Happy Bobmass!

Christmas music is contentious in our household. My wife loves it so much that until recently it was not unusual in our home to hear it pretty much any time of the year. It all came to a head a couple of years ago, when coming into the house on a very warm sunny July afternoon I heard the strains of 'chestnuts roasting on an open fire' drifting from the lounge. Later that evening I gathered all the Christmas CDs from the storage rack and sneakily hid them away in the attic. A couple of weeks later when my act of cunning was discovered, I promised to reveal the hiding place - but only on 1st December! Now it is generally agreed that waiting until the appointed time, and the opening of the first window on the Advent calendar, makes the wait all the more worth it.

So... what a dilemma I faced when Bob Dylan decided to release his Christmas album 'Christmas in the Heart' in mid-October! I openly admit that my increasing fanaticism around Dylan has rendered my ears incapable of hearing anything negative in his music (except perhaps Self-Portrait), so the quality of the actual renditions of the Christmas songs was not something I was concerned about. My key difficulties were how was I going to 1. find a way to persuade my wife that that the £8.95 was worth spending on pre-ordering the item, so it would arrive on release day; 2. listen to it immediately and not wait until 1 December; and 3. avoid my listening to it before the appropriate time becoming a 'free for all' on all Christmas music before the 1 December deadline.

Well, here's what happened. Firstly, I pre-ordered the album without telling my wife. This was truly justified because I didn't buy it for myself - it was a loving gift from husband to wife. Secondly, on it's arrival, allowing my wife to rip open the package I spontaneously swiped it from her hands and declared - 'I know it's early but because you love Christmas music so much I think we should put it on now, what do you think?'. Of course she consented. And so Bob was slipped into the CD player, the volume turned up and Christmas came to our household in October. And the best thing of all - since all the other CDs are still in the attic well it wouldn't hurt to play Bob's CD again and again and again until they come out on 1st December would it?

Steve Earle>City of Immigrants

Four nights ago I had the pleasure of seeing Steve Earle playing live in London. And for once I had a great seat at the gig - front row! I have to say I enjoyed it immensely when I strutted through the theatre past the lesser seats to park my backside on the front row and then neatly place my jacket and drink on the stage. Earle was pretty impressive - alone on the stage, in an auditorium that seated 2000 people, he kept us all spellbound by his majestic songs (and covers of Townes Van Zandt) interspersed with some witty narrative.

It struck me as I cast my eyes over the audience that Earle clearly plays white man's music. In a city as diverse as London you might expect some racial diversity - but if skin colour is anything to go by, there wasn't much diversity going on in the Barbican on Wednesday night! This struck me as fairly ironic when Earle burst into 'City of Immigrants' from his Washington Square album (2007). This is a song written about New York but could just as easily be written of London. The lyrics state: 'City of black, city of white, city of light, I'm livin' in a city of immigrants, All of us are immigrants, every daughter, every son'. It's a great song, with great lyrics that are absolutely true. It is a smart antidote to the pathetic attempts by the British National Party (amongst others) to claim the contrary and to conveniently forget that, yes, we are all immigrants - not just those who have arrived on British shores since the 1950s.

And so, reflecting on this after the show, I realised that indeed Earle the agitator knew his audience better than I. Of course, if anyone needed to hear his thoughts on immigration it was probably one that looked like this.

The Cure>Plainsong

If I'm really honest and come clean - the songs that mean the most to me - the ones that get under my skin and touch deep, deep down inside are the dark and moody ones. Don't get me wrong I like light and fluffy, too, but the ones that leave me satisfied are songs that when they've finished feel like they've gone right to the pit of my stomach and twisted me up inside. Some bands/songwriters simply do this better than others and for me The Cure are masters of this kind of song.

During the late '80s The Cure were one of those bands that everybody either loved or hated - there was no middle ground. Nobody I knew ever said, 'well, I like some of their stuff.' Pretty much all my friends claimed they were 'too depressing'. Strangely, though, they all turned up their radios when 'Love Cats' or 'Friday I'm in Love' came on. They couldn't bring themselves to admit they liked these tunes because according to them, The Cure were depressing and yet clearly these songs were not.

Well, I'm not afraid to admit I love depressing! Perhaps it's my dark side - but gloomy, gothic, indie rock reaches places in the pit of my stomach that other genres can't reach. I love much of The Cure's work up to the early '90s and in my opinion the gloomier the better. Take 'Plainsong', for example, the opening track of Distintegration (1989) - it's magnificent. It's almost a parody of the goth rock genre - lyrically and musically - yet it captures the wild, untamed, dark side of the human condition. And how I wish for an open place for this in church. Increasingly, my experiences are leading me to see this dimension of God himself - He's downright mysterious, wild and untamed and as it says in the song, He makes 'me feel like I'm living on the edge of the world'.

The Sunday Service: The LEONARDiction

Thanks to Phil's recent blog post over at Philip's Tree House regarding my CAVEspers I've been spurred on to come up with a new Sunday Service. So here it is - The LEONARDiction.

My long-held view is that the title of most inspired song-writers belongs to the holy trinity of Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. Having compiled a DYLitANy and CAVEspers already, I felt it was time to give the honour to Mr Cohen. (Incidently I've been very fortunate to see all three leading worship in London during the last 18 months.)

Why 'The LEONARDiction' - well being a traditionalist I had to come up with some kind of religious pun, however paltry. Also, the Benediction - or blessing - that usually accompanies the end of a church service or prayer time is somewhat appropriate for Cohen. For some reason a benediction is always 'prounounced' - and in my experience that means the minister or priest delivers it with a sombre yet uplifting tone. And surely if such contradictory adjectives were ever to be attributed to a singer's voice - it has to be Cohen's. So here's the 'setlist'...

Processional Hymn: Hallelujah (Various Positions, 1985)

Praise and Worship:
Love Calls You by Your Name (Songs of Love and Hate, 1971)
Dance Me to the End of Love (Various Positions, 1985)
That Don't Make It Junk (Ten New Songs, 2001)

Intercessionary Prayers: The Future (The Future, 1992)

Confession:
Everybody Knows (I'm Your Man, 1988)
Tower of Song (I'm Your Man, 1988)

Bible reading: The Story of Isaac (Songs From a Room, 1969)

Sermon: Anthem (The Future, 1992)

Response: If it be Your Will (Various Positions, 1985)

Recessional hymn: Here It Is (Ten New Songs, 2001)

Jim Reeves>Bimbo

The summer's gone and my holidays are finished. On the whole August was a fabulous month - time spent with the family, lazing on the beach, watching the breakers roll in on the Cornish clffs, good food and of course England winning the Ashes. But amongst all the frivolity was the tragedy of Bimbo.

He was our guinea pig - my 6 year old daughter's pride and joy. Travelling through Cornwall we sang his song in the car, remembering him back home. Happy campers could hear the strains of 'Bimbo, Bimbo where ya gonna go ya' through the thin walls of their tents as we sang along to Jim Reeves. And now, our furry friend has gone - a sad end to a lovely pet and a beautiful summer.

And so, in his memory here's his song - he's gone but not forgotten.

The Duckworth Lewis Method

I have relatively few passions in this world but when two of them come together in such a great combination it certainly adds to life's rich tapestry. I've already confessed to my penchant for The Divine Comedy in an earlier post, so imagine my delight when I heard that songwriter Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy had just released an album inspired by my favourite sport - cricket. And just in time for the Ashes!

When I was a child I spent many an hour watching cricket - initially England getting ground into the dust by a rampant West Indian side and then as I grew older I got used to Australia consistently hammering England. Over the last couple of weeks my ear's been glued to the radio (can't afford SKY for live TV coverage)as I've kept abreast of England's heroics on their way to regaining the Ashes (I hope).

But I've listened to the streaming version of The Duckworth Lewis Method's album online and I've got to say it's great. Somehow it evokes the feeling of a lazy summer's afternoon at the cricket - a far cry I must say from the gut-wrenching agony of being an England supporter during any Ashes series. I never thought that an album on cricket would ever be written but the Divine Comedy have lived up to their name and produced a classic! There must be a God after all.

Here they are performing on Grafton Street, Dublin. Did you see them Cosmo?

U2>Miss Sarajevo

On the whole I've given U2 short thrift on this blog - I'm not really sure why because I've always been a big fan. I suspect it's because for the last couple of years I've found Bono's earnestness just a little too much. However, prompted today by my wife's departure for 8 days to Bosnia on an interfaith trip I checked out a song I've loved for a long time - Miss Sarajevo (The Passengers, 1995).

As I watched the video of the song - as below - it all came back to me. I remember being glued to the TV news during the war watching with grim fascination the pictures of the ordinary people of Sarajevo literally having to sprint for cover on the way to work to avoid the bullets around them. It was the weirdest of things seeing normality and war going on side by side. And U2 capture the sense of this paradox in the song magnificently (read about the song here). And as the beauty contestants hold up the sign saying 'don't let them kill us' the futility and pointlessness of it all becomes so stark.

I love the lyrics, too with their echo of Ecclesiastes. Until today I hadn't seen a translation of Pavarotti's part. Here it is:

You say that the river
finds the way to the sea
and like the river
you will come to me
beyond the borders
and the dry lands
You say that like a river
like a river...
the love will come
the love...
And i don't know how to pray anymore
and in love i don't know how to hope anymore
and for that love i don't know how to wait anymore

Powerful stuff, eh? And so, perhaps you'd like to spare a prayer for the people of Bosnia who have with such dignity begun to rebuild their country and my own 'Miss Sarajevo' who is there today.