figures of 20th Century Irish Literature, the sage of Iniskeen, Patrick Kavanagh.
‘Cassioepeia was over Cassidy’s hanging hill, I looked and three whin bushes rode across The horizon – the Three Wise Kings.
An old man passing said: ‘Can’t he make it talk – The melodian’. I hid in the doorway And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.
I nicked six nicks on the door-post With my penknife’s big blade – There was a little one for cutting tobacco. And I was six Christmases of age.
My father played the melodeon, My mother milked the cows, And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned On the Virgin Mary’s blouse’.
This post dedicated to the deceased members of The Chieftains:
Fiddler Martin Fay, Tin Whistle and Bodhran player Sean Potts and the mystical doyen of the Irish Harp, Derek Bell.
Music by Gluck sung by Janet Baker, Chris Isaak and John Prine
Tintoretto’s wondrous Nativity shows how, ‘The Light Of The World’ once confined to a manger within a rude stable began to bestow grace on all the surrounding world.
This a dynamic painting which foreshadows the mission of redemption the tiny babe was born to accomplish.
Janet Baker is an artist of the highest order.
Her utter technical command and her ability to unerringly find emotional truth resulted in a legendary career garlanded with landmark recordings and never to be forgotten stage performances.
Her performance of, ‘Che faro senza Euridice’ will live with me always as I make my journey through the dark wood.
Onward!
Well our Sleigh has travelled more than halfway now on our journey to celebrate ChristmasTide.
Yesterday’s choices put me in something of a wistful contemplative mood and led to today’s selections by Chris Isaak and John Prine.
Christmas is a time when we often turn our minds to reflection on the health of our relationships. Relationships with our parents, our siblings, our children and our spouses or partners.
And, we remember bitterly or with rueful affection the relationships of old which are now part of our history – part of the person staring back at us in the mirror.
Christmas can be a healing and nurturing time for relationships it can also be the occasion for exhausting, tearful sunderings which will sully the season for years or decades to come.
As in all things some will say you get the Christmas your life through the preceding year has mapped out for you.
I now present a ballad of loss and longing from the golden boy out of Stockton, California – Chris Isaak. It’s not his fault that he looks like a matinee idol and that the microphone loves him almost as much as the camera.
‘Christmas On TV’ tells the sorry tale which Isaak sings without over emoting of a bereft husband with his nose pressed to the window glass watching the Christmas celebrations of his ex-wife and her well heeled new beau.
Though he’s only across the street from the happy pair (or so they seem to him) he might as well be a million miles away. It’s so easy to be all alone in the midst of the crowd as the carols play and the lights twinkle.
Sometimes only fortitude, a good whiskey and a ballad in blue will get you through.
Merry Christmas to the lost and the lonely, the abandoned, the abused and the outcasts.
Next John Prine who sits at the top table of American songwriters leaning back in his chair with either a rueful smile or a goofy grin depending on the circumstances of the day.
Prine has a glorious gift for examining the human heart and it’s myriad joys and travails with a the precision of a tender surgeon. It seems as if he has watched carefully and listened closely as he has moved through life – building up a store of experiences he can hone into humorous shaggy dog stories, touching love songs or heartbreaking tales of misspent or misshapen lives.
John Prine has wisdom which he wears lightly – we can all learn a lot from leaning in when he speaks.
Very few songwriters could match the songwriting carpentry Prine demonstrates in, Christmas In Prison’. I remember my intake of appreciative breath when I first heard the lines:
‘I dream of her always even when I don’t dream – her name’s on my tongue and her blood’s in my stream’.
The Big House searchlight spotlights the snowflakes like dust in the sun and the prisoners aching for those they love outside the walls make do with Turkey and pistols carved out of wood.
They’re all homesick waiting for eternity to release them. In the meantime nothing to do but sing up and hope the homesick blues fade away for one night at least.
John Prine has a heart as big as any goddamn jail and if I’m ever in Prison it’s his songs I would sing as the doors clanged shut each night.
Today’s poem, ‘The Carol Of The Poor Children’ is by Richard Middleton.
‘Are we naked, mother, and are we starving-poor Oh, see what gifts the kings have brought outside the stable door Are we cold, mother, the ass will give his hay To make the manger warm and keep the cruel winds away We are the poor children, but not so poor who sing Our Carols with our voiceless hearts to greet the new-born king On this night of all nights, when in the frosty sky A new star, a kind star is shining on high!’.
A Painting by Geertgen tot Sint Jans (1465 to 1495)
A Poem by Christina Rossetti (1830 to 1894)
Music by Hildegard of Bingen (1098 to 1179) sung by Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices, The Unthank Sisters and The Larks.
St Bridget of Sweden had a mystic vision of The Nativity.
Today’s painting by the Flemish artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans makes that ineffable vision a reality before our eyes and in our hearts through virtuoso deployment of light and shadow.
Looking at this tender scene we remember Christ’s statement:
‘ I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’
Our heart stilling music today was composed by one of the most extraordinary figures of the Middle Ages (indeed of all Ages!).
Hildegard of Bingen was a Benedictine Abbess whose haunting compositions refelect her mystical experiences and her philosophical beliefs.
I vividly recall the first time I heard this music in Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus in London. As the gorgeous vocal lines enchanted me I knew, at once, that this record would be a life time companion. And so it has proved.
The majestic soprano Emma Kirkby wonderfully complemented by The Gothic Voices under the direction of Christopher Page takes us into mystical terrain where every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
Terrain where Hildegard’s vision of herself as a feather on the breath of God makes perfect sense.
We are all feathers on the breath of God.
Now we return to our Sleigh which has been travelling for 6 days rushing towards its destination on Christmas Eve.
So, for today’s post we will apply the breaks to give ourselves and our willing reindeers a much needed rest.
Sometimes the preparations for Christmas can overwhelm us as we worry about all we have to do in such a short time. We can be in danger of falling into the trap of speeding through the season without stopping to savour its true joys and meaning.
Perhaps we should remember that at the heart of this event is a birth. A birth much awaited and anticipated by the contemporary family at the centre of the story and by the wider human family of time past, time present and time future.
At this birth time and eternity merged to create a new beginning of hope and promise for all of mankind.
Mothers have to learn to be still and patient as they wait (especially for their first birth) for the great day, the great moment, to arrive when they will no longer be a mother-to-be but a mother.
There comes a miraculous moment, a moment, when after all the waiting and worry that the baby, her child! who has been knit together in the safety of their womb emerges into the world as a unique new creation.
This is a moment for stillness and awe and for gratitude.
The next recording featured today is achingly filled with stillness and awe.
The Unthank Sisters from God haunted Northumberland perform Christina Rosetti’s, ‘In The Bleak ‘Midwinter’ with startling calm and grace allowing the song to breathe and bloom into something truly marvelous.
I imagine we all hold our breath throughout this performance as we are caught in the spell of the poet’s striking images and the heart piercing intensity of the siblings vocals.
Now, a recording by one of my favourite 50s vocal groups The Larks.
The sound here is hushed, seemingly suspended in time. Listening to, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ I feel as if I were a snowflake caressed by gentle drafts and surrounded by millions of other snowflakes falling slowly, slowly, slowly to the earth below.
It would be perverse today to showcase any other poem but Christina Rosetti’s masterpiece, ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’.
‘Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air- But only His mother In her maiden bliss Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss
What can I give Him? Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a wise man I would do my part; Yet what I can, I give Him-
Today’s painting is by the Florentine Taddeo Gaddi who was the star pupil of the great Master, Giotto.
His, ‘The Angelic Announcement to the Shepherds’ can be seen in the Baroncelli Chapel within Santa Croce in his native Florence.
It is a wonderfully dramatic painting.
An Angel acts as God’s messenger alerting humankind to an event upon which all history will pivot.
The Sheep are stirring and the Dog’s keen senses alert him to the messenger from afar.
As the Angel speaks eternity merges with linear time.
How could the waking Shepherd find the words to tell his sleeping companion what he has learned?
Surely all he could say was:
‘Let us go – someone we must see is waiting for us just down the hill. Come now!’
It is an invitation which remains open.
Onward!
Our Sleigh is picking up a very special passenger today. He’s here to sing and play on a Christmas song, ‘Zat You, Santa Claus?’ that has the effervescence of a fine champagne.
Of course, I’m talking about Louis Armstrong.
If they ever get round to carving four heads into a mountain to celebrate musicians in the way that Presidents are celebrated at Mount Rushmore there can be no argument among men and women of reason that the first head to be carved must be that of Louis Armstrong.
Zat You, Santa? Zat You, Louis?
I could set out an exhaustive list of his astounding achievements as the preeminent musician of the 20th century with special reference to his role as the pioneer genius who transformed a pastime into an art form and who influenced everyone who ever had the good fortune to hear him play.
Others far better qualified than I have written major scholarly tomes on the subject. So, I will limit myself to a few remarks on the effect hearing the great man has had on me.
When I hear Louis play (at every period of his career) I hear the sound of a master musician revelling in the sheer joy of making music.
It was as if he lived and breathed through playing his horn – singing a song of exultation; using without reserve the wondrous gifts of imagination and creative daring yoked to technical brilliance that made him a such a unique musician.
Add to that his personal warmth and ebullience and you have a musician and a man who simply made everyone who encountered him feel better, more human and more glad to be alive.
Isn’t what Santa Claus is supposed to do too?
Next a singer, the late Kay Starr, who knew how to swing and who had the chops to share a bandstand with the finest musicians of her era.
Born on a reservation in Oklahoma with an Iroquois father and an Irish/Native American mother she was as American as you can be.
Maybe that’s how she could sing the hell out of any song in any genre of American popular music.
Kay had an inbuilt sense of rhythm and the ability to musically inhabit and sell a lyric. Listen here to how she brings out the drive and the humour of, ‘Everybody’s Waitin’ For The Man With The Bag’.
One of the co-writers of the song was Dudley Brooks who featured earlier in the list featuring Elvis Presley.
I can’t honestly say I have done everything I should this year (extra special good) but I can recognise an extra special good singer when I hear one and Kay Starr must be one of the best and merriest we ever did have!
Today’s poem is, ‘Advent: A Carol’ by Patric Dickinson a writer who revered and translated the Classical poets while looking at the world himself with a sharply individual measured intelligence.
‘What did you hear? Said stone to echo: All that you told me Said echo to stone.
Tidings, said echo, Tidings, said stone, Tidings of wonder Said echo to stone.
Who then shall hear them? Said stone to echo: All people on earth, Said echo to stone.
Turned into one, Echo and stone, The world for all coming Turned into one.’
Music by Mae McKenna & Mairi Macinnes and Roger Miller
Giorgione, a Venetian artist from the period of the High Renaissance, remains a figure of intense mystery.
What we can say from his, ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’ (NGA Washington) is that he could suspend time and evoke awe and silent wonder.
This painting offers us a profound sense of reverence. The Nativity tableau shows Mary communing with her child as both motherly protector and prayerful worshiper.
Joseph, so often the forgotten man of the narrative, seems overwhelmed by the enormity and mystery of the events he has been caught up in.
Shepherds were ill-regarded outsiders in biblical times. Yet, it was they who were granted the blessing of an audience with the new born King.
This must be some new type of King who welcomes first the poor and the ragged before the rich and high born.
The sight greeting the Shepherds was beyond words.
Their attitude of humble surrender to an experience beyond their understanding is intensely moving.
Our contemplative music today comes from the Hebrides.
The Christ Child’s Lullaby or Taladh Chriosda in Scots Gaelic is full to the brim with maternal feeling for the vulnerable new born.
Mother and child, once one, now two, create together a sacred space where love and mutual regard dwells.
The standing stone vocals of Mae McKenna and Mairi Macinnes, switching fluently between languages, supported by the pellucid instrumental playing of William Jackson and Tony McManus casts a timeless spell.
Onward!
Our Sleigh cuts a deep track through the falling snow as it’s carrying a whole heap of presents for all the good boys and girls all around the world (the list has been checked twice and we surely know who has been naughty and who has been nice).
Our first song is, ‘Old Toy Trains’ by the one and only Roger Miller. He wrote a hatful of hit songs, was a multiple Grammy winner and admitted to the Country Music Hall Of Fame.
In addition he also had a theatrical Tony Award in his trophy cabinet for his score for the hit Broadway musical, ‘Big River’ which he based on the writings of Mark Twain.
Despite all the above he has always seemed to be to be under rated with many damning him with the faint praise of describing him as a writer of, ‘Novelty Songs’.
Certainly there is humour in his songs but as anyone who is any kind of honest writer will tell you it is much harder to write comedy than it is to write tragedy.
The key to understanding Miller’s very real eminence as a songwriter lies in the sharpness of his observations expressed in language that is simple in nature but complex in impact.
Roger Miller had a poor upbringing but as he said words became his toys and you can feel that in the playfulness and delight with which he uses the resources of the American language as spoken by the everyday working man and woman.
Roger Miller liked people and liked telling stories that would resonate with their common experiences. Listening to him you do feel spoken to by a ruminative and intelligent man who has seen enough of life to be slow to judge and quick to smile.
There’s often a metaphorical raised eyebrow in the tone of his language and vocals but never a raised fist.
‘Old Toy Trains’ is a simple song that catches the magic of Christmas Eve – a magic that it is easy to lose or forget as we grow in supposed sophistication. Miller taps into the time- suspended feeling as we approach a great event and the hope we all have that all will be calm and all will be well.
Most of us will look back on a present we received when we were young children and reflect that no later gift has ever so perfectly matched our dreams than the toy train, drum, doll (or in my case) a cowboy outfit we received and cherished all those years ago.
Today’s poem extract comes from, ‘Christmas Day’ by Christopher Smart – an 18th Century English poet who pursued his vocation steadfastly despite spells in an asylum and prison.
‘Spinks and ouzles sing sublimely, We too have a saviour born, Whiter blossoms burst untimely On the blest Mosaic thorn
God all-bounteous, all-creative, Whom no ills from good dissuade, Is incarnate and a native Of the very world he made.’
The Immortal Jukebox 