Something not completely different

Today’s Advent selection is a new take on an old favorite. Tedashii is a Christian hip-hop artist, and Nobigdyl is a Christian rapper. I did not know about these genres, so this is an exploration for me.

Here they are together with “O Come”.

 

It cheers my heart

The text for today’s Advent piece, “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree”, dates from the 18^th Century, a poem probably written by a “Calvinist Baptist” (later known as “Methodist”) preacher, Richard Hutchins. It’s been set to music by several composers, including the ubiquitous John Rutter.

Using the metaphor of the apple tree for Christ may reference the creation story in Genesis, or it could reflect New Testament depictions of Jesus as the Tree of Life. Then there’s the pre-Christian British custom of going out among fruit orchards around the Winter Solstice to offer (and drink) libations to awaken the trees for their Spring duties.

(I wrote before about this custom in a post about wassail, which got merged into Christmas, as things often do.)

I personally love the image, especially in the dead of Winter, and doubly-especially in this ghastly year. We need to remember that—despite our best human efforts to the contrary—nature will do her best to bounce back, and life will triumph over death.

Besides, apples make great pies.

The lyrics are so powerful that I think it worthwhile to set them out for you:

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.

His beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the Appletree.

I'm weary with my former toil -
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.

With great delight I’ll make my stay,
There’s none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see
There’s none like Christ the Appletree.

I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.

I am eschewing Rutter and giving you a version set to music by Elizabeth Poston, a 20^th-Century English composer. Here it’s performed by a group called Seraphic Fire. 

 

Five for the brothers Maccabee

Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah, celebrating the rededication of the Second Temple at the time of the Maccabean revolt against the Persians. Hanukkah lasts for eight nights, which is the number of days the lamp oil stayed alight in the temple, when there was only enough for a single day. 

“Happy Joyous Hanukah” was written by Woody Guthrie, and why not? This is a holiday that lends itself to counting, and this song does a whole lot of it. Also, particularly in this year, we need all the light and all the happiness and all the joy we can get.

Here are the Klezmatics performing it. I happen to like folk music and klezmer, and this is a blend of both. (Well, heavier on the folk, but whatevs.)

 

 

A chorus of angels

I’m kind of jumping the gun here with today’s Advent music. By which I mean, Giovanni Pierluigi da Plaestrina’s “O magnum mysterium” is about the wonder experienced by the shepherds who showed up at the manger in Bethlehem, so it should technically be later in the season.

But my blog, my choice.

Palestrina was right at the start of the timeline of a music history class I once took, and I confess that I’ve not paid all that much attention to him since. So it seems appropriate that I dust him off and take him out for a spin. We need a range of music at this time, particularly in this year.

The text of this motet is fairly simple: 

O great mystery and wonderful sacrament
That beasts should see the newborn Lord lying in a manger.
The newborn we have seen and a chorus of angels praising God.

Alleluia

Whom have you seen, shepherds?
Speak, tell us who has appeared?
The newborn we have seen and a chorus of angels praising God.
Alleluia

Here's the King's College, Cambridge, choir performing it. 

 

Pretty little baby

I mentioned on Saturday that this year I’m trying to be more inclusive in my Advent celebration, so I’m going to the Caribbean for the source material, and the Staples Singers for the performance.

I’m more familiar with a different version of this song—last year I gave you Harry Belafonte singing “The Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy”. That take is quite upbeat; you can almost feel the soft sea breeze brush your cheek on it.

By contrast, “The Virgin Mary Had One Son” is decidedly minor, and the R&B group here takes that to its logical melancholy extension. In that, it reminds me a bit of “Mary Was the Queen of Galilee”, which I gave you a few years ago.

It’s as though they’re reminding us that the journey begun under a star in Bethlehem will climax on a cross in Golgotha.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: only a hippopotamus will do

The other day, I was walking around the ‘hood, looking at what my neighbors had put up by way of holiday decorations. I was spurred to this by a convo with two of my colleagues, one of whom had started putting up the lights in his yard the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Now, in a normal year, this man would be dead to me for that. But—this being the year of the Apocalypse—I decided that being festive is a good thing, and I gave him a pandemic pass.

(Another output of that discussion was that I decided to hang lights in my front window. From the outside, they look lame. From the inside, however, they’re an absolute hellscape, and I scare myself every time I enter the kitchen.)

Well, for the most part, my neighbors have easily put me to shame, but there was one house that I wasn’t entirely sure of, so I asked the owner when she was out finishing up her decorating.

Yes, it’s a hippopotamus, because her favorite holiday song is “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”, and her kids grew up with her singing it to them all the time. Here it is at night:

This year, her son came by and set up the hippo in her yard while she was away, so she came home to find it. (Her son also gave a hippo to her daughter, who also lives in the cluster:)

Also, the son backed up his pickup truck and blasted the song out of his cab, which I’m truly sorry I missed.

I myself had never heard this song, so naturally I went Googling when I got home, and indeed, it is a thing. “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” was recorded by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953. (She’s got a very 1950s Brenda Lee sound going on it.) The recording was used as a fundraiser to acquire an actual hippopotamus for the Oklahoma City zoo.

As an aside, I've been researching hippopotami, and I don't think you'd really want one, for Christmas or anything. They are the most dangerous animals in Africa, and there are videos on the Webz of them taking on big cats, wild dogs and fully-grown Nile crocodiles. But YMMV.

Well, today I’m grateful for adding this song to my holiday repertoire. But I’m even more grateful to have heard my neighbor’s story and that she has two kids who still get into the joy of the season this way.

 

 

Prepare ye

The musical Godspell appeared on the scene a year after Jesus Christ Superstar. The latter was flashier and way more bombastic because Andrew Lloyd Webber. But I always liked the rather whimsical hokiness of the former.

I once saw a production of the play at Cal State LA. The review I turned in to the entertainment editor of the paper I worked for was so positive, she didn’t want to run it. But it’s the kind of show that allows for the cast streaming through the audience with balloons, and I think we could use some of that kind of whimsy these days.

“Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” is John the Baptist’s call, presaging the arrival of the Messiah. So it seems legit for Advent. This is from the original cast recording.

 

 

Tell them James Brown sent you

 

It has occurred to me this year that my usual roster of Advent music is decidedly lacking in melanin. This time round, I’m going to try to expand my horizon.

Toward that end, I’ve got something a little different. Tomorrow is Saint Nicholas Day, but it’s also Advent II: Preparation Sunday, so I’ve got something slotted for that. So, let’s think Saint Nick (or Santa Claus) today. I’m giving you Snoop Dogg’s “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto”. 

About time.

 

 

Find my peace

The holidays are not a time of unadulterated joy for a lot of people. And that’s in “ordinary” years. The pressure to be a vortex of gaiety and festive organization is like knives between the ribs when you feel like you’re barely hanging on by your fingernails. This year we have this bizarre Sword of Damocles hanging over us and demands by all manner of people to either gather and celebrate en masse in defiance of the science or stay the fuck home to save lives (maybe our own).

This year there are also hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone who are mourning the loss of one or more family members or friends to COVID-19. Or they’re struggling with a family member or friend who’s in hospital with the virus, or can’t get into a hospital because they’re full. How the hell do you pull jolliness out of that?

Well, in my opinion, you don’t have to. Especially not this year. But here’s a thing—and Advent is precisely the time for this—there’s a difference between jolliness and joy. And I know from experience that it is possible to find shards of the latter, even amidst crushing sorrow. Even in the holiday season.

My go-to song for this is the Indigo Girls’ “There's Still My Joy”. It reminds me that finding peace is a big part of this time. After all—aren’t we talking about the birth of the guy they called the Prince of Peace? I give you permission to put aside the gift wrapping, the light stringing, the cocktail-pouring and just be at peace. Even if only momentarily. Mourn for what you—we all—have lost. It’s substantial and the pain will always be with us. But there’s still joy if you can let it in.

This year, I’m giving you Oleta Adams’ cover of it. May the strength and warmth of her voice bring you comfort.

The old and the young

This year being the absolute shitshow that it is, it seems to me that John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas/War Is Over” should fit right in. I do not know that the war is over—whether you’re talking global pandemic, systemic racism, undercutting of democratic institutions or right-wing thuggery, we’ve still got a long way to go.

Still, back in the day, Nixon was forced to the negotiating table to end that war. And this is the season of hope.