4 posts tagged “xmas”
I thought I was OK, but depression is lurking, ready to strike. I have a deep well of unhappiness that sinks right down to the core of me. Was it always, innately, there?. Or have experience and disappointment dug it for me? I put a lid on it most of the time, but almost everything I do reverberates around the damp and dripping walls down there in the dark, and the echoes colour my feelings and reactions on the surface.
So I'm starting to act like an unhappy person again - tetchy, cynical, short-tempered... at one time I could often blank it out/rise above it, but now it's a constant, though often still subtle, state. The soul-searching, re-appraisal, and mulling-over of old, mainly negative events take me only one way: down. My battered wooden-pail-on-a-rope dredges deeper with every clawing draw, bringing to the surface all manner of fragments of painful, broken, long-cast-away things. It's an up and down cycle that it would be better to stop, because thrown-away, buried, or drowned things should stay that way. But that's easier said than done, as those of you with wells of your own will know.
But visualising it thus - the classic well of a Grimm fairy tale - helps me to see the mechanical nature of the process: the casting down; the slow winding up; the fishing around in the murky container for another shard on which to cut myself; and down again... I can stop this at any stage. Think 'well'. Take the handle, turn the gears, release the coils, lower the bucket... stop. Put on the brake and leave it there; imagine it swinging, just out of sight, in the shadows - empty. An occasional drip leaves it at its apocheir and hangs in the dark, searching for any spark of light to fill it and give it life, before falling into the glassy treacle-black depths. Put on the lid. Walk away. Done.
Xmas is a sad
time (what are we celebrating exactly? He's not coming back now you silly buggers), and I wonder why all the world cannot see it for what it is. If you were
OK before, you may be totally depressed now... probably not... Sorry, either way. But (a problem shared and all that) you'll be pleased to know I feel much better.
Al x
Hi
It doesn't take a Shakespeare combined with a Mozart (imagine that on your band's CD case insert though: Written by Shakespeare/Mozart) to write a great song, but honestly, for one who: doesn't dance; go 'clubbing'; suffer from teenage relationship angst; is over 40 and is thus not fooled by a jaunty rhythm/well-executed loop/repeated expletive/juvenile chant as an excuse for song, there is very little in popular music culture to engage one's ears and brain. Is there a law that says adults must be exposed to teenage musical fare as a matter of course (pub/super-market/shopping precinct/advertising/lift)? Are we not allowed to grow out of it, in much the same way we left Baa Baa Black Sheep behind us? And why is it supposed that only someone of tender years has anything of value to expound? Why is popular music the only field where experience, skill and knowledge are seemingly not valued? Why are the incontinent ramblings/wailings of some drug-troubled young man or woman valued so highly? And why are they all pretty, doe-eyed, vulnerable little things; even the boys?
Because they sell? I think that's it: the more vulnerable/pretty/troubled the young person and hence the more internet/radio/tabloid/TV exposure they get, the more they sell. Sell, sell, bloody sell; to vulnerable, lovelorn, ostensibly troubled teenagers who have nothing better to do with their pocket-money and their time. The ability to sell is the only quality recognised these days it seems, mainly because the results (for the exploiters who filter what we receive) are so monetarily tangible. When sales numbers are the only criteria, the packaging is all we are left with; traditional concepts of quality and value are thrown in the land-fill instead.
What a bugger. And what a shame. And it gets worse, year on year... much like Xmas does. All packaging and glitter, with no meaning or substance. Maybe, as today roughly coincides with that time of year, that's what brought the subject to mind. Or is it just me? Yes, it probably is.
Anyway. All my vulnerability/prettiness/troubledom could be fitted onto this full-stop (.) with room for them to roam around for a long time before they as much as bumped into each other. So. This is my Xmas song; only it's an unpackaged, non profit-making, non-Xmas Xmas song. Christmas gets a mention, but that's all; it's not about Christmas at all. No Santas, reindeers, snowflakes, icicles; no stable, manger, baby Jesus; no 'goodwill to all mankind', no seraphs spaking, no shining throngs (only in Richard O'Brien's musical version of The Nativity it would be a 'shining thong'). Just me, me, me. Hope you enjoy it. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Al
...meanwhile, on Earth, things aren't quite going as planned...
God: "I know what to do! I'll send my amazing, meek, wise, brilliant, beloved son for them to berate, abuse and crucify. That'll show 'em who's boss!"
I could never, not even as a small child, connect the beatific Christmas baby to the tortured and broken young man of Easter. There is no celebration for me: a child born, loved and raised, with one sole divine purpose: to be sacrificed, in order to somehow free humanity from the 'sin' that was programmed into us by his supposedly unearthly 'father' - some faulty, vengeful, often petty, sometimes glorious, omnipotent deity? Come now, Western man, is this the best we can do for Sunday morning entertainment? I see a wonderful, brilliant, brave, insightful, ultimately tragic man, betrayed by a civilisation which, even now, is unable to accept the simple words that he spake: 'Be excellent to each other'. (Now, you zealots: turn the other cheek.)
My version counter-balances the decadence and debauchery of this tragic season by featuring just Fender Rhodes, a bell, and a vocal.
Verse 1
Away in a manger no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head.
The stars in the bright sky look down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
Verse 2
The cattle are lowing the baby awakes,
He'll be raising the dead with the noise that he makes.
Strangers come and go all through the long winter's night;
Joseph gather up your family, slip away before light.
Middle8
Take the gold, ditch the frankincense,
Take the donkey, leave the myrrh.
Close your ears to all this mystical nonsense,
To archangels, prophecies and heavenly choir.
Take the boy and keep him safe
From misguided men and gods alike;
What sick mind could take this pure and perfect child
And turn him into a sacrifice?
Verse 3
You will watch him with wonder, he will learn, he will grow,
But the lessons he'll teach us we already know.
Mothers crying for dead children since the world was begun,
So Mary, whisper these words to your beautiful son -
Verse 4
'In 30 short years you'll be nailed to a tree,
And although you will suffer no reason there'll be;
Two millennia in the future things will still be as bad,
So grow old, be a carpenter just like your dad.'
Tacet final verse
(You're not like me, O Father, and I'll tell you why:
Sit there safely in heav'n, send your sole son to die.
So this is the best plan your great mind can make:
Crucify this poor boy to make good your mistake?)
...no, but not that long ago, I would have done. 'Not long' is about 280 years... the last in Scotland, I believe; they may even keep up the tradition in some of their more remote hamlets.
Last year, Sheffield Town Hall reportedly had a banner up saying 'Happy Eid!', and one that said 'Happy Diwali!', but not one that wished 'Merry Xmas', for fear of polarising (that's a sort of joke) the community. This country is generally very tolerant, but not of our own Anglican religion, it seems. If you want to believe the universe came out of a giant egg, riding on the back of a turtle (sorry, I get Hinduism and Terry Pratchett mixed up), or - well I can't even mention what the other lot think, in case they 'Salman Rushdie' me, and send Fatwah Whitbread on my case, or whatever... I'm not surprised he went into hiding. Do you think I'll get a knighthood for this? ...sorry, lost my thread... anyway, believe what you like, that's OK. You don't need my permission. Just get on with it.
At Diwali this year, I'm going to hold up a symbolic Peperami (there'll be traces of Shambo in there - there's no way they'd just burn him if the price was right) and say a toast to the freedom of every man to say and think what he believes - and then, of course, abide by the law of the land as it stands at that point in time. 'Here's to freedom from tyranny!'
My point is, in any sensible, open society, opinions and beliefs should be held up for scrutiny, informed debate, even ridicule (though there's no need to be offensive just for the sake of it - unless it's very funny). If we can't, look what happens: Copernicus was a clever man and, I believe, delayed publication of his book till the day he died. Galileo wasn't quite so bright and got into a lot of bother with his observations and subsequent conclusions - which he eventually withdrew after some illuminating discussions about thumb-screws with the Pope. What they both said was painfully true and only an idiot would argue with it nowadays. It upset some very powerful people at the time, yes; but come on! How long did they think they would be able to keep the lid on that? The truth will out, and will eventually wash away out-moded beliefs and superstitions. So: have we learnt nothing? Have your beliefs. Believe whatever you like. Just don't come after me when I disagree with something you cannot prove, because it 'offends you'. This is Britain. This is the 21st Century. Popes don't wield thumb-screws anymore, thank God (well not in public, but what sins he gets up to with his Cardinals is anyone's guess). Moving swiftly on...
Ironically, according to Wikipedia, early traces of a heliocentric model are found in several anonymous Vedic-Sanscrit texts composed in ancient India before the 7th century BCE. Additionally, the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata anticipated elements of Copernicus' work by over a thousand years. And not a mention of eggs anywhere...
This song, in a poppy 80s synthy styling, is about selfishness, heliocentricism, religion, honesty, tolerance and the ability to laugh at oneself. It could align the planets and remove all earthly discord if you would all but listen.
If that's Fatima at the door, I'm out...
