This opinion
article was first published on CLUAS in December 2005
CLUAS Opinion
What Pop Music Can Teach Us About The Spirit Of Christmas...
Jules
Jackson takes a moment to ponder the power of pop music's message when it
comes to evoking the true spirit of Christmas...
I was driving home the other night to the missus, listening to
Rufus
Wainwright's "Spotlight on Christmas", and it struck me that this simple song,
originally recorded for a MOJO Magazine Christmas themed CD, had more to say
about the core truths of Jesus Christ and Christmas than anything I've heard
from the Roman Catholic Church in quite some time. In the song Rufus reminds us
not to, "Forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph / Once were a family poor but rich in
hope" and that, "What kept them above / Is unconditional love",
before asking the listener that, "For these twelve days / Put the measuring
away / Cause it's Christmas". Try telling that to the Vatican.
"...it thus falls to practitioners of "cheap music"
to remind us of the higher ideals of human existence..."
At a time when the major world religions appear more concerned with propagating
doctrines of hatred, division, bigotry, segregation and violence, it thus falls
to practitioners of what Noel Coward once memorably termed, "cheap music", to
remind us of the higher ideals of human existence. Lennon once wrote in "Merry
Christmas (War is Over)", that, "
The world is so wrong". He was so right.
Just take a look at Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya and large tracts of Africa. In
those places, war could be over if we wanted it but we appear not to. Like Bono,
in the song
"Yahweh", "
I'm
still waiting for the dawn"; I'm still waiting for my soul to sing and
I'm
still praying that my hands won't make fists. Although
David Bowie and Bing Crosby are a
little more upbeat, "
Peace on Earth, can it be? / Years from now, perhaps
we'll see". I think we will because, on Christmas Day 1914, British and
German soldiers fighting in the trenches in Flanders chose to put down their
rifles and instead play a football game together on what had been, a few hours
previously, a bloody battlefield. It was an incident immortalised by
Paul McCartney in the video to his song "Pipes of Peace", a clip that sums up what Christmas can and should be about.
Another songwriter who has something positive to say about Christmas, partly
because he was born on December 25th 1957, is
Shane McGowan. In his classic song, "Fairytale of New York", he reminds us
that even though life can be a dark experience; as it is for the duo stuck in
the drunk tank on Christmas Eve, Christmas is still a season of great hope
promising, "
Better times / When all our dreams come true". Likewise,
Midge Ure and Bob Geldof reminded us that, "
At Christmas time, we let in
light and we banish shade", before asking us to throw our arms around the
world, to spread a smile of joy, to feed the world.
"Love, faith, hope, forgiveness and charity; the
true values of Christmas which we find in so many songs in the popular
canon...."
In Randy Newman's Apartheid era satirical song "Christmas in Capetown", we
are presented with a portrait of an Afrikaner, living a luxurious lifestyle made
possible by an immoral political system, and yet he is full of disquiet. When an
English girl who is staying with him starts talking about, "
about the poor n*gg*rs
all the time / It's a real disgrace, she says", he tells her to go home to
her own, "
miserable country", but he still admits to himself that things
don't seem as good as they once were, the beer doesn't taste the same, as if the
feast of the Nativity throws into stark relief the dreadful inequalities all
around him, before he asks rhetorically, "
What are we gonna do, blow up the
whole damn country?", for he knows deep in his heart that the evil of
Apartheid cannot continue to exist.
One track that makes me think of Christmas is the fine version of "Good King
Wenceslas" by blues singer Peter Green from his album the "I Got the Blues for
Christmas". His jaunty, bluesy arrangement of this timeless carol; telling
the story of a kind hearted king who comes to the aid of a poor man he sees
struggling to collect winter fuel in the snow by bringing him gifts of food,
wine and firewood, has a special poignancy especially when you witness, as I did
last Friday night on South King Street, homeless people sleeping in doorways as,
just feet away from them, more fortunate citizens drank, smoked and partied
outside a variety of glitzy bars and night clubs. In those circumstances, the
song makes us realise that King Wenceslas is not just a mythic figure from the
past but a necessary person in our society today, a person that we must become
ourselves for, "You who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find
blessing". It is a theme that James Brown takes up in his wonderfully funky,
"Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto" when he says to the Man in Red, "I'm
begging you Santa Claus / Go straight to the ghetto / If anyone wanna know /
Tell him James Brown told you". Brown even tells Santa exactly who the
children of humble circumstances are when he sings, "Leave a toy for Johnny /
Leave a dog for Mary /
Leave something pretty for Donnie / And don't forget about Gary".
Love, faith, hope, forgiveness and charity; these are the true values of
Christmas and they are values we find in so many songs in the popular canon. No
wonder that more and more people are turning away from the bible and towards the
i-pod. I can understand that. I often ponder the true depth of what Bob Marley
is saying when he sings, "How long shall they kill our prophets / While we
stand aside and look? / Some say it's just a part of it / We've got to fulfil de
book". I certainly prefer Marley's view of faith to the perverse, sickening
version presently being exported from America to the Middle East, evangelism
down the barrel of a gun, or the version which condemns the eternal souls of an
entire section of the community on the basis of their sexual identity, or the
version which instructs young people to strap explosives to their chests and
detonate them in buses, tube trains, restaurants and nightclubs.
Now, I don't know what the question is, but love is the answer. It may not be a
victory march, it may even be a cold and broken hallelujah, but it's all you
need, and you know it's true. And that's what Christmas means to me, it is the
season of love and goodwill to all mankind. So, to finish, it only remains for
me to say that, whatever you believe in, however you live your life and whomever
you choose to love, I want to wish you and yours a radical Christmas and a
bitchin' New Year.
Peace, love and hope to y'all in 2006.
Jules Jackson
Check out
the discussion this article provoked on the
CLUAS discussion board.
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