I purchased it last week from Spillers Record Shop in Cardiff, established in 1894, and I think friends and family would have been happier if I'd brought home a hotpot featuring trimmings from Pinochet's moustache and the tail of Sarah Palin's mongoose.
Terms of abuse normally used to describe the crimes of serial killers and the first nights of Belgian musicals turned the air Navy blue as the first chords of Dylan singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing sounded.
A noble Wesh churchman even exclaimed he loathed carols "with a passion".
But that's precisely the point. Carols, as sung by choirboys in ruffled collars, are horrendous.
There's that line from The Ususal Suspects: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Well, in the Protestant church Christmas might as well not exist outside of a couple of weeks at the tail-end of December when half the congregation has disappeared to far-flung parts of the country for a course of turkey and marzipan-induced sedation.
The few people who are in churches are forced to endure theatrical abominations in which children in need of Ritalin are permitted to wear tea-towels and pretend to be shepherds.
Modern Protestants are used to thinking deeply about Easter all year round, but Christmas is a no-go area. To paraphrase the Hudsucker Corporation's sales pitch for the hula-hoop, it's "You know, for kids."
But the shock of hearing a whiskey and cigarettes voice deliver a straight rendition of Hark the Herald Angels Sing bounces Christmas out of the realms of the make-believe and re-establishes Charles Wesley's carol as a mighty hymn which constitutes an announcement that should make the powers and principalities shake.
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
This isn't a message first delivered in a custom-built cathedral in the glow of romantic candlelight. Dylan's croak could be the cry of a shepherd who's seen an angel and wandered into a stable where a young woman who has just given birth is cradling an infant against the cold.
As Bono noted a while ago: "The idea that there's a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. Actually, maybe even far-fetched to start with. But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in s--- and straw and poverty is genius, and brings me to my knees, literally. To me, as a poet, I am just in awe of that. It makes some sort of poetic sense. It's the thing that makes me a believer, though it didn't dawn on me for many years."
Admittedly, I do wince when I hear Dylan singing "Must Be Santa" a few tracks along, but the chap is about to celebrate his 69th Christmas. And having made it this far, who can complain if he's feeling happy?
1 comments:
Hello. I'm from Brazil and here we are also listening and loving all the beauty of Dylan's new record.
It's better than the last one.
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