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December 12, 2005
fa la la la la...
there's a lot of Christmas music playing at HadashiWorld right now, and we freely admit we are getting in the holiday spirit. fa la la la laaaaa! thanks to Aunt Nellie's fabulous wedding gift of an iPod (how cool are my aunts, really?) it's easier than ever for the music to be toted around with me wherever i go. of course the Number One Most Fabulous Christmas Music Ever has got to be George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah. no contest. i cannot even tell you how excited i am to be going to a sing-along Messiah performance at the fabulous Walt Disney Concert Hall next week. T.T. thinks he's not going to be singing along, but how can you stay quiet with such catchy tunes as "And He Shall Purify the Sons of Levi?" really. of course, whenever possible, i am practicing heartily (i.e. sing loudly to the music only you can hear through your headphones, or while doing dishes). thanks to a comment from Zippy the Fish on my post last year's regarding the Messiah, i have been listening much more closely to the lyrics. they are full of hope and longing, but also of fulfillment and promise. they are often as beautiful as the music.
i've also been listening more closely to the lyrics of other Christmas songs, and yes, there are a lot of inane ones (sample: "happy ho ho ho to you"), but mostly they give me plenty to think about. i appreciate Harry Connick, Jr. not only because he's so darn talented and oh-so-dreamy, but because he performs "O Holy Night" with the full beyond-the-first-verse lyrics, which are rarely sung:
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend
He knows our need
To our weakness is no stranger
a simple wine merchant wrote these words in 1847, and the truth in them is compelling. yes, we celebrate Christmas for the coming of Christ, but too often we skip straight to the end of the narrative and talk about His sacrifice and bringing of salvation. we forget that Christmas is about how God "became flesh, and dwelt among us" -- that the King of Kings was indeed born to be our friend.
the other song that is living in my head is the supurbly crafted "Christmas Song," sung by Dave Matthews (he of Dave Matthews Band) with just his guitar. i never imagined a DMB song would overwhelm me, but the first time i heard this plain-brown-wrapper truth of Jesus' love & humanity & realness, it made me feel again the simplicity of faith i had as a small child:
So I’m told, so the story goes
The people he knew were less than golden-hearted
Gamblers and robbers, drinkers and jokers
All soul searchers like you and me
Like you and me
Rumors insisted he soon would be
For his deviations taken into custody
By the authorities, less informed than he.
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Searching for love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love was all around
yes, i'm a gambler, robber, drinker, joker... but hopefully most of all, a soul searcher. i am thankful that the Lord that i celebrate this season is the friend of the broken, the crazies, the ones with smudgy faces. i am thankful that the One born to be my friend looks beyond status, stereotype, color, deeds done and not done, political viewpoints, gender, identity, money, affiliation... and loves me all the same, wants to fill me with that love. it makes me want to sing.
Posted by hadashi at December 12, 2005 10:41 PM
Comments
O Holy Night is my absolute favorite carol. These are my favorite lyrics.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
It neve fails to provide a little thrill of hope. As one who often fails to acknowledge my own worth it's a good reminder.
Posted by: Joanna at December 18, 2005 2:27 PM
Just wondering if you live or work in Palms. If so, I could add you to my list of Palms bloggers, which you can see in the left-hand column of this page: www.palmsvillagesun.info.
Sincerely,
George Garrigues
Editor and owner
The Palms-Village Sun
Posted by: George Garrigues at December 18, 2005 7:35 PM
Dude. Elvis's Christmas recordings ROCK the manger, yo! His inspirational recordings are swell, too.
Posted by: trixiesue at December 24, 2005 11:04 PM
And He Shall PurifyyyYyyyyYyy
yyyyyYyyyyYyyyyYyyyyYyyyyyyYyyyyyyYyyyyyyYyyyyy...
Oh yes, too fun. I can't read Luke 2 without singing in my head, "And sud-den-ly there was with the an-gel. A mul-ti-tude. Of the heav'nly host. Praising God. And SAY-ING. GLO-RY to God! GLO-RY..." I only wish that more SOs would perform the entire oratorio instead of just the Christmas portion. It's just too awesome as a whole. The Hallelujah Chorus just don't sound right coming right after Christmas, ya know?
And oh yay, another vote for O Holy Night. I actually have a very nice modern rockified arrangement of it if anyone cares to record it for modern rockified Christmas song posterity. But does anyone know its origins? I was just wondering last night if it was sung in the pre-civil war South (or other pro-slavery societies), considering the lyrics:
Chains shall He break
for the slave is our brother
And in His name
All oppression shall cease
Of course, I'm not saying that 18th century white Southerners would be the only ones either finding the song subversive or singing it in hypocrisy or skipping that verse... Personally, I think the lyrics should be changed to the more biblically accurate:
Chains shall He break
for the ______ is our brother
And in His name
All oppression shall cease.
Posted by: ernli 
at December 25, 2005 9:49 PM
how nice to see you here, Trixie! if you lend me Elvis Christmas recordings, i promise to listen. right now all i have is "Santa Claus Is Back in Town."
and you, Ernli -- the story in a nutshell: the wine merchant was a very outspoken socialist, and the music was written by a Jew -- this basically got it banned by the French Catholic church for a long time. then an American writer who was an ardent abolitionist heard it, loved it, and published it in his magazine, exactly because of that 3rd verse you quoted. it actually was very popular in the North during the Civil War.
Posted by: hadashi at December 28, 2005 1:44 PM
give a listen to this o holy night (rla is from trinity)(trinity luvs o holy night b/c billy sommerville also did o holy night on some other cd) but anyway...this one is pritty nice. james has a lurvely voice.
http://www.myspace.com/redletteragent
Posted by: ernli at January 3, 2006 11:35 PM
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