Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and today I thought how little music there is that celebrates our cherished Thanksgiving holiday. What I am hearing on pop radio (when my 18 year old daughter is in the car or I am shopping in the store and have no access to NPR or my CDs) is unfortunately, a Christmas muzak play list. Already.
I love Thanksgiving so much because it’s all about gratitude and rituals, traditions and simplicity. And yet, there is so little music that celebrates it.
I find it a shame that the holiday that follows it a whole month later on down the road, is beginning to be heard all over the place. Sigh… So I did a little research today and was sadly disappointed to see that when I plugged in “Thanksgiving & music” into the google browser, what came up were mostly links to Charlie Brown. I persevered though, and found a jewel, which I’ll share with you at the end of this post.
When I think of the music that is officially about this holiday, free of all things material, I can think of only a handful of pieces.
One is the song, “Over The River and through the Woods,” considered the unofficial anthem of Thanksgiving and mistakenly, often associated with Christmas. It was written by Lydia Maria Child, as a poem in 1844, to celebrate her childhood memories of visiting her grandfather’s home for Thanksgiving. I was so fascinated by this woman researching this, that I’ve put her writings on my list of “things to read down the road” list. She was a novelist, journalist, teacher and wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery. Unfortunately, her political views caused her to lose a lot of popularity amongst her readers.
My husband Jim, reminded me of “Alice’s Restaurant”, which never occurred to me. Do you have to have been a teenager in the 60’s, or a guitar player for this piece to occur to you? He is both those things and I’m not. When I googled it on YouTube, I read the following post underneath the video: “I have listened to or played this song every year on Thanksgiving for the last 20 years. It's one of those goofy traditions that I treasure. Thanks for the years of smiles, Arlo!” I love this guy’s tradition…. J
Another piece is an instrumental, and if you’ve ever watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”, then you know the one I’m referring to. The Vince Guaraldi Trio made it famous and you can find it on YouTube.
I kept looking and began to find all sorts of things, some pretty awful and some pretty wonderful. To my delight, I discovered something out there that was “a new one on me” - Johnny Cash singing on an episode of the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman TV show from years ago. I watched him singing and looking at June Carter Cash, and well, while it was a little syrupy, it was lovely, as well!
My find at the end of the day was Mary Chapin Carpenter’s, “Thanksgiving Song”, which is on her “Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas” album.
You can be the judge on the images used in the video, but at its core? THIS is what I want to be hearing and singing for this Thanksgiving. And being in the music, really gets me in that sacred, grateful place.
May you feel deeply grateful for all that is in your life.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Pam,
ReplyDeleteI say, why not?!?!
As someone who is steeped in that musical tradition, you would know what kind of song is lacking in the Hanukkah repertoire... You could compose it, sing lah lah's to me, and i'll play it on the flute or the piano while you dance away. Maybe some finger cymbals to accompany yourself? :)