A year ago, I published an earlier version of this essay. Since then I've revised significantly, so I'm going back to the well for Christmas 2021. Most of this reworked version also appears here. I am pleased to share a new English translation—or singable free paraphrase—of an iconic Danish hymn, Dejlig Er Jorden. It shares a … Continue reading A New Lyric for a Classic Christmas Song
music in churches
12 Songs for Christmas: Dejlig Er Jorden (Beautiful is the Earth)
I created not just one new song, as we've already discussed, but two new lyrics inspired by a Christmas concert by Harald Haugaard and Helene Blum. Both are rough translations—or loose paraphrases—that allow us to sing great Danish music in English. The second one is on deck today. It extends my recent train of thought … Continue reading 12 Songs for Christmas: Dejlig Er Jorden (Beautiful is the Earth)
12 Songs for Christmas: Kanye’s Christmas Opera
A year ago, Kanye West was in the news because he had premiered a high-concept and well-publicized Christmas “opera” at Lincoln Center. I wrote about it then, and today I am bringing this earlier reflection back so that people have another chance to find it. I do this, in part, because of how interestingly this … Continue reading 12 Songs for Christmas: Kanye’s Christmas Opera
12 Songs for Christmas: “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol (new millennium peace version)”
Trigger warning! I am the sort of geek who actually cares about schisms among subtypes of subtypes of Calvinism in the 1800s (believe it or not, this was important for things like ending slavery and the future of US higher education) as well as which factions of the left have the best understanding of how … Continue reading 12 Songs for Christmas: “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol (new millennium peace version)”
I Watched Kanye’s Christmas Pageant So You Don’t Have To
…Or… if you want to watch, or already did—if you are into that sort of thing—it’s not a problem, we can compare notes. This production is interesting in several ways— especially if you care about the cultural politics of religion in US popular music, or are the sort of person who was turned on by … Continue reading I Watched Kanye’s Christmas Pageant So You Don’t Have To
Seven Shades of Green
Possibly my best song, and certainly a song that is close to my heart, includes these lines: The rain has turned the yellow grassSeven shades of green. . . .It’s only a moment that we can smell the rain,And taste the salt on each other’s skins.It’s only a moment and then we’re underground,So do not … Continue reading Seven Shades of Green
A Song to Dishonor Joe Arpaio
In the strange world we inhabit, the insights I can offer as scholar seem (at least for the moment) to be assigned significant value. Sometimes I complain about the relative value ascribed to scholarship compared to a whole range of other things—say, building prisons or price-gouging people who need life-saving medicines—yet at the end of … Continue reading A Song to Dishonor Joe Arpaio
MBE: Mark's blogging experiment 