I got a chuckle recently when I came across a Facebook group called Left-Wing Conservative. The page's cover photo featured Woody Guthrie holding his famous "This Machine Kills Fascists" guitar. The "About" statement reads: "Politically left, culturally conservative. Where compassion meets civilization, radicalism meets tradition."
I have no idea if the page creator was serious about any of this or simply taking a jab at our deficient left-right American political paradigm. Either way, I thought about that name for a moment -- Left-Wing Conservative -- and it occurred to me that that sums up the way I look at the world pretty well. Imperfectly, but close enough.
The thing is, I don't really fit well into boxes. I like to question things that other people take for granted, examine them, tear them apart and see how they tick. As you can imagine, living life this way results in some pretty interesting conversations. For example, I've taken in so many influences in my life that I never quite know what to call myself when someone brings up politics. Depending on what I say, I'm either characterized as a leftist or a right-winger. But that says less about me and more about the partisans who feel the need to label and "other" people who don't agree with them. My running joke is simply that I'm too liberal for the conservatives and too conservative for the liberals.
If you wanted to peg where I stand on the issues, I could point you to Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine, Henry George, Noam Chomsky, Leo Tolstoy, Alan Watts, Gandhi, Dr. King, Lao-tzu, and a dash of Emma Goldman. Stick them all in a blender, shake well, and you get (more or less) me.
Or I could point you to Bill Kaufmann, the iconoclast whose book Look Homeward, America is one of the closest things I've found to a manifesto for my worldview. Kaufmann calls himself a "front-porch anarchist," someone who embraces the power of the local, the simple, the notion of a community banding together. His vision of America is the same one Woody Guthrie sang of in "This Land Is Your Land" -- a vision of roaming and rambling on the wide-open freedom highway, unencumbered, marveling at the natural beauty of the landscape, and joining in solidarity with the everyday people in need. It's an America where you know your neighbors and share common interests with them, an America that knows freedom doesn't come from waging endless war and fulfillment doesn't come from the acquisition of stuff.
Now, we can reasonably ask if that America ever truly existed, or if it's simply a romanticized view of the past. I would argue that if we never quite reached that ideal, it was still an ideal that Americans strove for in times past. And I believe that because I saw it in the world I grew up in.
I come from flyover country. The Rust Belt. My childhood home was literally surrounded by corn fields. The people I knew were not sophisticated college grads. They worked with their hands. They flexed their muscles to feed their families. Most of the people in my immediate family worked in factories. Our neighbor was a farmer (hence the corn fields). My dad was an auto mechanic. He struggled to make ends meet, but we always managed to have a hot meal every night, a combination of his own hard work and the kindness of friends and family who would sometimes leave a care package of food on our front step. As poor as we were, never was I concerned that we would someday end up on a street corner, holding a cardboard sign and a tin cup, relying on the charity of strangers. People cared about us and saw us through the hard times.
Contrast that world to today, when almost every day we hear stories of economic anxiety and insecurity, with people living in fear of being one paycheck away from ending up on the street, having nowhere else to go.
How did things change so drastically in just a few decades? How did we get here?
Corporate greed holds a share of the blame, to be sure. Towns like the one I grew up in have been decimated. The factories that once employed generations of families have shut down and moved production overseas, exploiting foreign populations that have no labor rights and toil for a fraction of the living wage an American would earn. Left in the wake of our offshoring is a service economy with paltry wages that have remained flat, forcing people to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet, while CEO salaries have escalated. Corporations that used to serve all their stakeholders now practice a shareholder-first philosophy, spending tens of billions of dollars buying back their own stock to artificially pump up earnings per share, rather than invest those profits into job expansion, training, better wages, better benefits.
In Woody Guthrie's America, we took pride in American manufacturing. People could earn a decent middle-class living, and the political system supported unions and labor rights. Today, there's no one left to speak for what remains of the working class. Both major parties are beholden to their corporate special interests. They both always manage to find an abundance of money -- nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars every single year -- to wage perpetual war, but when someone mentions affordable secondary education or universal healthcare, the same question always arises: How are we going to pay for it? No one ever asks that question when Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics contract with the Pentagon to build ever more bombs and fighter jets.
But greed isn't our only problem. Technology has dislocated us from each other. You don't have to build relationships with your co-workers if you can hold down a job from your computer keyboard at home. You don't have to meet your neighbors and local proprietors at the corner hardware store or the supermarket downtown when you can click a few buttons on Amazon. You don't have to belong to the local Rotary Club when you can find people with common interests online or support your favorite charities by entering a credit card number at your laptop. Why debate with friends, squabble with neighbors, and potentially have your beliefs challenged when you can find an echo chamber for your beliefs on social media?
What's left behind is a detachment, a profound loneliness. We convince ourselves that we're engaged with other people and ideas through a TV or computer screen, yet the courier drops our packages at our door without any human interaction, we don't know who lives two doors down from us, and our civic organizations continue to vanish from lack of membership. All the while, we try to stave off the feeling of being reduced to a consumer, as corporations convince us we need their latest unnecessary products so that we can feel some sense of achievement and belonging. You're targeted with ads based on your browsing and purchasing history, and the companies you buy from may even offer you a choice of 10 different customizations, to give you the illusion of choice. All this might make you feel special, unique, cared about, yet to the company that just lured you to go further into debt, you're simply the consumer who buys a can of Coke with your name on it.
In this system, even education ceases to be about the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, as students are required to prove their core competencies on standardized tests so that we can ensure they'll be prepared to become productive workers in a global economy. Pursuing wealth so you can procure more stuff essentially becomes the ultimate goal of existence.
And when money and the acquisition of material goods become the goal, other humans become mere obstacles in the way of one's own success. If you're not successful, then you start looking around for someone to blame. And our system is all too happy to get you to blame people who have nothing to do with your problems, whether it's the poor, immigrants, gays, Muslims, you name it. Since we're all so disconnected from the communities around us, our most potent tribes become those that unify around a common hatred of someone or something else. Rather than looking for common ground with those we disagree with, we see the "other" side as an evil that needs to be annihilated. One side wants to make you bake the cake. The other side wants to make you stand for the anthem. Both sides think the other needs to be destroyed. Once the enemy is destroyed, all will be well again.
This attitude feeds extremism on both sides, turning perception into reality, until we end up with a political climate in which one side attempts to gut social services and roll back civil rights, while the other side splinters into ever smaller micro-identities that can't agree on what they hate, while advocating censorship of views they dislike. And they all use mass media to control public opinion, keeping people at each other's throats so that they'll never think to question the very system that's exploiting and manipulating them. They condition you to thank everyone in a uniform for his or her service, for example, but they don't ever let you question why we're fighting so many endless wars in the first place. Surely it can't be for "our freedoms," because if it is, then the existence of things like the NSA, TSA, NDAA indefinite detention, increasingly militarized police, and the ubiquitous surveillance of our lives would all suggest we're doing a pretty poor job of keeping ourselves free.
In Woody Guthrie's America, it seemed that even when we disagreed, we all still shared a sense of the common good. We had core values that united us even if we cast opposing ballots on Election Day. We could express our individuality yet still hold a sense of being united. Today, individuality more often than not manifests as a kind of malignant narcissism, while we no longer possess a sense of what it means, at the core of the matter, to be an American, or even an inhabitant of one's state, city, community, or neighborhood. We hold tight to our unifying mythologies of flags and borders, but in reality we are millions of unmoored individuals, disconnected, set adrift in a world in which the old, the familiar, the common bonds that held us together have lost their meaning. We have no unifying sense of purpose, save for defeating our enemies at the ballot box as we wave our flags and cheer on the ceaseless violence of a decaying empire, all while hoping that acquiring cheap material goods made in a sweatshop in China or Vietnam will somehow fill the aching emptiness inside.
Not even our religious values have been spared. I was struck recently by a line in Ghostbusters, of all things, when I was watching it with my daughter. Near the end, when the big, smiling, lumbering Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was unwittingly destroying everything in his path like a confectionery Godzilla, Bill Murray's character exclaimed that "nobody steps on a church in my town." In a movie made today, we would probably find that comment peculiar. We'd perhaps go searching for a veiled political agenda from the director. Yet in 1984, when the film was made, it was a comment whose sentiment most people would have inherently understood. Since Bill Murray's character never showed signs of being a religious person, the otherwise throwaway line revealed something important about the difference between then and now. Then, even if you weren't religious, you still respected the inherent sanctity of a place of worship. Today, a Michael Bay monster could crush a cathedral, and either no one would think twice about it or it would be played up for a laugh. The church no longer holds the same meaning to us. Its moral authority is gone. It no longer serves as a cultural glue. Like all other civic institutions, it's dying a slow death. Membership rolls are dwindling, churches are closing and merging, and the gray-haired parishioners aren't being replaced by their children and grandchildren.
Some people may say good riddance, and in a sense, who could blame them? Without Christianity, there would be no Western civilization -- that point cannot be argued. However, one look at what has become of Christianity makes one question whether the institution is indeed worth saving. Because as our nation has fractured along partisan lines, so has the church. What once helped give society its shared values has now become more a reflection of our contemporary political views, as the faithful who remain often end up re-creating the church in their own image, trying to salvage our culture's spiritual heritage in an attempt to heal our world, but frequently missing the mark.
The thing is, the core values of Christianity don't fit neatly into modern American political paradigms. Each side attempts to own Jesus, to see him as one of their own, but more often than not what results is a projection of their own values onto the pivotal figure of the New Testament. Instead of conforming ourselves to him, we try to conform him to us. Moreover, it should go without saying that the message of Jesus was not just political -- although it was indeed profoundly political -- but also spiritual. One side of modern American Christianity tends to emphasize law and order, to the point of making adherence to rules and dogma more important than emulating the love for neighbor and enemy alike that Jesus told us to embrace. The other side has a laser-like focus on the social gospel, emphasizing care and compassion for the outcasts, the "least of these," yet shies away from any discussion of religion or spirituality. The former, with its Pharisaic rule-bound rigidity, weaponizes the Bible and makes Christianity resemble a far-right hate group. The latter turns Christianity into a kind of secular liberal social club that's so drained of spiritual content that it offers no compelling reason to even come to church -- one may as well sit at home and listen to NPR.
And so Christianity, the institution that once gave us our shared value system, dies a slow death because our egos would have us shape the church in our image, while the true message of Christ is lost in all the self-serving, self-righteous, angry bickering. In its wake we have aimlessness, despair, a loss of hope, nothing to cling on to. In the worst case, politics becomes a substitute for religion. We can see this most clearly on the extreme left, where those who commit ideological sins are hunted down like witches.
What it all boils down to is that we no longer have a shared identity. No cultural core. No empathy. Only micro-tribes with grievances against other micro-tribes, all battling to be heard, all seeking power so they can suppress the other micro-tribes.
We used to value individuality that rose out of a common societal core. Now we simply have self-expression with no moral center to focus it or restrain it. Be as crude, graphic, vile, and hateful as you want, because it's all about you anyway. Who cares about the effect on your neighbor, your kids, your society? In a land of raging narcissists who ironically seem filled with self-loathing, everyone is his own God, accountable to no one else. Any notion of the common good may as well not even exist. The right says "I've got mine, and too bad if you don't have yours, and screw all the bums and immigrants and everyone else trying to make a better life for themselves." The coastal liberal elites say "I care about the little guy, except I send my kids to a private school that you can't afford, and if you live in flyover country, you're just an ignorant racist hillbilly who gets whatever you deserve for voting out of desperation for Trump." But no one cares about looking past their own narrative, and aiming for the common good, the things that will help those in need and try to repair our social fabric. It's all about blaming and destroying.
Can we ever return to being a people with a shared sense of purpose, values, and destiny? I don't know, but I yearn for the America of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," whose words evoke the beauty of our nation and capture our spirit far better than that old, hard-to-sing anthem about blowing things up.
I'm tired of a people who find solutions in blowing things up. This is no way to live. We need peace, charity, and love. It's the only way forward.
With my wife and daughter away for a few days, I had the luxury of sitting back and cranking some tunes. As I go through yet another difficult patch with my health, it’s been nice to be able to relax for a bit and let the music entertain and heal. There are things to be done around the house, but they’ll get done.
As I’ve mentioned on my feed, Miranda has become a huge Queen fan. I’ve always liked them myself. But after giving the kiddo a crash course in Queen and going to see the very enjoyable Bohemian Rhapsody movie with the family, I found myself getting into the music more than ever before. Sometimes things just click, I guess, or your tastes change (and hopefully improve) as you age. I had a friend in high school who was an enormous Queen fan, and he’d play their albums whenever I went over to visit him. At the time I thought, yeah, that’s some pretty cool music, but that was about the extent of it. Better late than never, I guess.
So I’d heard most of the Queen catalog, and at one point I owned at least half of the albums, maybe more. But looking through my CD collection (yeah, I still use those little shiny discs), I found that I now owned only one Queen album! That simply would not do. So I decided to splurge on the entire catalog and listen to everything, from Queen to Made in Heaven, in chronological order. Huge thanks, by the way, to Easy Street Records in Seattle for having everything I was looking for. I was expecting to have to traipse all over the area to cobble the catalog together.
It took me three days, but now I’ve heard all the albums. And boy, is it a treat to be able to discover – or, in this case, rediscover – music that makes your spirits soar. I never really sat down and actively listened to Queen before, the way we did when we were kids, sitting in front of our record players with our headphones on. Those catchy choruses and the stomp-stomp claps – the things you’re sure to catch in passing – are great ear candy indeed, but there’s so much more that opens itself up on closer inspection.
First Impressions, Second Time Around
Here are some observations from my binge-listening excursion:
I love how the band integrated so many styles into their music with seeming effortlessness, and how they were so delightfully arty in the ’70s while avoiding the excesses of progressive rock. (And I say that as a huge fan of Yes and Pink Floyd.) They could move from thrash to piano-hall music to funk to rockabilly, and it didn’t sound forced or contrived at all – it was all simply a part of their repertoire.
Every single member was a rock-solid songwriter, and they all wrote hits. Not like three of the Beatles and then there’s Ringo, but all four guys. And not just that, but all four of them wrote songs that went to No. 1 on the charts somewhere in the world. I knew Brian May wrote and sang some of their songs, but I was unaware of just how much everyone contributed. Freddie Mercury probably only wrote half of their songs, if I had to guess from looking at all the album credits. And Brian happened to write some of my favorites: “Fat Bottomed Girls,” “We Will Rock You,” “39,” “The Prophet’s Song,” “Dragon Attack,” “Hammer to Fall,” “Headlong,” “Keep Yourself Alive” – the list goes on.
It almost seems unfair for one band to have three amazing singers. Having Freddie in your band would be more than enough, but then you get Brian, who could easily be a lead singer in any other group, and Roger Taylor, who not only has an awesomely raspy rock ‘n’ roll voice but also was responsible for hitting the highest falsetto notes in those gorgeous stacked vocal parts Queen were so well known for.
How cool is it that Brian built his own guitar with his dad, out of scraps like a fireplace mantle and motorcycle springs, and it’s been his main ax throughout his entire career? That’s a huge part of why no one else sounds like Brian and never will. (Gotta love those multi-tracked guitar harmonies, too.) And just to add to his delightful quirkiness, he uses a sixpence for a pick. And the guy has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. How much cooler can one dude get?
Roger and John are a kickass rhythm section. Freddie and Brian cast such a huge shadow that Roger and John tend to get overlooked, but Roger has some serious chops (and could also play a mean guitar himself), and John, even though he was the quiet guy and never sang, laid down some killer grooves over the years. And to top it off, John’s songs were just as excellent as anyone else’s – “You’re My Best Friend” and “Another One Bites the Dust,” anyone?
It goes without saying, but Freddie was probably the greatest rock ‘n’ roll front man ever.
I think their music has staying power because, obviously, it’s good and (mostly) doesn’t sound dated, but also, again, because there’s just so much there. The music rewards repeated listens. The band never seemed to take themselves too seriously, yet they still managed to put out top-quality music and were always dedicated to being entertainers of the highest degree.
Some Thoughts on All the Albums
Queen
Queen comes charging out of the gates with “Keep Yourself Alive,” complete with some sweet vocal harmonies and a double-tracked guitar solo – the core of the Queen sound in embryonic form. But other songs – like “Doing All Right,” which predated Queen – sound almost nothing like what Queen will become known for. And then there’s the sludgy riff driving “Son and Daughter” that would be right at home on a Black Sabbath record.
In between is a grab bag of shifting tempos and styles that always leaves the listener in anticipation of what direction the music is going to shift in next. But you also get a wonderful taste of the vocal acrobatics to come when Roger belts out a sustained A5 in the intro to “My Fairy King” – and that’s not even as high as his falsetto would go over the years.
Overall, this is a record rooted in hard rock that shows great promise for the things to come.
Queen II
Probably the least known of all their albums, but boy, is it a gem. Brian and Roger wrote everything on side one (the “white side”); Freddie wrote everything on side two (the “black side”). And Brian really shines here, from his songwriting (the anthemic “Father to Son”) to his voice and guitar work (the folky “Some Day One Day,” channeling George Harrison). Roger, meanwhile, is in full rock ‘n’ roll force on “Loser in the End.”
Freddie’s side of the record takes on fantastical themes like ogres and fairies, a sign of his creative outpouring to come, and there are indeed some hints of the genius that birthed “Bohemian Rhapsody” beginning to emerge, notably in the ambitious “March of the Black Queen.”
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen’s signature sound begins to take greater shape. “Killer Queen” is the hit song here, and it feels almost out of place alongside chugging rockers like the opening “Brighton Rock,” with a long, wild solo from Brian, and “Stone Cold Crazy,” which is pretty much the template for thrash metal. “Now I’m Here,” meanwhile, marries full-on ’70s rock ‘n’ roll to those gorgeous Queen melodies and stacked vocals and falsettos.
There’s light-hearted stuff, too, from the Tin Pan Alley goofiness of “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” to John Deacon’s “Misfire,” which seems to be about, well, premature ejaculation. And “Dear Friends” is a short, beautiful lullaby that might just bring a tear to your eye.
A Night at the Opera
This is Queen at the height of their creative powers. What’s amazing about this record is that it would be a gem even if “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the absolute pinnacle of their career, weren’t on it. There’s just so much good stuff packed in here, from start to finish.
It opens with “Death on Two Legs,” which lyrically is a devastating takedown of their first manager and musically is just as forceful – the classic stacked Queen vocals never sounded more aggressive than they did here.
From there we move into the vaudeville of “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon,” which could be dismissed if not for Brian’s harmonized triple-tracked solo at the end. It’s one of my all-time favorite Brian moments and never fails to make me smile.
Brian, in fact, turns in his best songwriting on this record, from the joyful acoustic singalong “39” to the art-rock power of “The Prophet’s Song,” capped off by a long middle section where Freddie harmonizes with himself in rounds, completely a cappella – makes my hair stand on end just thinking about it.
“You’re My Best Friend” is John’s standout contribution – such a heartwarming love song. Freddie’s “Love of My Life” will make your eyes leak. Even the lunkheaded lyrics of Roger’s goofy “I’m in Love With My Car” fit right in to this motley assemblage of musical goodness.
In fact, listening to this record always makes me think of how important sequencing is. On their early records, Queen made a lot of their songs segue into each other, in the style of Pink Floyd and Zappa. And you can’t do that unless the songs fit well together in the first place. That’s an art that’s been lost with the decline of the record-listening experience. Listening to a good album is like being immersed in a story, with all its ups and downs and highs and lows. This album delivers that in spades. The individual songs are amazing on their own, but listening to them in the context of what’s around them takes them all to another level.
This was my favorite Queen album by a long shot before I embarked on my listening binge, and it remains so.
A Day at the Races
Comparisons between this and A Night at the Opera are inevitable. The albums have nearly identical cover art – one white, one black – and both are named after (of all things) Marx Brothers movies. And although this is a terrific album in its own right, it unfortunately pales in comparison with its predecessor. Not that it’s bad in any way, but following up “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be a tall order for anyone to fill.
This record is best known for “Somebody to Love,” featuring its multi-tracked Queen gospel choir and Roger’s inhumanly high falsetto. “Tie Your Mother Down,” Brian’s rocker that kicks off the record, was the other big hit.
Freddie owns most of the other highlights, from the achingly yearning piano-driven love song “Take My Breath Away” to the delightful theatricality of “The Millionaire’s Waltz.” We also get one of Brian’s most unappreciated songs, “Long Away.” Imagine if the Byrds, the Beatles, and ELO got together in the studio to create some magic, and you have a sense of what this one is like – pure rock ‘n’ roll sweetness fueled by 12-string guitar. Uncharacteristic for Queen, but it works really well.
Brian’s closing tune, “Teo Torriatte,” is a majestic nod to Queen’s Japanese fans, complete with the choruses sung in Japanese. But what happens at the very end of the song is what caught my attention. I knew it well from the intro to “Tie Your Mother Down,” but I never noticed before that it comes back to bookend the album. It’s an auditory illusion called a Shepard tone, a little repeating musical motif that sounds like it’s forever ascending (or, in some cases, descending). Pink Floyd used the same trick at the very end of “Echoes,” and I’m always delighted to hear it – especially in this case, as the musical snippet the band created to make the effect sounds so ethereal, otherworldly, and beautiful, like the music of Queen soaring off into the heavens. A lovely little touch to end the album.
News of the World
If you went by the two opening cuts on this album alone, you might think Queen was all about Freddie and Brian. “We Will Rock You,” the ultimate stadium rocker, was Brian’s baby. “We Are the Champions,” the beautiful, powerful anthemic ballad, was Freddie’s.
But more than any other album in their catalog, News of the World really shows just how much every member brought to the mix, as it’s probably their most democratically assembled record. John wrote two songs, Roger wrote two and sang lead on one (and shared the lead with Freddie on the other), and Brian wrote four and sang lead on two. You could argue that Freddie and Brian were Queen’s greatest strengths, and you’d be right, but if you really want to understand what made Queen tick, what each person brought to the band, this is the album to listen to.
Now, when you open up an album with “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” back to back, you’d think it would be all downhill from there. But there’s plenty more to dig into, from John’s Latin-tinged “Who Needs You” to Brian’s wistful “All Dead, All Dead” and the bluesy “Sleeping on the Sidewalk.” Roger, meanwhile, brings the funk on “Fight From the Inside” and nearly beats punk at its own game with “Sheer Heart Attack.” (To top it off, he plays bass and rhythm guitar on each cut, in addition to drums. Pretty impressive.)
And then there’s Freddie, who would be excused if he didn’t write another lick of music on this record after giving us “We Are the Champions.” Yet he gives us two more, including the soft jazz shuffle of “My Melancholy Blues” to close the album. But we simply have to talk about “Get Down Make Love,” which is as delightfully filthy, both musically and lyrically, as you might expect from the title. I can only think of a small handful of rock ‘n’ roll front men who could pull off lyrics so outrageously over the top as these and not make them sound like Spinal Tap, and Freddie is most definitely one of them. The highlight is the freakout middle section, driven by a thumping piano, swirling sound effects, and Freddie’s moans and screams. It’s basically Queen’s “Whole Lotta Love,” and it’s fantastic.
How lucky for all of us that fate brought these four guys together to make such incredible music. News of the World is one of their finest moments.
Jazz
Right up front, I have to admit I long to live in a time when a band could sing about Allah and fat-bottomed girls in back-to-back songs and no one would bat an eye. That’s how Queen opens this album, with the one-two punch of “Mustapha” and Brian’s stupendous “Fat Bottomed Girls,” which, after “BoRhap,” may just be my favorite Queen song. From the down-and-dirty guitar riff, to the singalong richness of the vocal harmonies in the chorus, to Freddie’s spot-on delivery of the lyrics, it’s just about the perfect song to my ears. And yes, I admit I’m fond of the subject matter. It would seem that Dr. May likes big butts and he cannot lie.
Freddie, for his part, always managed to skirt the line between over the top and ridiculous, and he did it with swaggering authority on “Fat Bottomed Girls.” But even the stuff that crosses over into ridiculousness is great fun. Case in point – “Mustapha.” It opens up sounding like an Islamic call to prayer and makes repeated references to “Mustapha Ibrahim” while telling us that “Allah will pray for you.” Most of the rest of it sounds like gibberish, but it fits the mood perfectly, teetering on the edge of hyperactive zaniness in a way none of their other tracks do. Freddie comes from a Zoroastrian family, so I doubt he’s writing an ode to Islam here. I think he was just into the mood he created with this song. It is truly one of the weirdest things in the entire Queen catalog, and I love it dearly.
Speaking of the absurd, there’s also the fantastically goofy “Bicycle Race,” the companion piece to “Fat Bottomed Girls” (“fat bottomed girls will be riding today/So look out for those beauties, oh yeah”). And the gems just keep coming. There’s John’s upbeat rocker “If You Can’t Beat Them.” There’s Brian’s “Dead on Time,” a hard-rocking throwback to the sound of their early albums. There’s the melancholy beauty of “In Only Seven Days” and “Leaving Home Ain’t Easy,” the blues shuffle of “The Dreamer’s Ball,” and of course the hit song (though not one of my personal favorites) “Don’t Stop Me Now.”
That’s a lot of awesomeness packed into one record. In fact, I’d say this is probably Queen’s last great album. Not that they wouldn’t go on to make more great songs, but I don’t find an album that’s so consistently satisfying all the way through after this one.
The Game
John was Queen’s secret weapon. While everyone else was busy writing and singing, John quietly held down the bottom end with some pretty amazing bass work – all while doing his own writing and letting other people sing his songs. And I’d wager that when most people think of this album, their minds leap right to John’s killer bass line that pins down his song “Another One Bites the Dust.”
That’s definitely one of the best tracks here, and it charted a new path for Queen musically, as they broke from their eclectic ways and began writing more conventional songs, albeit still with an unmistakable Queen touch. The best example here of a bridge between old and new styles is the opener, “Play the Game,” which, with its beautiful melody, distinctive piano and guitar work, and stacked vocal harmonies, could have been perfectly at home on any of their ’70s albums. The one thing that makes it different is the addition of a synthesizer, which for Queen was a big deal, as they’d always boasted on their albums up to this point that they didn’t use any synths to create their sounds. It was the dawn of a new era for sure.
The other cut most people know from this album is Freddie’s rockabilly tribute to Elvis, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” which topped the charts in the United States. But there’s more goodness here that the two big hits tend to overshadow. “Need Your Loving Tonight,” another tune from John, has a bright, happy hook in the refrain that’s nearly impossible not to sing along with, while Roger’s “Rock It” lives up to its title and then some. But the real hidden gem is “Dragon Attack.” Surprisingly not written by John but by Brian, it has one of the funkiest bass lines of any Queen song. I prefer it to the bass line on “Another One Bites the Dust,” but they’re both undeniably great.
Flash Gordon
You’ve probably heard the theme song from this soundtrack that was released as a single, but that version actually doesn’t exist on the album. Most of it’s there on the first cut, but the single version includes different dialogue and sound effects from the film. You’ll find it all here on the soundtrack, but it’s sprinkled throughout the record, just as Brian’s main “Flash” theme keeps popping in and out.
In between are some beautiful atmospheric interludes, some moments of tension and drama, and of course some campy humor. How could it be otherwise with this movie? It’s by far the oddest record in Queen’s catalog, but it has an unexpected quality to it that makes you want to keep listening, as the moods ebb and flow along. It’s almost like a continuous 36-minute song.
One of the things I find most interesting is that all four members contributed separately and simultaneously to the writing of the music – apparently because of the time constraints they had to make the soundtrack. Yet it holds together really well, which is testament to how well these guys worked together. They were clearly all on the same wavelength.
Among the highlights: the traditional wedding march, reimagined on multitracked Brian May guitar – and it sounds every bit as awesome as you’d expect. If you like Brian’s treatment of “God Save the Queen” on A Night at the Opera and the 20th Century Fox fanfare on the Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack, you’ll love this one, too.
Hot Space
Remember how I mentioned the importance of song sequencing on an album? I’m half-convinced that putting so much dance-based music up front had people tuning out of this record before they gave it a chance.
Truth is, there’s plenty of music in the second half that sounds more characteristically like Queen, showing a natural progression of their sound from The Game. The material on side one is dominated by synthesizers and drum machines and at times bears little resemblance to Queen’s signature sound, but even those tunes, in their own way, point the way toward things like the pulsating electronics of “Radio Ga Ga” on the next record.
No, it’s not a great album, but it does have its moments. Michael Jackson cited it as inspiration for his Thriller album, so you know it has to have something going for it. Of course, the record is probably best known for its last-minute addition, Freddie’s duet with David Bowie on “Under Pressure.” That song sounds out of place from the rest of the album, but it’s also probably the best thing about the album.
The Works
Here Queen starts to settle into their latter-day style, where the electronics begin to embellish the rock ‘n’ roll rather than overpower it. The kitchen-sink approach that characterized their most adventurous ’70s music is long gone now, but the layered guitars and the gorgeous vocal harmonies aren’t. “Hammer to Fall” is a standout rocker, and “Man on the Prowl” is the sequel to “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” that most people don’t know about.
But for me, this record is all about “Radio Ga Ga.” So soothing, so dreamy, and those vocal melodies are straight from heaven. It conjures up warm memories of my childhood, when I’d sit in front of my radio without any cares and listen to the new music hitting the airwaves, and when artists like The Buggles and Gary Numan were exploring the possibilities of electronic music. Makes me yearn for more innocent days. I think it’s one of Queen’s most beautiful songs, and without a doubt Roger Taylor’s greatest artistic achievement.
A Kind of Magic
Queen’s second soundtrack album, this one for the Highlander film. In places, it feels like a step backward from The Works musically. Some of the tunes are awfully weak, reminiscent at times of the more unremarkable pop explorations of Hot Space. Yet in between are some sweet vocal harmonies and one of Brian’s most arresting solos, reminiscent of bagpipes, on “Gimme the Prize,” a rip-roaring rocker.
The opener, Roger’s “One Vision,” is pretty solid, too, with a funny ending lyric (“gimme gimme gimme fried chicken!”) that reminds you Queen never took themselves too seriously. However, this record is probably best known for Brian’s grandiose ballad “Who Wants to Live Forever,” which was written for the characters in the movie but took on much greater significance after Freddie’s death.
The Miracle
This record closes out a decade that was very hit-and-miss for Queen. The Miracle has echoes of the previous album, in that there are a few cuts where the guys embrace their hard-rock side alongside some straight pop-rock tunes that fail to impress. “I Want It All” is the best rocker of the bunch, though the lyrical message leaves something to be desired. The title track, on the other hand, serves up a wonderful peace-and-love message and celebrates the miracle of life, and there’s an incendiary guitar solo toward the end that sounds unlike anything else Brian has ever done.
But my favorite here is probably the electronics-driven “The Invisible Man,” with all four members getting playfully name-checked as the tune chugs happily along.
Innuendo
Freddie says goodbye on a high note.
The title track is a satisfying return to classic Queen form, moving through multiple dramatic sections and moods, including a lovely flamenco-guitar bit in the middle that was performed (whether in whole or in part is unclear) by Brian’s friend Steve Howe, who happened to stop by the studio and got roped into playing.
“Headlong,” meanwhile, is a fantastic high-energy rocker – for my money, their last truly great song. And “Bijou” is an emotional tour de force built around Brian’s mournful guitar. Just a gorgeous, heart-tugging tune.
“The Show Must Go On” isn’t my favorite, but it’s the last song on the last album before Freddie died, and even though he was very ill by the time of the recording, he went in and belted out one final great vocal performance, with everything he had to give. Brian says that given the demanding nature of the vocal part, he was concerned for Freddie that he wouldn’t be physically able to sing it. Freddie’s response? He downed a shot of vodka, declared that he’d do it, and then went and did it, like a champ. What a way to bow out. He was a fighter till the end.
Made in Heaven
Queen’s final record has the surviving members adding new music to older tracks – some previously unreleased, some taken from Freddie’s solo works, some built around vocals Freddie recorded before he died. It’s quite a stirring tribute to their friend.
The chills start right from the beginning, with Freddie singing about what a beautiful day it is, and they don’t let up. “A Winter’s Tale” has Freddie remarking on the gorgeous view out his window as Brian’s weeping guitar practically channels David Gilmour. It was the last full song Freddie wrote on his own. “Ooh, it’s bliss,” he sings as the song fades out. You really get the sense that he was at peace with his condition and looking ahead to what may lie beyond for him.
“Mother Love,” containing the final vocal recording of Freddie’s life, is a highlight among highlights. The last minute or so is absolutely devastating. Brian sings the final verse because Freddie needed a rest – but Freddie never made it back to the studio. So Brian is left to carry on, completing the work that Freddie left behind. Then the music fades into a live setting, where we hear Freddie leading an adoring crowd in one of his famous “Ay-Oh” singalongs – a haunting reminder of what a fantastic showman he was. From the background emerges another noise: What sounds like a radio dial scanning through the stations is actually a millisecond of every song Queen ever recorded, flashing by in the blink of an eye, like a life gone too soon. And the last thing we hear is a crying baby – a reminder, perhaps, that the cycle of life goes on after we’re gone.
The lyric from “Mother Love” that I can’t shake: “I can’t take it if you see me cry/I long for peace before I die.”
But if it sounds like this is a maudlin record, it isn’t. It’s a celebration of a life fully lived, and very tastefully done. What a great record for the classic Queen lineup to close out their career on.
Ranking the Royalty
Picking favorites is sort of like picking your favorite kid, but here’s what I’d currently consider my top 25 Queen songs. No drastic changes from before I went on this listening binge – I mostly gained a deeper appreciation for music I already enjoyed. But there are a few new entries, either of songs I’d never heard before or ones I’d completely forgotten about.
Aside from “BoRhap” at the top, any of this is subject to change at any time.
My Queen Top 25 Playlist Would Be...
Bohemian Rhapsody Fat Bottomed Girls ’39 We Will Rock You Radio Ga Ga Mustapha Headlong Hammer to Fall Gimme the Prize Death on Two Legs Get Down Make Love Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon Crazy Little Thing Called Love One Vision Keep Yourself Alive Dragon Attack The Prophet’s Song Innuendo Flash Gordon Theme You’re My Best Friend Sheer Heart Attack Love of My Life We Are the Champions Bicycle Race Another One Bites the Dust
Ranking the Albums? Not Quite As Hard...
I don’t dislike any of them, but if I had to pick:
A Night at the Opera News of the World Jazz Sheer Heart Attack The Game Innuendo The Works A Day at the Races Made in Heaven Queen II Queen Flash Gordon A Kind of Magic The Miracle Hot Space
Her Majesty’s Therapy
Music has always been my drug of choice. It affects me far more than any other art form. It’s not unusual for a good song to give me goose bumps, and Queen’s music has done that in abundance over the past few days. I’ve lived with a crappy, malfunctioning body for several years now, and with my latest flare-up of whatever this is that the doctors can’t figure out, it’s been a godsend to have some good music to soothe me. Queen came back into my line of sight just when I needed them to, and for that I’m grateful for the gift of music they left behind for us.
I love writing about music almost as much as I love listening to it, hence this post. Writing helps in its own way. So if you took the time to read it, thanks. And may you find and embrace the music that lifts your spirits when you need it in your own life.
And Joseph saw a woman coming down from the hill-country, and she said to him: where are you going? And he said: I am seeking a Hebrew midwife. And she answered: Are you of Israel? And he said to her: Yes. And she said: And who is it that is bringing forth in the cave? And he said: A woman betrothed to me. And she said: Is she not your wife? And he said: It is Mary that was reared in the temple of the Lord, and I obtained her by lot as my wife. And yet she is not my wife, but has conceived of the Holy Spirit.
And the midwife said to him: Is this true? And Joseph said to her: Come and see. And the midwife went away with him.
And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day, because my eyes have seen strange things, because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His mother Mary. And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight.
That passage comes from the Protoevangelium of James, a text that dates to around the middle of the second century. It provides us with the details, previously unrecorded, of the conception, birth, and childhood of Mary. The text shows us a young girl who was special and holy from her youngest days, taking food from angels and spending her days in prayer. Knowing there was something special about her, her parents, Anne and Joachim, decided to have her raised in the temple. But when she came of age and her parents were gone, she needed to be placed in the care of a male guardian. The man chosen was Joseph, who in this telling is an old man, a widower with children from his previous marriage. He's embarrassed at first to be taking in such a young girl, but he does his duty to the temple and proves to be a good provider, even when his faith and trust are shaken by word of Mary's pregnancy.
The difference we find in this telling of the Nativity is that Joseph goes off to find a midwife. Salome, however, does little more than witness the miraculous birth taking place in front of her, as a cloud of light surrounded the birthplace.
The light, of course, represents the light that Mary's newborn son has brought into the world.
Carl Heinrich Bloch, The Birth of Jesus
Nearby shepherds would come to see and adore that night. But there would be no wise men. Not yet. Their presence at the stable is a conflation of the two Gospel accounts of the Nativity. Luke never mentions them, but Matthew only mentions that they followed the star to a house where the family was staying. Shortly afterward, Joseph is told in a dream to flee to Egypt, as Herod now knows he has a rival king to contend with and orders the murder of all boys in Bethlehem under age 2.
And with that begins the story of the Holy Family. A miraculous pregnancy, followed by an unlikely birthplace for a king, after which they become refugees -- a story that sounds all too familiar in our world. When we see families and their children fleeing for their lives for safer havens, may we always see Christ in their faces and their struggles. May we soften our hearts and see him in all who are in need, all who are cast out, all who are forgotten.
As love is born anew into the world today, may we ourselves strive to birth the love of Christ into a world that needs it, perhaps more than ever. For Salome is not the Christ child's only midwife. We all are, as St. John of the Cross reminds us:
If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the Holy and say, “I need shelter for the night. Please take me inside your heart; my time is so close.” Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us. Yes, there, under the dome of your being, does creation come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim, the sacred womb of your soul, as God grasps our arms for help: for each of us is His beloved servant never far. If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street, pregnant with Light, and sing!
And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. "For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. "He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. "He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever."
Today's lectionary has Mary reciting the Magnificat, the longest passage spoken by a woman in the New Testament, and a manifesto of Christian values so revolutionary that its public recitation has been banned more than once over the years. Such is the case when the everyday people threaten the privilege of the powerful. And that is precisely what Christ came to do.
Yet a recent Washington Post article cited an unscientific Twitter poll showing that a vast majority of evangelical Christians -- 71%! -- either had never heard of the Magnificat, or their churches never read or discussed it. A further 21% said they'd come across it only a few times.
That's 92% who either have never heard the text or barely ever encountered it.
And that, in a nutshell, explains so very, very much about the state of evangelical American Christianity.
The Gospel of Jesus is a social gospel. He came to establish a kingdom of love that enshrined justice and equality. Being born into a world that was occupied by powerful foreign oppressors, he saw the plight of his people. And being born into the humblest of families in the humblest of circumstances, he became their voice, their advocate.
But he didn't bring the message that many expected. They expected a leader who would organize a violent revolution and take back their land for their own. Instead, he taught a gospel of loving and praying for those who persecuted them. Rather than stooping to their level and meeting violence with violence, he called on his followers to end the cycle of violence. More than that, he urged his followers to be so kind and generous to their oppressors as to bring shame upon them. If someone sues you for your coat, give him your cloak as well, and stand naked before him in court. If a solider conscripts you to carry his belongings for him for a mile, insist that you go two miles and expose the injustice of the request. As Paul put it, echoing Proverbs, by doing so you heap burning coals on their heads.
Thus can we see that Jesus did not teach a gospel of passivity in the face of the evil his people faced. It's often said that the nonviolence he preached isn't realistic for this world, in that we simply must meet violence with violence. But when Jesus said to turn the other cheek to the one who strikes you, he wasn't telling people to simply sit there and take the abuse. Just as when he told his followers to expose the injustice of their oppressors by doubling down on what they asked, so here he is exposing the hollowness of the violence that systems of power use to control the people. Rather than cower away after being struck, you stand up, brush yourself off, look your attacker square in the eye, and let him know that there's nothing he can do to take away your humanity.
In that sense, the nonresistance Jesus teaches is quite radical. It challenges systems of power both by refusing to meet their violence with your own violence and by showing them that they can't use their violence to control you.
That is what made Jesus so dangerous to those in power. He taught a gospel that, if followed, would render the common people unable to be controlled through coercion and violence, the only means that systems of power know. To meet their iron fist with love would confound them. To not passively cooperate when they demanded it of you would not compute. Gandhi understood this. Martin Luther King Jr. understood it. And before they paid with their lives, they changed the world for the better.
It's for this reason that Christian anarchist and activist Ammon Hennacy once said:
Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Therefore one with love, courage, and wisdom is one in a million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi.
Yet somehow this revolutionary message has been lost, as Christianity has been turned into a system of using select quotes to condemn and other the very outcasts Jesus embraced, a system that seeks the very kind of temporal power Jesus rejected, a hollow philosophy that eviscerates the Sermon on the Mount and reduces Jesus to a ticket to heaven.
Couple that with the fact that most Protestant Christians are allergic to Mary, and it's no wonder the Magnificat is forgotten. An evangelical once told me she didn't even know what the Beatitudes were, and if practicing Christians don't even know something that basic and essential about Christ's teachings, it's clear that the Magnificat doesn't stand a chance.
There's also the obvious fact that the Magnificat shows a woman preaching a powerful message, which to some simply gives too much agency to women. Far too many corners of the church would rather cite Paul's insistence that women remain silent than to point out that Jesus was an absolute radical for treating women as equals in a time when they were no more than the property of their fathers or husbands.
He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
That is the essence of the upside-down kingdom of God that Jesus brought to the world. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. And it was Jesus' mother, whom all generations shall call blessed, who first proclaimed it.
It's an astoundingly powerful statement from a woman so often portrayed as silent, passive, obedient -- at times no more than a human flowerpot. For although Mary was fair and humble, she was also extraordinarily courageous and strong. To be told at age 14 or 15 that you're going to bear the human incarnation of the God of the universe? And that this pregnancy could cost you your marriage, your social standing, even your life? And then to journey for miles while ready to give birth, and to give birth surrounded by farm animals in a stable? To be told by a prophet that both you and your child will suffer? To lose your young boy in the city and you have to go back and find him? And, finally, after apparently being widowed, to have to watch your son die a horrible and gruesome death before your eyes?
This woman is as tough as nails. Beautiful and gentle, certainly, but also our bad-ass Queen of Heaven. The Magnificat, a sneak preview of what's to come in her son's life, is all the evidence you could need.
There's always talk this time of year about whether Christians appropriated pagan holidays and made them their own. Many bristle at the very idea, yet the facts are what they are. Christians did, indeed, adapt pagan traditions and celebrations over the centuries, not because they wanted to follow pagan ways, but to make Christianity attractive to the peoples in the places where Christianity spread. Easter eggs? An obvious symbol of fertility. Christmas trees? A symbol of fertility and new life in the dead of winter. Even Marian devotion rose to the level it did in part because people in places with goddess worship wanted to continue to venerate a female image of the divine.
As we dig deeper, we find even more connections between pagan and Christian. Many years ago, my wife brought me back a Celtic cross from Ireland, made from Irish peat, that included fine details of pagan symbolism and imagery. Then there's Brigid's cross, quite possibly a reworking of the pagan sunwheel.
Brigid herself is a fascinating character, almost a perfect bridge between the Christian and pagan worlds. Legend holds that Brigid was a beloved Irish abbess who could work wonders and miracles with her strong faith and great compassion. So beloved was she that she became known as "Mary of the Gael." One story holds that she was "accidentally" made a bishop, when the priest consecrating her as a nun read the wrong prayers and later said the Holy Spirit compelled him to do so. And thus does Brigid, often depicted in imagery as holding the shepherd's crook of the bishop, give us a strong argument for the ordination of women.
However, before the Christians arrived, the Irish pagans already had a goddess they knew as Brigid. The beloved pagan deity was the goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft.
It is probably not a coincidence that Ireland has both a Celtic deity named Brigid and a Catholic saint of the same name. The centuries have blurred the distinction between the two so much that it's impossible to tell where legend ends and history begins. It's likely that the Irish loved their mother goddess Brigid so much that they refused to give her up when the Christians arrived, and so the goddess, in a sense, became the miracle-working Catholic saint. Both are associated with the illumination and cleansing of fire, and with sacred Irish wells. Moreover, St. Brigid's feast day falls on Feb. 1, which also happens to be Imbolc, the pagan festival that welcomes spring and is associated with the deity Brigid.
But why speak of Brigid at Christmas? Because of a delightful story called Brigid's Cloak. In the story, a druid comes to visit Brigid's family at her birth and presents her with a beautiful blue cloak, the color symbolic of royalty -- and, of course, the Virgin Mary. Many years pass, and Brigid, while tending her sheep, suddenly finds herself in another place and time, where a traveling man and his pregnant wife knock on the door and ask for a place to stay for the night. Whether Brigid was transported to ancient Bethlehem or she was having a dream or a vision isn't entirely clear. But either way, Mary of the Gael knew what she had to do. With no room at the inn, Brigid prepared a nearby stable so the expectant mother could give birth. As her reward, Brigid finds her old cloak, tattered by the years, looking bright and brand new, and now dotted with brilliant stars.
Brigid's simple act of service prompts us to reflect this Advent season on what we can do to help prepare the way for the coming of the Christ child. Whether it's helping someone in need or merely softening our hearts to let the love of God shine in, we can all do our part to keep the spirit of Christmas alive and well in our world.
An article I read recently at Rival Nations (highly recommended, by the way) drove home an important point regarding the way Jesus is presented to us in scripture. It's something that we've forgotten, because we lack an awareness of the context the Gospels were written in.
In Jesus' time, divine conceptions and virgin births were commonplace for men of power and importance. Imbuing them with these qualities reinforced their right to rule over the people. After all, if you're the son of Apollo, as was said of "Son of God" Augustus Caesar, then who would ever have the authority to challenge your status? It's the divine right of kings taken to the next level.
Skeptics, then, might say that the Jesus story was simply a poor copy of what was common at the time, in an attempt to give him legitimacy as a moral authority. But I think that gets the intention backward. Rather, stating that Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God and born of a virgin delegitimizes the claim that the temporal powers of the day claimed for themselves. It was a deeply radical political statement that announced to the rulers of Jesus' world that they held no true authority, that their claims to divinity were hollow, because the one who embodied those truths had arrived. And he was not a powerful man born in a palace, but rather a child of peasants, born among animals in the stink of a stable. If there's a clearer example of God's promise to exalt the lowly and bring down the powerful, I can't think of it.
We sometimes forget how political the Gospels were. We see them today only as religious texts, removed from the current events of their time. Yet they were a bold confrontation of a political system in which the poor lived under the violent occupation of a distant and powerful empire. Jesus rejected that power. His reign was one of love, and his kingdom was not of this world. He came to serve, not to be served. He turned everything upside down.
And so today, when we see self-proclaimed Christians striving for temporal political power, promoting violence and oppression, and using the power of the state to force others into compliance to live by a certain set of values, we can see that the message of Christ has been lost at best, and twisted at worst. Jesus is not about forcing people to do things his way from the top down, but by persuading them with love from the bottom up. Embracing the poor, the outcast, the forgotten. In short, when Christianity comforts rather than challenges those in power, then Christianity has lost its way.
This Advent season, may we reflect on the humility of Mary's yes, and on the humility of a God-man who was born in the humblest of conditions, embraced friend and enemy alike, washed the feet of his own followers, and gave his life for all. That is the Good News of the Kingdom.
Last year during Advent, I attended a lecture that explored Mary and the Annunciation. During the presentation, the speaker shared a poem with us that has ever since remained with me because of the beautiful language it uses to express what it must have been like for Mary in that life-altering moment that would change the fate of the human race. The words also invite us to look within and ponder what great things are being asked of us, and whether we, like Mary, are open to the challenge. Would we trust in God and show our courage? Or would we complain, bargain, find reasons why we just can't do what's asked of us? The answer, for all of us who are honest with ourselves, will be different. But we know Mary's answer. And it is to that example that we are all called to strive. Here, then, without further commentary, is Denise Levertov's "Annunciation."
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily. Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest. But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.
She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness. Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes. She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible. Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered: to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–
but who was God. This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse. A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting. She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.
