A bard on the wire, a voice in the wilderness, a home page for exiles trying to get home. Everybody is an exile. Maybe artists just realise it. "Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free."
A broadcast on behalf of the Christmas Party!
An accidentally profound film about human aspiration, longing, suffering, the expression of these in literature, art and music the possibility (but by no means the certainty) of God and what that means as discussed amicably by four old and slightly tipsy friends. The sax episode “I can’t play for laughing!” steals the show - funny and musical (not always at the same time!) and I think we all come together more during that than on anything else, though we are definitely 'together' as a group throughout. Carols and Nativity poems (by U.A Fanthorpe and T.S. Eliot) and songs (Judy Garland’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”) offer their mixture of divine longing and wry realism, holy and broken hallelujahs, true and bum notes. And no Christmas story would be complete without a compelling modern tale of an Inn too busy cashing in to offer warm rooms of welcome. John’s emotion at the end of the Muggeridge is a revelation, a powerful ending that one doesn't expect but which resolves all the rest in a way one feels was always coming.
T.S. Eliot's proof in a single poem that the experiments of modernism - adopting a personae rather than the personal voice of the poet, free verse "composed in the rhythm of the musical phase (or of speech and thought patterns) rather than the metronome", concreteness, imagism, detachment, feeling delivered through object correlative rather than sentimentality and bombast - could produce a masterpiece as good as any. The symbolist details arranged in the narrative like a painting (a triptych), foreshadowing Christ's future at his birth and which produce in the middle section the 'temperate valley' in which the wonderful Nativity unsentimentally and realistically yet heartwarmingly occurs flanked by the two colder pictures of the journey and then the living death of the old world they no longer belong to.
Performed over our version of the Nativity carol "In The Bleak Midwinter" which seemed to fit beautifully at every point and lit by a serendipitous burst of winter sunshine through the window during filming.
If I remember my 'O' Level correctly, I think this was around the time that T.S. Eliot the great modernist iconoclast of the Castle Land and Prufrock threw a curve ball towards a crypto-Christian conversion in his Ariel poems.
The Journey of the Magi (1927)
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
T.S. Eliot
Our favourite carol in a Peacock's Tale full band arrangement of Bert Jansch's Pentangley solo folk guitar version, prefixed here with the octave of my sonnet "Journey of the Magus". Also featuring bells from the church down our lane.
The poetry of the carol (1872 ) is by Christina Rossetti and the tune (1906) by Gustav Holst. Rossetti has the distinction of having modelled the figure of Christ in the pre-Raphaelite painter Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World".
lyrics
To have turned to the East is then to be Conscious of the chaos behind the plan, Mindful of the terror behind the calm, Eyeful of darkness in lit Western cities; Now I’m called at last to God’s own country Disbelieving in switch and tap and fan, A Western, hygienic, jetted Dis-Man Orientated by your love of me...
In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan Earth stood hard as iron Water like a stone Snow had fallen Snow on snow, snow on snow In the bleak midwinter Long ago
Heaven cannot hold him, nor Earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign. In then bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God almighty, Jesus Christ.
Angels and Archangels May have gathered there Cherubim and Seraphim Thronged the air But his Mother only In her maiden bliss Worshiped the beloved With a kiss
What can I give him Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would give a lamb If I were a wise man I would do my part What I can I give him Give him my heart.
Carol lyric by Christina Rossetti 1872, tune by Gustav Holst 1906.
Maz- Lead vocal, acoustic guitar. Gaz - Voice, bass, foot bells, foot tambourine, djembe drum, bodhran, hand drum, triangle, common flute, support vocal, hi hat, starry cavern angels harmonium, Fring church bells.
The New Album in 360 seconds Each track has a dedicated film, lyrics, full track notes, info etc etc.
This is an album we've made to celebrate our Sapphire Wedding. The concert of British folk and Americana we'd invite you all to if we were 45 years younger! If you have any questions or comments about the music, you can submit them as you listen and we'll get back to you at the end. Or please feel free just to listen, let the music do the talking and enjoy. FEEL FREE TO LISTEN TO ANY OR ALL OF THE ALBUM AND WATCH THE FILMS BEFORE DECEMBER 1ST but we do hope you will also join our get together for the Listening Party on the day itself. All welcome. The more the merrier!
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
