Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!

Начало книги

THIS IS NOT A HALF-ASSED XMAS SONG. It’s not at all secular Coca-Cola Christmas. This is authentic Christmas jive. The music was either adapted from a song by Handel or ripped off from part of his Messiah. The melody descends right down the major scale on its way to hell, but lands firmly on the saved tonic. When the Sex Pistols’s music descended directly down the scale, the lyrics were “No future,” and those clever boys go back up and start down again a few times until they land on the tonic with “for you.” I’m not going to get too programmatic with “Joy to the World.” It is a descending scale, but it’s major and confident and root landing makes it safe and jubilant. The music is consonant with joy in the world.

But it’s not about joy in the world. It’s about joy to the world, and there is a world of difference there. I’ve read the Bible and I’ve listened carefully to all of the popular Christmas carols. I enjoy listening to lyrics. I’ve listened to the “Theme from Shaft” a lot and it’s an almost perfect song. It’s recorded with a full orchestra including two wah-wah guitars. Yes, two wah-wahs. You know that the brown-chicken-brown-chicken-brown-chicken part is wah-wah, but the other guitar is wah-wah too. If Beethoven were writing today, he wouldn’t consider an ensemble without two wah-wah guitars to be a proper orchestra.

Читать дальше →