Andy Whitman's Christmas Playlist
I read about music every day. I read reviews, interviews, personal reflections... anything I can get my eyes on. When I became an arts reporter for my college newspaper, my passion was for music criticism much more than film criticism. In fact, I still enjoy writing about music more than I enjoy writing about film.
But you know the old saying: "... dancing about architecture," right? Writing about music seems impossible. There is no art form that reaches so far beyond language, casting nets to capture ideas that we do not know how to talk about.
So I am always impressed when I come across someone who writes about music in a way that brings it to life for me. And nobody I know writes about music with more passion, personality, and insight than Andy Whitman. Read more
Will Unbroken inspire you to "hate your enemies"?
How many movies that promise to "inspire" you actually inspire you?
I don't mean "Do they make you feel good?" Inspiration changes people. It motivates them. It spurs them into action.
In my experience at the movies, 9 out of 10 that promise they will be "inspiring" ... aren't inspiring. (It may be closer to 99 out of 100.) Films that are marketed that way usually conform to simple storytelling formulas about determination and the power of "the human spirit," mining for meaning no more deeply or substantially than feel-good commercials for Levi's Jeans or Ford Trucks.
I don't know about you, but most of these stories ring false to me.Read more
Robert Deeble's Christmas Playlist
I first encountered Robert Deeble's music on Seattle alt-rock radio, and I was immediately taken with his hushed delivery, his haunting lyrics. Think Leonard Cohen meets Sparklehorse. Earthside Down was my first Deeble album.
Then I saw him live — he opened for Over the Rhine at the Paradox on February 18, 2000. (He's also shared a bill with Sam Phillips, Pedro the Lion, Victoria Williams, and Low, so clearly I was destined to be a big fan, right? Great musicians gravitate toward one another, and they often inspire a shared audience.)
Little did I know that, though various mutual friends in the Seattle arts scene, we'd become friends and end up collaborating on a Kindlings Muse Christmas show, hanging out at The Glen Workshop (where he was a guest musician and worship leader), and more. It was a joy to support his Kickstarter campaign for his most recent (and, in my opinion, strongest) album — Heart Like Feathers.
It has also been inspiring to see what a large heart he has for artists; in the Seattle community, he serves as a mentor and counselor to many artists who are wrestling with questions of vocation, direction, and vision.
You'll learn a lot more about him here.
And if you act quickly, you can be one of the last to grab one of the quickly disappearing boxed sets of his entire discography.
If you know Robert, you know that today — December 22, 2014 — was a big day for him, his wife Anastasia. So I'm glad that today's the day I welcome him as a guest DJ at Looking Closer with a Christmas playlist of his own.
But first, I encourage you to listen to some of Robert's own Christmas music: "Veni Emmanuel," featuring Tara Ward.
(Wow. Was that concert with Over the Rhine really fourteen years ago, Robert?)
•
ROBERT DEEBLE:
1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupa8tqKTOw
"Take the Long Way Around the Sea" - Low
"Here for us, A humble birth, The son of God, Descends to earth…. Take the long way around the sea”
I love Alan and Mimi for the intrigue they evoke together in their recordings and in particular the tension they hold towards spiritually while writing to, and living within, a very human audience. The song itself equally highlights a fascinating part of the Christmas story as it is these astrological Persian priests, the very outsiders of the Judeo-Christian tradition, who are first celebrate the mysterious child of Bethlehem.
2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFkM_R3CZvI
Lord of the Starfields
"Voice of the nova, Smile of the dew, All of our yearning, Only comes home to you”
Another beautiful work of wonder as Cockburn that takes delight in the expansive wonders of the created world. Recorded in 1976, before our hearts became cynical and when our minds still dared to bask in the questions that science only furthered. While Cockburn’s version is masterful I still fondly recall the experience of being led in this song by Brian Moss under a star filled night on Orcas Island following the Woodsong Festival.
3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6FIjp8nJV4
"Jesus" - The Velvet Underground
Jesus, help me find my proper place…
With the passing of Lou Reed in 2013 I was reminded how this one had always stood out for me with its human longing and brokenness. Myself and few good friends had the honor of covering this at several Lou Reed tributes following his death and it remains one of my favorites.
4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3PktK0oKYQ
"Blood Oranges in the Snow" - Over the Rhine
"Who Made The Lilies? On The Jericho Road, Let The Lower Lights Be Burning, Be Still My Soul”
By God this title alone is enough to simply make you just gasp with the beauty of an image. This song seems to capture how the magic of the holiday that winds itself into each of our own personal stories… while I can’t say what is behind this particular narrative that Karen and Linford so beautifully crafted I can say that it immediately takes me to my own.
5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du2WoVyHxtk
"What a Wonderful World" - Victoria Williams
"I see skies of blue, And clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night”
Victoria’s rendition of this Bob Thiele/Louie Armstrong’s song brings out all the childlike joy that those of us who have ever encountered Victoria Williams know and love about her. For those of you who have not had such an encounter this is a good and joyful place to start.
•
I include the next two recordings not as songs but soundtracks, as they run on continuous play in my home during the season and we never get tired of them…
•
6.
https://youtu.be/DfX7XqQmaS0
Instrumental guitar.
So simple, so very, very simple
7.
https://youtu.be/IokMaYTXxFw
A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Instrumental jazz.
Joy, pure joy… nothing makes me clown around the house more than this album. Perhaps it is the fluidity in which Vince plays and the blue note like response of a live recording that we rarely encounter anymore. Or, perhaps it is the spirit conjured by Charles Schulz’s moody cartoon creations that inspire playful hearts of any adult who longs to be a child again. Strange to think but I wrote Mr. Schulz when I was just a kid, and by golly he wrote back with a few drawings all of which probably still exist somewhere in my family’s attic.
Steve Taylor's Christmas Playlist
If I have anything resembling a "mission" here at this blog, it began to take shape when I was a teenager whose world was comprised of a Conservative Baptist church, a "Christian" school, "Christian" music, "Christian" fiction, "Christian" textbooks, and "Christian" visual art — an overwhelmingly Protestant Evangelical culture.
I remain grateful for most of the gifts and rewards of those experiences. But I am still struggling with the lingering influence of certain delusions that were prevalent in those worlds — attitudes and behaviors that had little or nothing to do with the Gospel, but that had everything to do with fear, prejudice, and a sort of cultural separatism, tribalism, and judgmentalism. Early on, I absorbed a spirit of condemnation toward the world beyond evangelical Christian culture and its strict definitions.
My slow awakening to "freedom in Christ" — real freedom, which inspires me today to explore larger worlds without a spirit of fear and condemnation, and which motivates me to seek Christ in the form of truth and beauty everywhere — began in my experience of music. Particularly, it began with an increasing restlessness that I felt in high school as I grew weary of the relentless, unflinching solemnity and the sanitized sentimentality of most so-called "contemporary Christian music."
The more I became exposed to excellence in music — through television, through the radio, through the music that some of my classmates played on their Walkmans and boom boxes — the more I cringed at what I heard on Christian radio: a tiresome program of redundant, shallow praise songs. Most of them took phrases, and sometimes whole verses, from the Scriptures, but scraped them clean of their context, their darker edges, their more complicated sentiments. The Book of Psalms is full of praises, but also laments, questions, outbursts of anger and frustration, and direct challenges to the Almighty. It is also constantly calling for “a new song” to be offered in praise of God’s greatness. By contrast, this was a steady diet of disposable, derivative choruses, suggesting that the Christian life was primarily about soaking in a bath of constant comfort and familiarity, somewhere inside a glowing Thomas Kinkade cottage, away from the challenges of the world into which Jesus boldly sent us. The music was dominated by effusive piano flourishes, heavily processed synthesizer sounds, cheesy drum machines, and amateur electric guitars — the farthest thing from excellence, exploration, risk, or intimacy. Worse — it was often a cheap imitation of what had been popular on "secular" radio stations a year or two earlier.
In short, the music I heard — and most of the art that I encountered — rarely challenged me, provoked me, or invited me to think about the Almighty, or about how his constantly mentioned "glory" might actually manifest itself. It was predictability over poetry. It was push-button emotionalism over thought-provoking art.
The more I paid attention to the example of Jesus himself, the more I realized that he was not inclined to give anybody easy comforts or to merely encourage people with familiar refrains. His storytelling and speaking discomforted those who were comfortable, while challenging the afflicted to engage with God in a way that would give them real hope, not... um... "an anesthetic aesthetic."
Then along came Steve Taylor.
He was a rock artist who stood out from the pack — one more prone to satire than sentimentality, one who had a tendency to holding up a mirror to Christian culture that would spur us to self-reflection and an awareness of our own constant need to repent and start anew.
A lot of Christian music fans were not happy about that at all. They saw him as disloyal, cynical, and guilty of "attacking" Christian culture (and thus attacking Jesus himself). They were upset that he would air Christians' dirty laundry, as if it is a good Christian's responsibility to cloak all of our weaknesses in a disguise of perfection and righteousness.
But they didn't offend me. They had the ring of truth. They had a way of honoring the truth by providing me with an X-ray of my own culture and revealing those places that were weak, diseased, or broken. What's more, they were wildly creative, musically boundless, filled with self-effacing humor, and cleverly written. They made me believe that I could hold fast to my faith and yet pursue creativity with courage and freedom, and that it was a meaningful (and even sacred) pursuit to challenge my own culture and community about blind spots and weaknesses.
His albums from the early '80s do sound rather dated now. (How many early '80s albums don't?) I don't think he really found his footing musically until 1987's I Predict 1990, and he refined that on the follow-up record Squint. His first rock band project, Chagall Guevara — an endeavor that was not branded as "Christian" in any way, and that seemed to reflect insight and imagination in a more cohesive and adventurous way — had Rolling Stone making a complimentary comparison to The Clash. And his fans were ready for a promising future.
Then, Taylor followed his muse in surprising directions. He became a producer. (We have him to thank for bringing Sixpence None the Richer into the spotlight.) And, eventually, a filmmaker. (He directed a film called The Second Chance, which was unpopular for daring to cast Michael W. Smith in a film that challenged the "megachurch" model, and the recent adaptation of Blue Like Jazz.)
In my opinion, though, the peak of his creative endeavors has come this year with his return to the microphone, and with the arrival of an album called Goliath, on which he's the front man for a new band called The Perfect Foil. It's a strong, searing rock record with some of Taylor's finest, sharpest writing, and a finale called "Comedian" that I'd argue is the crowning achievement of his career as a songwriter.
So it is a thrill for me to welcome Steve Taylor as Looking Closer's first guest DJ for today. Here's a playlist that he calls...
"Twelve Days of Christmas Music."
STEVE TAYLOR:
1.
https://youtu.be/iupa8tqKTOw
Low - “Christmas”
This is typically the first album we spin to announce the season has officially begun. “Long Way Around The Sea” is pure cinema.
2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPf3dLfjUI8
Ralph Vaughn Williams - “Fantasia on Greensleeves”
Should be the official soundtrack of Advent.
3.
https://youtu.be/hZw23sWlyG0
The Clash - “Lost In The Supermarket”
The song that plays in my head the moment I set foot in any mall.
4.
"Une Nuit De Noel A Notre-Dame De Paris”
Available on iTunes.
My wife Debbie and I have spent a few Christmases in Paris, and this album of organ and choir Christmas music recorded in Notre Dame Cathedral takes us back to a very memorable Midnight Mass.
5.
https://youtu.be/tMDvfH8-xd0
Newsboys - “Adoration”
When you hear this track, you’ll understand why.
6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyK7iXVhLEs
Over The Rhine - “All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue”
The antidote to excess holiday sentimentality.
7.
https://youtu.be/7e4euOE_xuwhttps://youtu.be/7e4euOE_xuw
The Chieftains with Marianne Faithfull - “I Saw Three Ships A Sailing”
Hearing Marianne Faithfull sing these lyrics gives me hope.
8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPey60lcBM
Berliner Philharmoniker - “The Nutcracker”
Available at Amazon.
I heard this played by the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra as a child, and it was magic.
9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxYahik2tic&list=PLCJTsbSnzYozp6rdqGSSejlHP7XwcmYAH
Peter Furler - “Christmas”
Preview the whole album on YouTube.
I realize it’s highly suspicious to include my band mate on this list, but again, when you hear the album you’ll understand why.
10.
https://youtu.be/IokMaYTXxFw
Vince Guaraldi Trio - “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
If I didn’t include this, I wouldn’t be an American.
11.
https://youtu.be/N-QcYDP7SDU
Nat King Cole - “Oh Holy Night”
The older I get, the more his voice sounds like a miracle.
12.
Rev. Roland S. Taylor - “Dreaming Of Christmas”
And speaking of mellifluous voices, my dad recorded this Christmas album when I was a boy, and it’s still one of my favorites.
Author Robert Clark's Christmas Playlist
You may know the name Robert Clark because of his celebrated writing.
I'm a big fan of his fiction: In the Deep Midwinter — a poetic drama about infidelity, loss, and crises of faith — and an enthralling murder mystery called Mr. White's Confession both commanded my attention over the last few years, and I'm looking forward to Love Among the Ruins, and The Lives of the Artists.
But he's an accomplished author of creative nonfiction as well. Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces was my first encounter with his work, and it won the Washington State Book Award. He's also written The Solace of Food, River of the West, My Grandfather's House, and now Bayham Street: Essays in Longing, which I've been reading closely during my graduate studies.
Clark is also the winner of the Edgar for Best Novel, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as being a finalist in the Los Angeles Times Book Awards and the IMPAC Dublin Award. He's also a member of The Chrysostom Society.
Okay, enough with the professional bio.
Robert Clark is also one of the most generous writing coaches a writer could hope to have. Since he became a part of our lives within that constantly rewarding community cultivated by Gregory Wolfe at Image and The Glen Workshop — he's been something of a mentor for YA novelist Sara Zarr — we've made a habit of spending time with him to discuss movies, music, reading, writing, travel, and the fine art of cat wrangling. (Most cat owners think their cats are the best in the world, but I can tell you, Robert's dear Theo is really is something special.)
In the last couple of years, Robert has hosted a small writers group that has given me some much-needed community and support during a year when major changes at work brought my career as a fiction writer to an abrupt halt. I'm grateful for his encouragement there. What's more, he was one of the most encouraging influences in persuading me to pursue my masters' degree in creative writing. (He is on the faculty of Seattle Pacific University's MFA in Creative Writing program.) Did I mention the great films I've seen thanks to his recommendations?
Since I pay attention to his recommendations in almost everything, I was particularly interested in including his Christmas playlist in this series.
•
ROBERT CLARK:
1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7u8nOPZ7nI
"Amahl and the Night Visitors"
Sara Zarr has already mentioned this one. This is a kinescope clip from the very first live production in 1952, the year of my own first Christmas, seven months old. I doubtless missed it that time but not thereafter. Tender, hopeful, love pressing us forward into love we didn’t know we had in us.
2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z3Tz5AIsa0
"Bethlehem Down," by Peter Warlock
This is a 1927 hymn by Peter Warlock, by my lights the finest composer of twentieth-century Christmas melodies. Despite the tenderness and depth of this and all his work, he was scarcely sentimental or pious: among his other compositions is his own epitaph — "Here lies Warlock the composer/Who lived next door to Munn the grocer./He died of drink and copulation/A sad discredit to the nation.”
3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEedtRHklg
"The Christmas Song"
This was my holiday scenario when I was eleven in 1963: Judy, Liza, Lorna, and Joey, happy and functional, living in a television studio, and lo-and-behold, here are carolers at the door and Mel “The Velvet Fog” Tormé in the vanguard. And I would have found it perfectly believable; I would have thought, yes, this is what life is like, or can be. I hope Judy — fluffing her lines, shaky and fragile — might sometimes have thought so too.
4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLYXQGycRR4
"River," performed by Tracy Thorne
I would never have thought this was a Christmas song until the wonderful Tracy Thorne (ex- of Everything But The Girl) covered it. There’s a brass band that might be playing "Hark the Herald Angels," but no, it’s Joni’s winter yearning shorn of narcissism but none of its ache or genius.
5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CreWsnhQwzY&t=77s
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
I thought this was one of those slight, sentimental secular Christmas songs until my favorite film director, Terence Davies, led me to “Meet Me in St. Louis,” one of the super-saturated, outsized MGM musicals that sustained him through childhood poverty and suffering in Liverpool. And watching it, I realized that it’s a song for the hopeless and disheartened, in this case, a family which has been forced to give up its most deeply felt attachments, friends, and lovers. The song is a consolation, then, which is not, I think, so secular or slight after all.
6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5i1QzXdezU
"In the Bleak Midwinter," performed by Shawn Colvin
The ur-melancholic Christmas hymn, Christina Rossetti’s 1872 poem set by Holst and beautifully covered here by Shawn Colvin. I know a little about Rossetti, a retiring genius born into a family of geniuses, and an Anglo-Catholic devout to the point of self-abnegation. Like me, she was fixated on winter, on the heavy, all-swaddling absence snow lays upon the world and the possibilities it veils; hope, in a word.
7.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uRep2akPJU
"Christmas Time Is Here," performed by Shawn Colvin
Another lovely Shawn Colvin cover. I was too young for this to have an impact on me as a child but I’ve always loved its blend of melancholy and sweetness, a bit of cool jazz swing but also those minor chords to undermine any complacency we might bring to bear on the season. I never thought much about it — indeed, thought it was nearly as overplayed as "The Little Drummer Boy" — until I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas with my own children; saw it in context; saw Charlie, serotonin-deprived as usual, trudging through the snow amidst the cheer and avidity of everyone else. But then, there’s the wallop of Linus’ explanation of what Christmas really means and it’s a profound epiphany; it’s all, I think, any of us — child or adult — needs to know.
Christmas, Calling, Carols, and #Ferguson: Jeff Keuss Hosts a Conversation with Rev. Richard Dahlstrom, Dr. Brian Bantum, Anna Miller, and Myself (with Music from Eric Miller)
What can we learn from Mary, the mother of Christ, that can help us understand what is happening in Ferguson?
What happens to a pastor's understanding of Christmas when he finds himself and his family exhausted in a foreign country where there are no spare beds to be found?
Those are just two of the subjects that surprised me at the Kindlings Muse Christmas show.
It was a privilege to sit at a table with the new Kindlings host, Dr. Jeff Keuss of Seattle Pacific University, and his special guests — Reverend Richard Dahlstrom of Seattle's Bethany Presbyterian Church, SPU's Dr. Brian Bantum, the new Kindlings producer Anna Miller, and musician Eric Miller — for a conversation about Christmas, calling, and carols.
I've lost track of just how many Kindlings Muse panels I've enjoyed, but in my opinion, this rates up among the most surprising and rewarding conversations we've had there.
Rev. Dahlstrom spoke about how the experience of crisis during recent travels transformed his understanding in a way that has enriched his understanding of Christmas. Dr. Bantum talks about the eruption of violence and protests in Ferguson, and how the Christmas story can bring some specific insight to the troubles there. Anna Miller shares her own first experiences participating in those protests here in Seattle. I get the chance to talk about the Christmas playlist project I've been publishing here, finding surprising correlations between that and the other topics at hand. And then, there's a sing-along, which you're invited to join.
Listen to The Kindlings Muse Christmas show here, or one of our past Christmas shows from the archive: Christmas 2013, Christmas 2012, Christmas 2011.
Looking Elsewhere: Trailering Malick; Burying "The Hobbit"; Christian Bale's Bible Reading; and More!
This week, in my community of arts-and-faith explorers, conversations have been focused on the joy of Christmas carols, the mixed feelings over a new Terrence Malick trailer, the predictably disappointing conclusion to Peter Jackson's ruination of The Hobbit, some interesting conversations with the Exodus team, and the traditional year-end challenges of drafting various "Best of 2014" lists.
I'm hard at work on my own lists of favorite films and albums from 2014. It's a particularly challenging year for list-making, because I've seen fewer films than usual that I'd consider list-worthy, and yet I'm overwhelmed by the number of impressive albums released this year. I'll post my picks after Christmas.
Regarding Christmas...
We're into the last few days before Christmas, and thus the last few days of my first Looking Closer festivals of Christmas playlists. I hope you're enjoying them.
Keep checking back: I have some very special guests ready to DJ the last few lists.
And, if all goes as planned, I'll post my own playlist on Christmas Eve.
In case you've missed any of them, here's the list so far — enough Christmas music to give you soundtracks for several Christmas parties.
- Joe Henry (Grammy-winning producer, singer, songwriter)
- Ashley Cleveland (and Kenny Greenberg) (Grammy-winning gospel artist)
- Sara Zarr (YA novelist and National Book Award finalist)
- Alissa Wilkinson (Christianity Today’s chief film critic, blogger, and teacher)
- Over the Rhine (Cincinnati recording artists, writers, dog rescuers)
- Agents of Future (Portland punk-rock recording artists and worship team)
- Chris Willman (Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone entertainment journalist)
- Sarah Masen Dark (singer, songwriter)
- A.S. Peterson (novelist and Rabbit Room visionary)
- The Bruised Hearts Revue (Americana gospel band)
- Shannon Huffman Polson (author, adventurer, Apache attack helicopter pilot)
- Andy Crouch (author, executive editor of Christianity Today)
- Tania Runyan (poet, author)
But as I've been editing and publishing these playlists, much more has been happening in Looking Closer's worlds of art and faith. Here are a few highlights of the past several days...
•
1.
Terrence Malick fans: Attention! We have a trailer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC-3rnv_b3o
2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFAGVVt0HvA
I shared some links to the sudden wave of backlash against Peter Jackson's Hobbit films. These articles are pointing out, as if this is some new insight, that the films are doing more than merely embellishing the books; they're increasingly repetitive, taking the highlights of The Hobbit and diminishing those moments by re-staging them unnecessarily. What's more, the Hobbit films are disrespecting the heart of the story. The thing is, those who value the stories that Tolkien wrote have been pointing out these problems since halfway through Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the downhill slide into excess, recklessness, and disrespect really began.
One person on my Facebook page commented, "Why the vitriol? These are adaptations, and I'm enjoying them." Well, everyone's free to enjoy them if they choose. And I'm not feeling any vitriol. But I'm not going to go see this movie. Why would I invest so much time in something that I'm convinced will make me feel even sicker than Jackson's last few films have made me feel? I can't just "enjoy" movies that take a classic work of children's literature and reimagine them in a way that robs characters of their most distinctive qualities, that revels in excessive violence, and that contradicts the central ideals of Tolkien's story... not unless I'm fine with people making millions and millions of dollars by exploiting and vandalizing the work of a master.
All of the goodwill I felt toward Jackson for the excellent work he did in The Fellowship of the Ring has progressively declined, movie by movie, as he has turned what began as a glorious homage into one of the most appallingly misguided "adaptations" I've ever seen at the movies. It's a tragedy that so many young people will be introduced to the story through these films, robbed of the experience of discovering these characters and these worlds as Tolkien imagined them.
I am so very, very grateful that I was born when I was, so that I can carry the uncorrupted versions of these stories in my head and heart.
3.
I doubt I'll read a wiser review of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies than this one by Sorina Higgins at Christianity Today.
Here's Steven Greydanus on "How The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Betrays Tolkien's Catholic Themes - and His Religious Fans."
And here's his review of the movie.
Earlier: Peter Chattaway chronicles the history of Moses at the movies.
4.
Covering Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings, Alissa Wilkinson asks our new Moses (Christian Bale) and our new Ramses (Joel Edgerton) about Bible reading and the challenges of adapting the Exodus story for the screen.
Steven Greydanus talked with them here.
5.
My favorite Tweet of the week — from Matt Zoller Seitz.
Poet Tania Runyan's Christmas Playlist
I got to know Tania Runyan at The Glen Workshop in Santa Fe. It was her sense of humor that got my attention first.
Then, when she attended the film seminar that I taught there, I was delighted with her insights about the films that we watched, and how she saw right to the heart of one film in particular — Summer Hours — connected with her in a powerful way.
Since then, though, I've become convinced that I should be the one signing up to attend her seminars.Read more
Andy Crouch's Christmas Playlist
When Gregory Wolfe introduced Andy Crouch, the keynote speaker at the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a few years ago, I was among many applauding with enthusiasm.
Andy's book Culture Making — which won Christianity Today’s 2009 Book Award for Christianity and Culture, and was honored as one of the best books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, Relevant, Outreach and Leadership — had made a strong impression on me. In it, he exhorted believers to reconsider their manner of cultural engagement: Rather than react, withdraw, or merely criticize, we should create. For who should have a fuller understanding or appreciation of creativity than those who believe that all good things have been created?
So what happened next was both surprising and exactly right: We watched Andy walk to the front, shake Gregory Wolfe's hand at the podium, and then — much to our surprise — he left the podium. He went to the piano. And he proceeded to perform a whole-hearted gospel number, delighting us with the revelation that we didn't just have a writer, an editor, and a theologian in our midst, but also a classically trained musician. (Andy has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000.)
He wouldn't just talk about creativity... he would demonstrate it.
Andy Crouch leads by example.
In addition to writing and speaking, Andy serves the needy and oppressed with his work on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and Equitas Group. He is also a senior fellow of the International Justice Mission’s IJM Institute. His writing has appeared in Time, The Wall Street Journal, and several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing. He lives with his family in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
What is more, Andy had recently become the executive editor of Christianity Today, and good things have been happening as a result. During a time when many magazines are vanishing, he has helped revitalize CT's endeavors. There's a different kind of spirit in his work — a joy, a keen eye for voices and visions that need to be raised up for occasions of influence, and a keen ear for questions that need to be explored by writers and readers.
Recently, Andy was the keynote speaker at Seattle Pacific University's Day of Common Learning. SPU President Daniel Martin, Provost Jeff Van Duzer, and Dr. Margaret Diddams had invited him to share ideas from his remarkable new book, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. (If I could, I'd personally gift a copy to every pastor and church leader I know. The ideas in this book could be revolutionary for the church, but they would need to be read and discussed. In hopes of bringing it to the attention of a new audience, I'm writing about it for an upcoming issue of Response.)
In that presentation, Andy played the piano again, but in a different way, for a different purpose: He played a piece by Bach in order to illustrate the purposeful tensions between order and chaos, harmony and dissonance. He also presented a beautiful work of art and led us in some art interpretation. It was an excellent lecture. I so wish I could share it with you here, but — alas! — it does not appear to be available online. So I'll share this with you instead, in which he covers some of the same ground...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfhWl9chKbo
Bookmark that video and save it for later.
Because right now, I have the privilege of welcoming Andy Crouch "to the stage" again.
In case you've missed them, the previous playlist DJs this month have been
- Joe Henry (Grammy-winning producer, singer, songwriter)
- Ashley Cleveland (and Kenny Greenberg) (Grammy-winning gospel artist)
- Sara Zarr (YA novelist and National Book Award finalist)
- Alissa Wilkinson (Christianity Today's chief film critic, blogger, and teacher)
- Over the Rhine (Cincinnati recording artists, writers, dog rescuers)
- Agents of Future (Portland punk-rock recording artists and worship team)
- Chris Willman (Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone entertainment journalist)
- Sarah Masen Dark (singer, songwriter)
- A.S. Peterson (novelist and Rabbit Room visionary)
- The Bruised Hearts Revue (Americana gospel band)
- Shannon Huffman Polson (author, adventurer, Apache attack helicopter pilot)
... and there are more to come.
Okay, Andy... it's your turn to play DJ for us through some of your favorite Christmas music. Thanks for joining us!
•
ANDY CROUCH:
1.
"O Come, Emmanuel" - High Street Hymns
https://youtu.be/8BIceWGCvfU
Before we get to Christmas we do well to absorb the lessons, and the often neglected music, of Advent. I don't know that many Advents in my life have felt more tense and torn than this one, with wounds of injustice freshly opened by recent events in the United States, along with countless global reminders of how far we are from the reign of the Prince of Peace.
Alex Mejias is a Charlottesville, Virginia, based worship songwriter whose High Street Hymns project has contributed some fine, fresh acoustic rock settings of the great hymn texts of the Christian tradition. (I'll be using his simple setting of the ancient text "Creator of the Stars of Night" at our church on Sunday.) But his recent collaborations with the hip hop artist Rashad Lowery, who performs as Shad E, have taken High Street Hymns' work to a new level. On this track, Shad E's lament covers urban realities, global conflict, personal responsibility, and systemic sin, all embedded in expectation and hope. It's raw and urgent, just as Advent should be.
2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewE8cH4vHc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTbpW4tpXIk
"But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming," peformed by Patti Austin, and "He Shall Purify," performed by Tramaine Hawkins, from Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration
When Quincy Jones turned his prodigious producing talents loose on Handel's Messiah with a host of top-shelf gospel and R&B artists in 1992, the results were . . . well, somewhat uneven. Let's just say that Stevie Wonder did not cover himself in glory. And some of the soft-jazz settings haven't aged so well. But these two consecutive tracks, which stick remarkably close to Handel's music and libretto, infuse relentless gospel energy to these prophetic texts.
3.
https://youtu.be/KhPQ-tHEiQQ
"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," performed by Bruce Cockburn and Sam Phillips
With one simple change — shifting the mode of the tune from major to minor — Cockburn and Phillips turn this potentially treacly text by a 19th century Unitarian minister into a haunting prayer that perfectly straddles Advent and Christmas. When Sam Phillips comes in on the fourth verse with her modal harmony line, I defy you not to get goosebumps.
4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3jsgeXb3Eg
"I Will Find A Way," by Jason Gray and Any Gullahorn
A remarkable community of artists in Nashville who call themselves The Rabbit Room aim to create "art that tells the truth beautifully." If the only thing that had come out of that community was this song, written by Jason Gray and Andy Gullahorn, they would have succeeded.
Based on a short story by the writer Walter Wangerin, this is a stealth stunner of a song, on point and indirect in the way the best art can be. And while it is not about Christmas — is it? — Christmas is what it is all about.
5.
https://youtu.be/nn5ken3RJBo
"O Magnum Mysterium," performed by Morton Lauridsen
The medieval text "O magnum mysterium" begins conventionally though beautifully enough:
O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum
but then comes one of the gentlest surprises in all of devotional poetry. What is this "great mystery" and "marvelous sacrament"?
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum
jacentem in praesipio
"that animals should see the newborn Lord lying in a manger." That little word "animalia," so unexpected, captures exactly the homeliness and humility in Luke's Christmas story. And as you meditate on this text, you begin to see with the medieval imagination that indeed, it is the animals, gazing benignly on the little baby as they munch their hay, that make the Incarnation such a great wonder.
The text has been set by countless composers (most famously Victoria), but Morton Lauridsen's setting surpasses them all for me in its supple dissonances and reverent stillness. If I can have only one song for Christmas Eve, this is it.
Bonus Track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVC4jbRJzXM
"It's Cold Outside," peformed by Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn
This is emphatically not a Christmas song — it's for the pagan festivities that follow. Is there any song that captures the sleazy unsteadiness of "the holidays" better than "Baby, It's Cold Outside"? A masterwork of manipulation or persuasion, depending on your point of view, it has the boozy hangover of an era where "no" definitely did not mean "no."
But Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn have taken this most dubious tune and turned it inside out, rather literally, to hilarious effect. And suddenly it's a song about about clueless husbands, marriage, conflict, and — in the most sly and wonderful way — commitment, from a couple who have lived it all. Cheers.
Author Shannon Huffman Polson's Christmas Playlist
One of the best things that happened to me and Anne last year: We joined a small writers group that has given us additional encouragement, inspiration, and companionship in our writing.
It's a remarkable meeting of imaginations. In that group, we've had the privilege of meeting a published memoirist; an Army veteran who was the first woman to qualify as an Apache attack helicopter pilot at Fort Bragg; an native of Anchorage, Alaska, who loves adventures in the outdoors; an artist-in-residence; an alto who has performed with Seattle Pro Musica; a graduate of Seattle Pacific University's MFA in Creative Writing program (that's the program in which Anne and I are currently earning our masters degrees); a woman who is a wife and mother of two boys; and a connoisseur of chocolate and red wine.
Actually, all of those describe just one of the writers in our group.
Shannon Huffman Polson is the author of North of Hope: A Daughter’s Arctic Journey (2013), in which she details a pilgrimage into Alaska to the location of a family tragedy — the death of her parents in a grizzly bear attack. It's a beautiful, moving memoir about grief, loss, and faith. And I had the privilege of helping to arrange a visit from Polson to the campus of Seattle Pacific so that she could share with us the lessons of writing that book.
Polson has been published all over the place; you might have read her work in The Huffington Post, High Country News and Alaska and Seattle Magazines. Currently, she lives and writes in the Methow Valley in northeast Washington, where she and her family just posted for a Christmas card portrait next to the most impressively constructed snowman, snow-woman, and snow-boys I've ever seen.
You can read more about her at aborderlife.com, follow her at facebook.com/
And here she is, sharing a Christmas playlist of her own...
1.
"O Holy Night"
https://youtu.be/cZmc-44YHug
In college I auditioned to sing a solo part for this when I was singing with the Duke Chorale. I was too unsure of myself to make a real go of it. I wasn’t chosen, and the bittersweet memories of that audition make me love it all the more. This has all the peace of "Silent Night," and the passionate abandon of realizing a world changed and renewed, blessed and sanctified, and the revealing of the ultimate power of love.
"O Holy Night can sometimes be a little overwrought, but this version by Patti Smith, sung at the Vatican, is stunning. I’ve never heard it sung quite this way, or quite this low, and the earthiness of her voice itself is a beautiful demonstration of the divine within and among us, which is, of course, the meaning of Christmas.
2.
"A Spotless Rose," by Paul Mealor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbR5p34-grc
The texture and occasional dissonance of this does not in any way diminish its sweetness, and taken together makes it a beautiful addition to a Christmas playlist. Though the composer is modern, "A Spotless Rose" recalls ancient ideas and story (beginning with the original hymn’s composition in the 1600s, which recalls Old Testament prophecy), which is a part of the best Christmas music.
Seattle Pro Musica included this on their Celtic Christmas CD last year.
(I also love Lo, How a Rose, of the same roots of course.)
3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3vpAWW2Zc
"For Unto Us," from Handel’s Messiah
No Christmas is complete for me without Handel’s Messiah. I’ve sung it more times than I can remember, and love listening to it just as much, especially the tradition of standing up for the Hallelujah chorus! "For Unto Us" is the piece our local choir is performing this year, the words taken from Isaiah’s prophecies, another connection of ancient to old to new.
4.
"Stille Nacht"
https://youtu.be/RnBEgaGtelY
"Silent Night" is a classic, and I prefer it in German, perhaps because I studied German, and because I love the images of a German Christmas. I associate this also with the 1914 Christmas truce (as we approach its centennial), probably because I recall the movie includes its singing, and that juxtaposition of a silent, holy night against the atrocities of war puts both in high relief.
(Seattle Pro Musica has this on their Weihnachten CD)
5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dWKoXyNDGc
"Hanacpachap cussicuinin"
In 2008, my husband and I went on a mission trip to Guatemala, high in the mountains. It took two days to get to the village, and we spent a week with villagers filled with a particular kind of joy. The villagers spoke Ixil, which is the language of this hymn to Mary.
One of my favorite concerts to sing was titled Navidad, a Christmas concert drawing inspiration from the Spanish speaking world and the many other languages and dialects of South America. The requirement to learn the various languages as well as the accompanying percussion (in the Seattle Pro Musica recording, by far the best I think) brought us as performers as well as listeners closer to the universal human heart, as art should always do. The song is composed by a Franscisan friar in a more European style, but the indigenous elements are very strong, and I love that there are dark undertones even as the music moves forward in celebration, acknowledging all parts of our human experience.
•
If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, I highly recommend that you give them the journey contained in this book:
