The
Courage to Sing (c)
By
Michael
Casey
Well
it’s 16th
Feb now, and the Red Shoes Ballet at the Birmingham Hippodrome was
great, the music induced a tear. Today the pain monster in my
back/hips is inducing near tears, and loads of pain. That’s the
sine curve of pain, totally random pain, on randomly chosen parts of
my body. As I sit here in my chair, I wanted to write something new,
and not just post a repeat, and as Celine Dion started to sing, the
choice of subject rose its head from the barricades of pain.
You
do have to have courage to sing, so as Les Mis comes to both our
minds, you can start singing that to yourself, as I talk to you,
above Celine’s voice. To sing is to doubly praise as Saint Cecilia
says, though in S&G’s song was Cecilia a bad girlfriend or
worse? Then Cecilia broke hearts, if you can remember the song. A
good song sung well can break hearts, can touch as much as the music
from The Red Shoes touched me yesterday. Or in a play, you can shed
tears as the play unfolds. We saw the theatre version of The Lovely
Bones recently and I was shocked to by core by the performance and
sat with tears falling, I had forgotten the film version, so I was
not prepared.
So
Art, can and does touch the parts that only some lagers do. If you
have a pint or three you will be inclined to sing, but otherwise you
have to have a good spirit before you can sing. You cannot sing when
you are sad or dealing with a crisis, just as I cannot write if I’m
sad, or yet another USA shooting horror overwhelms us all, nobody
wants to sing at a funeral.
Yes
great songs can be sung at at funeral, and the Lazarus reading
usually read at funerals is very touching, Jesus wept. Generally to
sing you have to be happy. If you are happy and you know it clap
your hands, if you are happy and you know it stamp your feet, and so
on as the song goes. Songs are ways to defy tyranny, they unite and
bind us, from union songs, to slave songs and all manner of songs,
from sea shanties to songs of war. To rallying cries and more, from
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy to Over There to the Yanks are coming, or
here in Britain We’ll Meet Again.
But
Out of the Depths I Cry to Thee Lord, may be the start, when we are
flat on our back, when we are crawling like worms in the dirt, when
there is no hope, when we are battered and broken, and beaten. By
life, by lack of hope, when we are at the end of our rope,, when we
might be tempted to use a rope. Then a song, a noise, a hum, a voice
might cut through our darkness and give a glimmer of hope, somebody
or something offers a rope ladder out of our pit of despair. Then the
only way is up, just like the song from years ago.
We
have the courage to begin to sing, to hold that hand that reaches
down to the gutter, and lets us look at the stars, Oscar or David, or
whoever it is. We have the courage to sing, it can be anything, away
in a manger, if it is Christmas, or a rugby song, a spiritual, or a
really obscene song, it does not matter. The point is it lifts us up,
there is a song that we love and whenever we hear it we feel better.
My favourite song is The Windmills of Your Mind, from the 1968 Thomas
Crown Affair. I just love it, and if you’ve read some of my
1,500,000 plus words you can understand. I was Sancho Panza and my
master did tilt at windmills after all.
A
song is a shock to the heart, it makes us skip a beat, or kick starts
our emotions, our feelings, if we have no feelings then we are dead
already. So a song, and being able to sing is evidence of life and
hope and love. We sing to our children to reassure them, to keep the
bedbugs away, or whatever. It brings joy and happiness to them. We
sing in the darkness as we wait for the power to come back on. To
sing is to have a heartbeat, they say you should keep on talking to a
coma victim. But you should also sing to yourself to whistle while
you work.
I
have music surrounding me all my life, and now with Tinnitus coming
out to play and attack me for 18 months and more, music and song is
so important. In the dark of the night I have no Cecilia, just music
playing till exhaustion gets me, then I sleep. You can make up your
own Cecilia references. I hope you recognise that when you are down
and nearly out, you do need a bridge over troubled water. And that
bridge is song, a song will inspire, and ease your weary bones, it
will come on baby light your fire, just little little embers being
blown in the wind, but it is the answer.
So
sing to somebody, have a sing song, whistle while you work, be the
sparrow singing in your family, in your neighbourhood. Then rejoice
rejoice Emmanuel, because you have learnt to love again. The shadows
of sorrow and pain have been banished, by a simple song of sixpence.
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