primeideal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
primeideal) wrote2018-12-19 10:12 am
primeideal) wrote2018-12-19 10:12 am
The Worst Song on the Best Christmas Album
When it comes to great Christmas albums, for me a front-runner is "The Bells of Dublin" by Irish folk music group The Chieftains and some of their collaborators. My parents (who are, like me, both left-wing Christians) have a well-loved CD copy that has some "skips" from lots of play. I'm pretty sure my dad had the cassette version from 1991 until recently, it might have gotten disposed of during some spring cleaning.
Why is it good? Well, it features a great mix of new and old music, as well as religious and secular songs. There are bells ringing in a cathedral, and there's an original Elvis Costello song about poisoning your relatives the day after Christmas. There's multiple versions of a song about hunting a wren, and an English/Latin mashup about eating a boar's head.
Amid all these great songs, there's one that I think is...pretty terrible, and the juxtaposition of it with the good ones just makes it look more terrible. Below the cut (for religious/political discussion), screwed-up digressions about how my mind works.
'The Rebel Jesus' by Jackson Browne
Let's go through this verse by verse.
The streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for all God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus
This is...actually fine? So it's a little Northern Hemisphere biased, so are a lot of songs. Note that the speaker so far is only speaking in third person: "the families" do this.
They call him by the "Prince of Peace"
And they call him by "The Saviour"
And they pray to him upon the sea
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus
What's going on in those last few lines? The line about turning a temple into a robber's den is a quote from Jesus in the Gospels (shortly before his death). But is the speaker bitter about industrialization in general? That doesn't seem to be specifically the responsibility of religious people. Note also the mention of "gold," because how dare people donate money to their church when they could be donating it to some worthy cause.
We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus
Note the switch from "they" to "we" here. This is pretty important! When the speaker talks about "they," he's venting his feelings about (some) religious people, which hey, he's entitled to do; some religious people are jerks! But the speaker obviously isn't including himself in this "we," and that's super patronizing. When a teacher says "Tommy, did we have an accident with the glue?", the "we" doesn't mean "you and me," it just means "you" (it's the opposite of the royal we!) and it's belittling.
Anyway, "we," which really means the speaker's "they" or "you," sometimes give gifts to their relatives around Christmas. (Nobody has birthday presents in this parallel universe.) And maybe they're charitable, but they don't do enough to investigate/solve the causes of poverty.
I think the quote being riffed on here is "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." But that's attributed to Hélder Câmara, a Brazillian archbishop who...lived to the age of 90. Not exactly a martyr for the cause. (Maybe conflated with Óscar Romero?)
Anyway, the message here is people like me do not exist. There are the bad hypocritical religious people who care about the gold in the church and their houses, and the good revolutionary outlaw people, who fight for social change and then die for it. If you're not putting your life on the line, you're not lefty enough.
But pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.Oooh boy.
First four lines; yes, the speaker very much has taken the tone of judgement!! People who are like "I'm not trying to disrespect you" are almost always trying to disrespect you, or at least, not overcoming the urge to do so. If you really respected someone else or thought of them as an equal, you wouldn't have to disclaimer.
And yes, he does want to prevent us from enjoying the day! If he's just made the point about "people who celebrate Jesus' birth are big hypocrites," why would he follow it up with "go party anyway"?
Next couplet: ah, because life is too miserable, so the dumb sheep might as well follow religion if it makes them happy. Except he's too smart for that, so really, it's not "we," it's just "you" again. And tl;dr: only the wise atheist lefties really get Jesus' message, everyone else is just misinterpreting it. There doesn't seem to be an interest in Jesus for his own sake, just for point-scoring against the bad guys.
To be very clear: nobody should have to be Christian if they don't want to, nobody should celebrate Christmas if they don't want to. But if you can't make your point without belittingly patting people on the head, maybe it's not a point that needs to be made in this particular context.
On the upside, the accompaniment with the Irish music is very nice??
Why is it good? Well, it features a great mix of new and old music, as well as religious and secular songs. There are bells ringing in a cathedral, and there's an original Elvis Costello song about poisoning your relatives the day after Christmas. There's multiple versions of a song about hunting a wren, and an English/Latin mashup about eating a boar's head.
Amid all these great songs, there's one that I think is...pretty terrible, and the juxtaposition of it with the good ones just makes it look more terrible. Below the cut (for religious/political discussion), screwed-up digressions about how my mind works.
'The Rebel Jesus' by Jackson Browne
Let's go through this verse by verse.
The streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for all God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus
This is...actually fine? So it's a little Northern Hemisphere biased, so are a lot of songs. Note that the speaker so far is only speaking in third person: "the families" do this.
They call him by the "Prince of Peace"
And they call him by "The Saviour"
And they pray to him upon the sea
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus
What's going on in those last few lines? The line about turning a temple into a robber's den is a quote from Jesus in the Gospels (shortly before his death). But is the speaker bitter about industrialization in general? That doesn't seem to be specifically the responsibility of religious people. Note also the mention of "gold," because how dare people donate money to their church when they could be donating it to some worthy cause.
We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus
Note the switch from "they" to "we" here. This is pretty important! When the speaker talks about "they," he's venting his feelings about (some) religious people, which hey, he's entitled to do; some religious people are jerks! But the speaker obviously isn't including himself in this "we," and that's super patronizing. When a teacher says "Tommy, did we have an accident with the glue?", the "we" doesn't mean "you and me," it just means "you" (it's the opposite of the royal we!) and it's belittling.
Anyway, "we," which really means the speaker's "they" or "you," sometimes give gifts to their relatives around Christmas. (Nobody has birthday presents in this parallel universe.) And maybe they're charitable, but they don't do enough to investigate/solve the causes of poverty.
I think the quote being riffed on here is "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." But that's attributed to Hélder Câmara, a Brazillian archbishop who...lived to the age of 90. Not exactly a martyr for the cause. (Maybe conflated with Óscar Romero?)
Anyway, the message here is people like me do not exist. There are the bad hypocritical religious people who care about the gold in the church and their houses, and the good revolutionary outlaw people, who fight for social change and then die for it. If you're not putting your life on the line, you're not lefty enough.
But pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.Oooh boy.
First four lines; yes, the speaker very much has taken the tone of judgement!! People who are like "I'm not trying to disrespect you" are almost always trying to disrespect you, or at least, not overcoming the urge to do so. If you really respected someone else or thought of them as an equal, you wouldn't have to disclaimer.
And yes, he does want to prevent us from enjoying the day! If he's just made the point about "people who celebrate Jesus' birth are big hypocrites," why would he follow it up with "go party anyway"?
Next couplet: ah, because life is too miserable, so the dumb sheep might as well follow religion if it makes them happy. Except he's too smart for that, so really, it's not "we," it's just "you" again. And tl;dr: only the wise atheist lefties really get Jesus' message, everyone else is just misinterpreting it. There doesn't seem to be an interest in Jesus for his own sake, just for point-scoring against the bad guys.
To be very clear: nobody should have to be Christian if they don't want to, nobody should celebrate Christmas if they don't want to. But if you can't make your point without belittingly patting people on the head, maybe it's not a point that needs to be made in this particular context.
On the upside, the accompaniment with the Irish music is very nice??