Advent: 13 December 2022
Greetings,
on Tuesday 13 December. Happy St Lucy’s Day – Sankta Lucia – to all are celebrating, especially people from Sweden and other Nordic countries. St Lucy was a Christian martyr who died in the opening years of the fourth century in Syracuse, Sicily. In Sweden, girls wear candles in headdresses on this day. And so N is, of course, for Natten går tunga fjät, the Swedish translation of the Italian song from Naples, Santa Lucia. Here is the first verse:
Natten går tunga fjät
Runt gård och stuva
Kring jord som sol förlät
Skuggorna ruvar.
Då i vårt mörka hus
Stiger med tända ljus
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.
N is also for Night walks with a heavy step, the English translation:
Night walks with a heavy step
Round yard and hearth,
As the sun departs from earth,
Shadows are brooding.
There in our dark house,
Walking with lit candles,
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
And here it is to listen to: https://www.google.com/search?q=Natten+g%C3%A5r+tunga+fj%C3%A4t&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB991GB991&oq=Natten+g%C3%A5r+tunga+fj%C3%A4t+&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l9.6063j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:44b9a5bc,vid:mhpNnj8BOO0
But a further N to celebrate the Nativity is also, in my opinion, the finest Christmas single of all time, which I am re-naming for the purposes of this Advent Calendar New York (Fairytale of), by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl. It’s the perfect combination of brilliant melody, lovely arrangement, straight-to-the-heart singing by the sublime and much-missed Kirsty MacColl alongside Shane MacGowan, and utterly unsentimental lyrics. It’s a song of New York, of the Irish diaspora, of lives revealing their ruin, but retaining hope in the love of another:
It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won’t see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true
They’ve got cars big as bars
They’ve got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It’s no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night
The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day
You’re a bum
You’re a punk
You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day
I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can’t make it all alone
I’ve built my dreams around you
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day
Go on, if this is the only musical link you click in this whole Advent Calendar, it’s got to be this one – and sing it out as loud as you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8
Yours,
Donald.
Revd Dr Donald MacEwan
Chaplain