Music: April 2005 Archives
I was reading Michael Lerner's Passover Seder again, and came across this:
There is a tradition that the matzah miraculously tasted just like the manna which the Israelites ate in the desert, food they had to gather each day and which could not be saved or accumulated because it went sour each night. The manna taught the Israelites to overcome their belief that they had to compete with one another—and to trust that there would be enough for everyone. Only once they had let go of their terror of scarcity and their hard-hearted competitiveness could they learn to open their hearts to one another in empathy. Here is a central spiritual message: There is enough. We are enough. Dayenu.
I immediately thought of Mirah's song "Apples In The Trees" (MP3, 1.8 mb) which explores this idea that our needs can be met in abundance and our hope restored, even in the face of a long struggle. Mirah's songwriting distinctly expresses her Jewish heritage yet can speak to anyone, connecting personal, spiritual, and political realms.
See there's food for me
There's food for you
There's gold that's in the air
There's oceans deep and wide
And there is love beyond compareThere's apple in the trees
Let's take all that we need
We know what we believe
There's hope for you and me
My eyes can almost see
If you fight 'til you're free
You don't have to wait until you die
Buy the record from K mailorder or from 
Though often criticized for being out of step with modernity, John Paul II did make efforts to modernize the delivery, if not the content of his message. Perhaps the most cartoonish example is his 1999 recording Abba Pater which paired selected recordings of his holiness chanting, praying and singing(!) in in five languages with a blend of new-age, world, and electronic music. Here's the title track. (MP3 6.6 mb)
The funniest thing about this recording is that I'm sure that it wouldn't exist if not for the massive success of new age-danceclub-ethnofusion band Enigma, who were based in the hedonistic city of Ibiza and layered dance beats (of the sort popularized in gay clubs) over gregorian chants and synthesized "ethnic" instruments. Their 1990 hit, "Sadeness" was a tribute to the Marquis de Sade and featured a sexy-voiced woman inquiring in French: "Sade, tell me/what is it that you seek? /The rightness of wrong/The virtue of vice?" before segueing into a treatise on the "Principles of Lust". Enigma followed up their multiplatinum hit with Cross of Changes, which featured songs criticizing Catholic conquistadors and that same sexy-voiced woman reciting such un-Christian lyrical gems as "Remember the Shaman, when he used to say: 'Man is the dream of the dolphin'."
Make the beats a touch less sexy and more meditative, and replace the lusty french lady with the Pope, and you have the formula for "Abba Pater", a fascinating artifact of the tangled relationship between institutional religion and pop culture. The official site features more sound samples and a video of the pope accepting a gold record!
