I feel bad for the psalms, that collection in the Bible called psalmoi, "songs." Their music, the tunes supposed to accompany them, has been lost to us. Melodies such as "The Lilies," "Doe of the Morning" and "Do Not Destroy," denoted in the introduction of individual psalms, are mysteries to us. We have no idea how they go -- what key, what tempo, how loud or soft. Are they "happy" or "sad," lilting or ponderous? We don't even know how to translate some of the terms that likely refer to original tunes. Mahalath, for example, or gittith.
I got thinking about this because yesterday I had the rare opportunity to feast like some drunken bacchanal on live music performed by five amazing singer-songwriters. This was not a music festival but simply a day that coincidentally offered a house concert on a country afternoon and then a show in the evening at the renovated Jefferson Theater downtown. En route to each, on winding roads decorated by horses and green spring yielding to summer, the iPod on shuffle filled the car until finally I had to call "sensory overload." We let final notes float out the window somewhere between Palmyra and Charlottesville.
Music is ultimately indefinable, but isn't that the way? After all, words endure but a tune exists only while it can persuade invisible waves of sound to dance around our heads just so. My favorite music is tunes with words -- songs. This is poetry taken to a whole new level. Then again, that's not quite right because, unlike pure poetry, the lyrics of songs are an empty carapace without the tune that animates them.
They may be interesting, they may be stirring, but lyrics mean best when strung onto notes by a living, breathing singer, who hangs them like ornaments on simple respiration in a dazzlingly complex biological process. Add instruments, and wow, no limits. A song is radically impermanent. Yet it can be recreated over and over again when a set of lyrics meets its key: a tune to pump its heart, plied by those uncommon magicians, the alchemists of sound.
I suspect that each of the musicians who shifted the air of my yesterday would cringe to be called by such lofty names. But they know what they do. Danny Schmidt, with his quiet ways, has composed some of the most courageously thoughtful songs and performs them with grace. Carrie Elkin will blow you away. That girl's got chops as big as her heart and she puts all of both into each song she sings... then with the applause, shrugs and grins like she just dropped a cake. The Milk Carton Kids (Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan) transport with heartbreaking understatement. Extraordinary musical facility, both vocal and on vintage guitars, meets humor, smarts and style on an otherwise ordinary stage. Finally (just because she was the last act we heard), Dar Williams. "The Mercy of the Fallen," need I say more? OK, then "The Christians and the Pagans."
So, I feel bad for the biblical psalms. In Hebrew, their home language, the collection is called tehillim -- "songs of praise." This ups the mystery ante. After all, the book is dominated by complaint. Evocative expressions of pain and suffering -- all kinds and on all levels are far more common than happier sentiments. Yet somehow, all together, they are "Praise Songs." And how poignant that the book's Greek title, Psalms, comes from a word that may refer as much to a stringed instrument as the "songs" it accompanied.
Now, you may call me sacrilegious, but as much as I wish we knew the full music of those biblical texts, I do not believe that they alone possess sanctifying power. I do not believe that the sacred is bound by text or that the divine is circumscribed by religion. Holiness happens in the oddest places and may be carried along by something as profound, as singular and transitory, as a song.
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The author can follow us as we "Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day." - Psalm 96.
With all due respect to Baudelaire, What *is* it this week with monotheistsdefaming of Pagan cultures? Bacchus? Lenten/passover hangovers or something?
The rest of your article here is a good bunch of questions. Ironically, just the kinds of questions you'd want to ask of a Pagan person of certain bardic abilities, who was taken in by immigrant Jews for a long time, and heard two different takes on those writings a long while ago....
(A lot of things called 'scripture' just don't *scan* in any language by any means: trust the Irish on this one, or look at the recent insertion to the Pledge of Allegiance and how retroactive they are trying to make that change to this day. Even if the break in scansion means it may as well be like someone threw a brick into a sonnet and said 'OR NOT!" )
Even un-messed with, such texts are in the rhythm of language they're written in, and those forms are not always 'text-reciting, even if 'preserved.' That's why you don't write sacred songs *down.* Language changes around them.
Don't think denotatively. Then try to make it music. To continue the American analogy, don't try to replicate the drinking song Key was riffing on... Listen to all the horrible Star Spangled Banners you ever heard.... Find what fits. If there's intact poetry there, trust the song. Not the lyrics. :)
Like so much else in the Bible, the Psalms contain some messages of hope and divine protection, but they also contain some of the most VIOLENT, CRUEL, and UNJUST statements in the entire Bible. Here are just a few:
109:9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
109:11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
109:12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
109:13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
140:9 As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.
140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.
144:1 Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:
(Sorry, being as patient as I can with homophobic men tonight. Was hoping there'd be some kind of intelligent conversation here. :)
Paul Haider, Chicago