Yet Another 12 Blogs of Christmas #1: It’s cliched to be cynical at Christmas

Okay, so technically ‘the 12 days of Christmas’ refers to the period leading from December 25 to Epiphany, but it would feel weird to still be blogging about Christmas on January 6. I’m also a day late for this little series to end on Christmas Day, so I’m going to have to play catch-up at some point.

Anyway, the first post in my Twelve Blogs of Christmas is a tribute to the second best Christmas pop song ever recorded, ‘It’s Cliched to be Cyncial at Christmas’ by Half Man, Half Biscuit. It’s not one of the well-known ones, failing to rub shoulders with Slade and Wizzard and the Pogues on compilation CDs. This doesn’t matter, as it’s fantastic and a triumphant riposte against all the Scrooges out there.

At the same time, this post was also inspired by a post writter by my friend Sudge, who comments on the difficulties of a worldview based around cynicism. I agree with that – there comes a point when cynicism becomes boring – not actually serving any purpose and becoming a form of hipster irony. The minute you start putting imaginary quotation marks around everything is the moment you stop believing in, well, the importance of believing in something. It’s also the minute cynicism becomes dull. “Now how did I guess/You were going to express/Your disdain at the crane/With the bright fairy lights”, sing HMHB. It’s an expression of boredom against the sort of person who’d bitterly inform a kid that there’s no Santa under the guise of ‘telling it like it is’.

(As someone pointed out on Twitter earlier this week, who let the sort of person who tells it like it is define what IT is? Half the time they’re spouting misinformed bobbins anyway…)

There’s something about this that’s heightened at Christmas – it’s easy to sneer at the idea of, say, peace on Earth, but if you’re going to be cynical about it, at least let that move you to eye-popping fury at the injustice of it all. Anger at injustice is more likely to motivate change than ‘irony’. And why not be sincere at this time of year – it’s about celebration, giving gifts, peace on Earth, God reaching out to humanity, joy to the world and unrepentant sleighbells. We may do our best to turn it into a feast of unrestrained consumerism, but it’s boring to moan about that before going out to buy a new iPhone – better to let annoyance at capitalist hijackings prompt a reappraisal of what it’s all about. Maybe if we stopped being cyncial and actually tried to believe in the possibility of peace and love and joy, something might be achieved…

“Make a noise with your toys
And ignore the killjoys,
‘Cos it’s cliched
To be cynical
At Christmas.”

 

 

Musically Impoverished

Don’t you just hate it when you have an epiphany? They’re so inconvenient.

If you’re a UK resident above a certain age, you can’t fail to be aware of John Peel and his legacy as probably the most important DJ and champion of new music this country has produced. When he passed away seven years ago it felt like the nation had to stop to take in the news, which is why he’s currently trending on Twitter, not just in the UK but worldwide. Mention Peel’s name and it won’t be long before people start talking about their favourite obscure bands or the rituals of music, compiling mix tapes or listening to pirate radio under the bedcovers.

But that’s my epiphany. I don’t have stories like that.

Sure, I listened to radio in bed, but it was the late night phone-in on a local commercial station. I like music, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not a fan. I never played records backwards to listen to hidden messages. I never sneaked into a rock club to have my mind blown by some crazed frontman. I can’t remember what albums most of my favourite songs appear on. I’ve been to some great gigs, but giving my cash to U2, REM and the Foo Fighters isn’t exactly supporting obscure acts.

I guess I’m just not proactive enough, which probably won’t surprise anyone. The music I like seems to find me somehow, either through a soundtrack or a throwaway comment on a message board or an interesting article on a blog somewhere. I hate the concept of The X-Factor, it being human bear-baiting in the service of turning art into a throwaway commodity, but I’m not exactly fighting the power. I downloaded Rage Against The Machine a couple of Christmases ago, but that was ever so slightly hypocritical of me.

Reading this back, I sound almost guilt-ridden – I’m not. Music is a big concept, and we all take different things from it. I like music that tells a story, and in that sense I’m more interested in lyrics than chord progressions. I’ve blogged about why Thunder Road is my favourite song, and it’s mainly about the story, the evocative imagery, the links to a mythic American landscape. My favourite poem is my favourite poem simply because the Waterboys turned it into a song. I gained a new appreciation for ‘Jerusalem’ because Billy Bragg emphasised its radical roots, while Grandaddy’s The Group Who Couldn’t Say pretty much nails the stagnation of 21st century cubicle dwelling.

For me, music is a soundtrack, a tapestry, a way of enhancing and weaving a story. (I’m also a Christian, and so music has an important role to play as worship – a significant chunk of the Bible is, after all, made up of songs, and while I’ve just said how I’m more of a lyrics man, there’s a part of me that wishes we could hear the original music that David played when he confidently walked through the valley of death, when he felt abandoned by God. I guess that’s another example of music helping us to express something that often feels, well, inexpressible.)

And yet doesn’t that speak of the importance of discovering new music, new ways of expressing life? That’s where I think I’m missing out. I mean, just because I love Terry Pratchett’s books, doesn’t mean I’d ignore Neil Gaiman, yet I’m content to have that limiting attitude when it comes to music. It feels wrong, and all the fond memories of Peel that are appearing across the internet are just reminding me of my musical poverty. Maybe I should take the hint.

So I guess this becomes a question – what’s your favourite obscure song? And, perhaps as importantly, where did you first hear it?

 

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When The Night Has Come: A tribute to Stand By Me

The world, so they say, has become a smaller place, networked and and virtualised, a village the size of the globe. This is, I guess, a good thing, for the most part anyway, but only willful blindness would stop us from noticing that something is missing. Maybe it’s the way people listen to their iPods, isolated in a musical bubble; maybe it’s the way people – myself included – are almost surgically attached, cyborg-like, to their smart phones. Somewhere along the line the world got closer together, and we reacted by retreating into our personal space. It’s ironic when you think about it.

Back in October 1960, on a Thursday long before anyone had really dreamed of iPods, a song was recorded. Based on an old spiritual and some verses from the Bible, ‘Stand By Me’ made Ben E. King’s name as a solo performer. It’s a gorgeous song, with a bassline that you never forget leading you into an almost mythic dimension – even in the depths of darkness, even if skies and mountains fall, loyalty and love are still possible, now until the end of the world.

Anyway, those Bible verses I mentioned? They’re from Psalm 46:2-3:

“Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way,
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.”

Fear’s something that we see a lot of, in tabloid journalism and cab driver conspiracy theorie, and it defines us more than we’d like to let on. Asking us not to fear may sometimes feel like asking us not to breathe, but it doesn’t have to be like this. We can unite, talk, sing songs, tell stories around acampfire lit to ward off the darkness. We can stand together – you, me, friends, families, lovers, God – stand together and not be afraid. We may have to turn off the iPods and put down the smart phones to engage with the people, the communities, the world around us, but it’s worth it.

“Whenever you’re in trouble
Won’t you stand by me?”

Happy birthday, Ben E. King.

Happy Birthday Bruce Springsteen!

I wrote this a couple of months ago, but as today is Springsteen’s birthday I thought I’d give it a repost. Many happy returns Bruce!

I’m not young any more, at least not in the teenage sense, and I’m not from small-town America. I wasn’t raised with a crackly second-hand radio playing oldies in the background, I was never fated to take a soul-destroying job with the town’s only real employer, and I never really had a dream in which a Chevy was the archetype of freedom and escape.

Photograph by Jon Sullivan

Maybe all those things are particular to the States, a mythic landscape of cars and jukeboxes and highways stretching far into the horizon, where you escape under cover of night, driving away from your destiny past strange roadside attractions and travelling salesmen selling snake oil and lightning rods.

It’s a storybook world, of course, and one that’s fairly alien to me, coming from the UK and driving a Vauxhall Corsa. But it’s somehow attractive, and may explain, at least partly, why my favourite song is my favourite song.

Thunder Road was released in 1975, the opening track of Springsteen’s Born to Run album. Now, I’m one of those people who likes music but has no pretensions of being a fan; I can’t recite liner notes, I don’t have an opinion on the vinyl vs CD vs MP3 debate. But some songs just stick with me; Thunder Road, the story of an anonymous suitor trying to convince his girlfriend to leave town with him, is one of them. A big part of that is because it’s so evocative, the first few lines describing familiar sounds (doors slamming, Roy Orbison’s Only the Lonely playing on the radio) and enchanted sights (“Like a vision she dance across the porch…”) before presenting a dystopian future for the two of them – worn down by a town that doesn’t give a damn about their dreams or achievements. There’s a way out, but they have to leave, now, because tonight is their last chance, the sort of night where time conspires to stand still just long enough for Mary to be serenaded into a better future than she’d ever find in this deadbeat town. The song starts with a piano and harmonica, gradually building and becoming more insistant, and by the time the sax kicks in you’re just about ready to case the Promised Land yourself.

(Then again, I also love Badly Drawn Boy’s cover version, which somehow makes it all sound more British – to me, the narrator is a teenager on a Council estate somewhere, trying to win back his girlfriend by the use of a second-hand Casio keyboard and a car with the P-Plates still attached. It’s smaller and less epic but the story still works.)

Ultimately the song is about hope, and maybe even redemption: no matter your circumstances, there’s an escape route. Life can be better, tomorrow can be different, you’ve just got to cut loose the things that are holding you back. It’s late, but you can still make it if you run. That’s a powerful message, one I guess we all need to hear at various times, when we’re feeling lost, trapped, worn down.

There’s a follow-up song, less hopeful, called The Promise. I must have heard it but I’m avoiding a re-listen. I don’t want to know what happens next; I don’t need to know that, one day, Mary and the song’s narrator will be struggling with divorce or redundancy or cancer. Sure, that’s reality, happily ever afters are often left behind in the dust, and yet…

For me Thunder Road ends with them driving away forever, streetlights giving way to stars, car always moving through that liminal zone between the edge of town and the open road, happy endings forever up for grabs. And I’ll look out the window tonight, offer up a prayer for the Big Man and wonder if, somewhere out there in a small town a continent away, Mary is standing on her doorstep, deciding whether to stay or go.

I hope she gets in the car.

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The Man Called Cash

I hadn’t realised that today was the eighth anniversary of the death of Johnny Cash. I’m not a great connoisseur of country music, but Cash somehow transcended his genre, becoming an iconic figure, especially in his later years.

For me, someone with limited musical knowledge, my favourite Johnny Cash songs have a weight to them that goes beyond the music. ‘The Man Comes Around’ sounds like someone gave a biblical prophet a guitar and told him to hitchhike round small-town America, preaching Cassandra-like about the imminent Second Coming. It’s all tied up with Cash’s faith, sincerely held and vital, driving a man who, even so, could still sing about prisoners and outlaws and the damned.

Then there’s the song for which Cash will be remembered among my generation. His cover of ‘Hurt’ by Nine Inch Nails is heartbreaking in its beauty, and if just hearing it is emotionally draining, watching the video is devastating, an old man surrounded by the relics of his life. There’s a moment where the lyrics drop out and footage of Cash in his earlier years kicks in; “Stay the hell away from me” he growls, looking straight at the camera and making the viewer feel like a voyeur into a man’s darkest memories, an intruder in an empire of dirt. This is a song you listen to when you know things have gone to hell and when you need music not to cheer you up but to understand you.

Johnny Cash was a legend. But he was also a human being familiar with weakness and failings. And sometimes that’s what you need from the guy standing before you with a guitar, not the icon but the man. Someone who knows what it’s like to be in hell; someone who knows there’s a way out.