SOUL SURMISE

IF I CAN DREAM - MOMENT OF SUBSTANCE SNEAKS INTO EUROVISION

 

A disclaimer. I hate Eurovision. Apologies to my daughters but the songs all blur into a big quagmire of blancmange. Note my use of French! Tonight is no different. Lots of Capaldi and Sheeran wannabes.

 

In the end who could argue with a Ukraine winning part from the UK. Typical. You get your first good song in a generation and Russian invade a country that everybody loves! It does ask questions of the panel and public votes. All that time for votes that make little difference in the end.

 

There is more wrong with Eurovision than that I would suggest BUT then a moment to surmise... last year's winners, Maneskin, spoke of Elvis and did the intro to a song that they seem to have done for an Elvis movie. 

 

Suddenly, we were back in the real world. Oh we were dreaming. We were hoping. Maybe even against all the odds but hoping all the same.

 

Of course I love Elvis. Elvis was the first musician that I ever wrote about. An essay in Year 9 English had me attempting to unpack Jailhouse Rock!

 

However, my grown up self has struggled to find too many Elvis songs of social transformation. In The Ghetto is my favourite. Next to that is If I Can Dream. we are back to Maneskin. 

 

Consider the war in Ukraine, the shadow of which is cast across Eastern Europe to Turin tonight. 

 

Hear Elvis: -

 

We're lost in a cloud
With too much rain
We're trapped in a world
That's troubled with pain
But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly

 

Written by Walter Earl Brown and Influenced by Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech from 1963 this is Elvis's Imagine. As Lennon. imagined a better world, so Elvis sings:

 

There must be peace and understanding sometime
Strong winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear
If I can dream of a warmer sun
Where hope keeps shining on everyone
Tell me why, oh why, oh why won't that sun appear

 

It's a prayer. Prayers are crammed with dreams and hopes for a better tomorrow. On a night that for me had too much crass and kitsch the King Of Rock N Roll sneaked in to give something more substantial.

 

For Ukraine tonight. If we can all dream. 

STOCKI'S CHRISTMAS PLAYLIST 2021

This is my 2021 Christmas Playlist. It is downbeat little collection with a little joy late on. The first few songs set the scene of a broken dark world. We then look at what Jesus might bring. Then the baby is born. Finally we see the subversive impact he makes.

 

RIVER - JONI MITCHELL 

(from Archives Vol 2)

 

CHRISTMAS SONG - PHOEBE RODGERS 

(from If We Make It Through December)

 

CHRISTMAS IN PARADISE - MARY GAUTHIER

(from Mercy Now )

 

IF WE MAKE IT THROUGH DECEMBER - OVER THE RHINE

(from Blood Oranges In The Snow)

 

WINTER SONG - SAM FENDER

(from single)

 

THE GOSPEL OF MARY - JOSH RITTER & MILK CARTON KIDS

(from single)

 

IF IT WASN'T FOR THE NIGHT - PIERCE PETTIS

(from A Very Blue Rock Christmas)

 

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS - OVER THE RHINE

(from Blood Oranges In The Snow)

 

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH - BRIAN FALLON

(from Night Divine)

 

EMMANUEL - TORI AMOS

(from Midwinter Graces)

 

O HOLY NIGHT - MARK LANEGAN

(from Dark Mark Does Christmas 2020)

 

SILENT NIGHT - HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER

(from O Come All Ye Faithful)

 

WHAT CHILD IS THIS? - JANE SIBERRY

(from Child)

 

RUG MUIRE MAC DO DHIA - CARA DILLON

(from Upon A Winter's Night)

 

EMMANUEL - JULIE HALL- CAMERON & NIGEL CAMERON

(from Celtish Christmas Vol 2)

 

STARSTRUCK - DEACON BLUE

(from You'll Know It's Christmas)

 

JOY TO THE WORLD - ALLISON MOORER

(from 5 Holiday Favourites EP)

 

O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL - BRIAN HOUSTON

(from JOY TO THE WORLD)

 

PEACE ON EARTH - YVONNE LYON

(from Songs For Christmas)

 

THE REBEL JESUS - THE CHIEFTAINS

(from The Bells Of Dublin)

 

IF YOU WERE BORN TODAY - LOW

(from Christmas)

 

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN - ALLISON MOORER

(from 5 Holiday Favourites EP)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN & YOKO - HAPPY XMAS (WAR IS OVER)

What a generous and thoughtful gesture. Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon have donated 50 limited edition 12" vinyl records of Happy Xmas (War Is Over) to charities and independent record shops across the UK so that those chosen can raise funds at a time of real need as a result of Coronavirus. A Christmas like generosity and grace.

These 12” acetates were hand-cut on the lathe at Abbey Road Studios by mastering engineer Alex Wharton. and use Sean Ono Lennon's Ultimate mix. Each record is stickered and numbered out of 50 and includes a machine-printed signature from Yoko.

I wish I could afford one but hope that I can't. I hope that all of the organisation benefiting will make thousands of funds from the gift.

This song is the first Christmas song I ever remember hearing on the radio. I started listening to pop radio in 1972 when I was 11 and got my first record player for Christmas. It was in the UK top 5 at that time.

In the midst of The Osmonds and glam rock it might also be the first healthy song I ever got into! The Vietnam angle passed me by as an eleven year old but I knew that there was a great declaration of love for humanity in this song.

For me though at that stage, and I guess as a result ever since, the lines that dug deep into my being were the first lines: -

“And so this is Christmas and what have we done
Another year over, a new one just begun.

In the thirty nine years since, whether hearing the song by accident on the radio or in some mall or by intention as I carefully put together the family Christmas playlist, these lines are my way into Advent. As I look forward to the light invading the earth in the birth of the baby who would change it all I use John Lennon’s line to audit my life. As another year is cast away, twelve months used up, I always ask what have I done?

What use did I make of the blessing of life? What have I done in my own life to make it into a better husband, father, friend and minister? What have I done to make my Church and my city a better place? I usually find some highlights and impressions made. I know also that some confession needs said and a seeking of a better year in the twelve months that beckon.

John and Yoko’s song wanted literally to change the world and came on the back of their Billboard campaign to rally the American people to choose to end the Vietnam War. It was part of that naive period of their lives where they thought they could imagine a world and it would happen as they cut their hair, lay in bed for a week or released pop singles.

In some ways though they were of course onto something. We as Christians believe that Jesus came to change everything but that we must make the choice that he invites us to make to follow him into the revolution; a revolution that caused the political and religious leaders of his day to want to kill him, his revolution so subverted their status quo. To be part of the subversion, that would bring all that John and Yoko dreamed of in this song, we need to want it to be so.  

What have we done... what do we want to do... Happy Christmas!

SONGS ON VOCATION ( DOING WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE DID)

Two massive songs. Both ever on the radio. Both with most controversial of grammatical irks. Both favourites when I am realigning myself to my vocation… particularly those irks. 

The Killers song Human has that strange line, “are we human or are we dancer”. Years before it was Deacon Blue’s Real Gone Kid and “Maybe now baby (maybe now baby)/I’ll do what I should have did”. 

Both lines seem a little bit askew. They seem to be breaking grammatical rules. Yet, that is what I was so drawn to poetry for. Even at Primary school I loved the playing with words that coloured them outside the lines of grammar.

Of course they work. Give me another line from those two most popular songs and by two most popular bands. Playing loose with language and you leave memorable lines. 

Best of all, by seeming coincidence, both songs speak to me of vocation and finding the reason that we are here on earth.

The Killers asks the big question. Who are we as human beings? What should we be living for? Just dancing? Or is there something more robust in humanity’s contribution to the planet? 

Deacon Blue make the vocational more personal. I have always seen Real Gone Kid as a revelatory moment for Ricky Ross. He has spoken about it happening during a Lone Justice concert. I can understand that. Maria McKee’s charismatic exuberance always has the possibility of being a conduit to seeing life’s full potential.

“I’ll do what I should have did” irks with some but as I have already said is that freedom of the language that I think poetry gifts us.

To do what I should have has been my main question in life since long before Deacon Blue gave it a mantra and I have been revisiting the question. What should I be doing with my day? What contributions can I make on my world? 

As I creep into my 61st I am reading the new Deacon Blue book To Be Here Someday and looking forward to seeing them play the Ulster Hall. You can be sure that when we are going mad to Real Gone Kid that I’ll be looking down my later years and asking… maybe now baby…

DAWES: FISHERMAN'S BLUES - FOR THE SHADOWY DAYS

A friend recently posted a question on social media asking about a song of exuberance, to celebrate to. I answered Gloria by U2 but it was a close run thing with The Waterboys’ Fisherman’s Blues. 

I have written before about my very favourite ever rock gig being The Waterboys at the Ulster Hall in Belfast on a magical April night in 1986. Fisherman’s Blues had not yet been released and it was a revelation of Mike Scott’s new hybrid of rock strut surrounded by Steve Wickham’s swirling dervish fiddle. My heart was full as it has been with every listen ever since.

Then… this past summer one of my favourite contemporary bands Dawes covered Fisherman’s Blues. It was a sonic shock, slowed down to an atmospheric lament. It jarred for a listen out two.

Then… it hit the spot. In its new musical habitat Fisherman’s Blues solicited different emotions. From a free flowing all is right with the world let’s dance sound this was now reflective and cathartic. It finally gets the blues of its title.

There might be a clue in the shift in feel when I tell you that the proceeds from the song are all donated to an NGO, United Nations Foundations’ Nothing But Nets campaign, attempting to help stamp out malaria. Taylor Goldsmith himself visited Rwanda to see refugees pouring over the border from Congo and Burundi. Perhaps it was the people he met in east Africa that influenced the mood of the piece.

I have been using it myself for my own mental, emotional and spiritual care. I generally carry a happy go lucky disposition but there are shadowy days. Vocation, health, pressure and anxiety can throw me into the dark.

Dawes version of Fisherman’s Blues has been like a Psalm that I have allowed to flow over me to bring salve and resilience.  

The fisherman and brakeman in the song are going through their own trials. They are chained and tethered. Life’s circumstances have them down. They are wishing, dreaming, praying for soul, light and love.

Like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass that coincidently The Waterboys covered there is a sense that there are better days ahead. Days for Wickham’s fiddle after all:

 

Well I know I will be loosened

From bonds that hold me fast

That the chains all hung around me

Will fall away at last

And on that fine and fateful day

I will take me in my hands

I will ride on the train

I will be the fisherman

With light in my head

You in my arms

 

Now there is a dream of better days. Light. Love. Freedom from whatever. I have come convinced we need both versions, Dawes going through the valley of the shadow and The Waterboys after we have come through it.

NANCI GRIFFITH: I WOULD BRING YOU IRELAND

(This was my BBC Radio Good Morning Ulster Thought For The Day on September 1st 2021...)

 

I was so sorry to hear about Nanci Griffith’s death recently. In the ‘90s her albums accompanied me across Ireland when I was the Youth Development Officer for the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Ireland. A trusty portable CD player was my dearest friend.

Songs like Trouble in The Fields, Once In a Very Blue Moon, and Love At The Five and Dime, particularly the storytelling introduction version on the live album One Fair Summer Evening - a wonderful talent!

However, there was another reason that I was drawn to Nanci. She loved Ireland. On Grafton Street gave a seasonal feel of cold Dublin streets at Christmastime and even had U2’s Larry Mullen Jr playing drums; It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go had us in a taxi on the Falls Road dealing with our divisions; and I Would Bring You Ireland where she wishes she could bring a very dear friend the gift of Ireland.

I played I Would Bring You Ireland a lot when she died. I was holidaying in Ballycastle, listening to it as I drove out of Ballycastle Forest, across Glenshesk’s 40 shades of green with Rathlin out in front of me, the Fair Head to my right and Scotland beyond. 

I realised that I was driving across the very Ireland that Nanci wants to send her friend. To live on this island of radiant beauty and to enjoy it day after day. I felt the blessing of God’s creation.

But just as in the Genesis story of Eden we humans can ruin God’s creation. Driving across Glenshesk I was also feeling the news of bonfires when in either July or August we burn the flags and photos of each other.  Gifted this incredible beauty, some of us want to poison it with the hatred that Griffith sang about in It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go. 

I love this place so much. Yet at times it abuses me, hurts me deep. When it hurts I’m glad to have Nanci Griffith reminding me of my love and the wonder of this island gem of God’s creation, set in the Atlantic waves.

TRIBUTE TO NANCI GRIFFITH - I WOULD BRING YOU IRELAND

I was so sorry to hear about Nanci Griffith’s death this past week. There was a period in the early ‘90s when her albums accompanied me across Ireland. 

I was the Youth Development Officer for the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Ireland. The roads in the early 90s weren’t great. It could take hours to get from Dublin to Limerick or Cork or Donegal. A trusty portable CD player was my dearest friend.

I was mad into songwriters at the time. John Gorka, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jimmy MacCarthy… and Nanci Griffith was very much in that listing. She was a great lyricist. Songs like Trouble in The Fields, Once In a Very Blue Moon, covered beautifully by our own Mary Black and Love At The Five and Dime, particularly the storytelling introduction version on the live album One Fair Summer Evening to name a few.

However, there was another reason that I was drawn to Nanci. She loved the Ireland that I was working in and exploring as I listened. On Grafton Street gave the a seasonal feel in cold Dublin streets and even had Larry Mullen Jr on it; It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go had us in a taxi on the Falls Road dealing with our divisions; and I Would Bring You Ireland was a love song where the love of Ireland was a gift to the lover.

That last song has been playing very powerfully with my heart this past week. Most of the summer I have been driving across the Glens Of Antrim. From beaches, mountains, cliff tops and roads across cultivated, defined and beautiful farm land of forty shades of green I have been madly in love with the very Ireland that Nanci wants to send her lover. To live on this island of radiant beauty and to enjoy it day after day. I feel blessed.

Then you read the news. Some of us gifted the beauty of this place want to poison and stain it with the hatred that Griffith told us about in It’s Is A Hard Life Wherever You Go. Putting flags and political posters and photographs onto bonfires is a sectarian cancer that both our communities need to rid themselves of. Politicians from both communities need to work harder at eradicating it.

Ireland like a lover has me forever. I love this place so much. Yet at times it abuses me, hurts me deep. The bonfires of July and August have hurt and I was so thankful of Nanci Griffith reminding me of my love and the wonder of this utter gem of God’s creation set in the Atlantic waves.

Back to the loss of Nanci Griffith. I was most impressed by this social media post by Belfast songwriter Ursula Burns who wrote about how she met Nanci at the Belfast-Nashville Songwriting Festival: -

We met over breakfast at the Dukes Hotel and started playing a few songs..... 12 hours later there was up to 20 musicians.  I think it was the best day of my life. Nancy bought me wine all day and I played harp while she sang. Every year after that she came up to say hello and always remembered my son’s name and made a fuss of him when he was with me at the gigs.  I loved her. I loved her songwriting and her voice and her spirit. I was blown away that i got to play with her and will always be eternally grateful to the Belfast/ Nashville festival for making stuff like that happen on ordinary rainy February days!

Now that is my kind of songwriting hero. Love and prayers to those closest to her. Nanci Griffith songs will mean a lot to so many of us for a long time to come but they will ache and grieve her loss the most.

MARTIN GARRIX - WE ARE THE PEOPLE (Feat. BONO & EDGE)

We are out driving to a dog walk when I hear a familiar voice. A verse and chorus in and I realise that it is Bono Vox. Ah that must be that song that Bono and Edge feature in. Something to do with the Euros. It was telling that it was out almost two months before I got round to listening. My die hard U2 soul might be weakening. 

However, going home and listening to We Are The People reminded me of why I love this band. Not that this is a U2 song. It goes under the moniker of DJ Martin Garrix. It is only featuring Bono and Edge. Yet it is a perfect blend of electronic pop and the accessible sounds of Songs Of Experience. You can almost hear it as a U2 encore!

My very first listening had me thinking of a Damian Gormanism. I have learned so much from poet Damian Gorman since working with him at the 4 Corners Festival. One of his most interesting ideas is about writing words that he can then walk into. 

Let me explain. In his book As If I Cared Damian is very honest about his relationship with his father. It was not an easy relationship, sometimes violent. Yet, the last words in the book are “I love you dad.”

When I suggested to Damian that this sounded like a coming to terms with his relationship with his dad, Damian said that these were words that he wanted to walk into. He hadn’t fully reconciled his thoughts about his father but he wanted to. So he wrote those last words very intentionally so that he hoped he could walk into them.

I started to see this as the aim of the prophets. Their call to holiness and justice were words to walk into. I started to see my preaching as this encouragement to others. The call to be like Jesus is a call to follow him into the words he shared with prophetic hopefulness.

So, back to We Are The People. The U2 lyrical nerds, like myself, will see recurring themes. 

 

Broken bells and a broken church

Heart that hurts is a heart that works

From a broken place

That's where the victory's won

 

There was a victory won, by Jesus actually, way back on Sunday Bloody Sunday. In the more recent Cedarwood Road from Songs Of Innocence we hear “A heart that’s broken is a heart that’s open.”

As someone who shares the Christian faith of Bono and Edge it is not contriving anything to see “that broken place” as Jesus death on a cross.

The over riding message is of this anthemic mantra is -

 

We are the people we've been waiting for

Out of the ruins of hate and war

Army of lovers never seen before

We are the people we've been waiting for

 

Again, U2 over the years have put their faith in their audience as well as in God. They have always seen the best in people, always sung about the positives in humanity. Where my theology might leave my glass half full in such hope, U2's glass has always been almost bubbling over with what might be a naive hope that people have the power. Bono came on stage on the last tour to Patti Smith’s People Have The Power.

Yet, these might be words with Damian Gorman’s purpose of walking into. There is no better ambition to incite in the minds, hearts and souls of a Europe united around and celebrating the beautiful game in the European Football Championships. Let us all sing together words to walk into. 

Poets like Damian Gorman do it. The Old Testament prophets and Jesus did it. Preachers like me should be doing it. U2 have always done it.

 

We are the people of the open hand

The streets of Dublin to Notre-Dame

We'll build it better than we did before

We are the people we've been waiting for

WHITE RIBBON (feat. JOLENE O'HARA & RUTH McGINLEY) - ARTISTS FOR WOMEN'S AID

You will not listen to a more emotional song this year… or any year. The White Ribbon Anthem has all the hall marks of a Disney movie anthem. Classical pianist Ruth McGinley lays down the most gorgeous piano that sets the mood, above which Jolene O’Hara’s amazing voice helps us hear the story in the verses and then an anthem chorus is like a hymn to hope.

When you become aware that the song is a collaboration between McGinley and Duke Special you sense the crossing of musical genres. This is art that is finding common ground for common good.

The White Ribbon Anthem has a weighty purpose. It was commissioned by Northern Ireland Opera, in partnership with the Ulster Orchestra and Women's Aid ABCLN (Antrim, Ballymena, Coleraine, Larne and Newtownabbey). It is a response to the devastating impact of domestic abuse. The statistics for domestic abuse are frightening and have grown in number in the social restrictions of lockdown - 8,300 domestic abuse incidents were reported to the PSNI during lockdown, from April – June 2020.

Ruth herself experienced abuse and having freed herself from a toxic relationship in London went straight to Derry Women’s Aid as soon as she returned home. As well as Ruth’s own experience she has been involved in songwriting workshops with other victims of abuse.

This a powerful song. It has a sound that the Hamilton generation will resonate with. Think Musical or big Disney ballad. Even more powerful though is the message. We need to get the song out. It needs to go viral. 

The White Ribbon Campaign aims to encourage us all to take the pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women in all its forms. That is more powerful than the song. We need to get the song out. It needs to go viral.

CLEARING MY PARENTS' HOUSE - LIKE A LITURGICAL ACT

It was like a liturgical act, embedded with a hard spiritual truth. 

We were clearing my parents house. It was a beautiful house full of beautiful things but with mum having passed away and dad living in a Residential home with dementia the things were no longer needed. A few things found their way to family members, most of the furniture to Habitat For Humanity Restore and the rest ended up in the skip. It was all top end, expensive and tasteful.

Impermanent things. As we cleared I became aware that I was acting out a song and a Biblical truth.

 

“All these impermanent things
Well they're trying to convince me
Baptize my soul and rinse me
Purge my mind of honesty and fire
All these impermanent things
Well they all add up to zero
They make-believe that they're my hero
Then they fill my mind with doubt and false desires

Why keep hanging on
To things that never stay
Things that just keep stringin' us along
From day to day”

-          From Impermanent Things by Peter Himmelman

 

Wikipedia will tell you that Peter Himmelman is an orthodox Jew who prays 3 times a day and is the son-in-law of Bob Dylan. The Jewish part explains Himmelman’s deep spiritual insight. When I did my weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster I played Himmelman very often. Impermanent Things was the most played.

As a preacher it is one of my very favourite songs. I have used Himmelman's words in a sermon on Matthew chapter 6 v 19-34. If you didn’t know about Himmelman’s deep Jewish faith you would be sure that he had used this passage as his inspiration. 

Of course the Gospel account of Matthew Gospel is the Gospel most intent is revealing Jesus as a continuation of Jewish tradition so perhaps it is not so surprising that he and Himmelman would be on similar themes.

Jesus is saying in the second half of this most famous Sermon that where are treasure is our hearts will be also. He is suggesting that we invest our lives on eternal things that last rather than the impermanent things that Himmelman so poetically describes in this song.

Jesus goes on to talk about how we shouldn’t be worrying about impermanent things and Himmelman puts it beautifully here how these impermanent things play tricks with our heads and hearts and throw us of the better more lasting course. Jesus is on the same idea.

So why do we get obsessed with impermanent things? We are back to me piling my parents' things onto a skip outside their house. So many things. A few months before they were vital things in my parents lives but now they were useless; rubbish even! It made me ponder Himmelman's song and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. A cold liturgical lesson in the emptiness of things.

On a more recent Himmelman record There Is No Calamity, the first song 245th Peace Song begins:

 

"The holes in people’s lives need to be filled
I get that. I understand that.
But you’ve got to be careful what you fill them with
Do you get that? Understand that?"