Just Another Auden October: Let music for peace / Be the paradigm

Let mortals beware of words
For with words we lie,
Can speak peace
When we mean war.

But song is true.
Let music for peace
Be the paradigm,
For peace means change
At the right time.

(W.H. Auden, “Hymn to the United Nations.” 1971.)

Music Moment: Joan Baez sings Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side”

Joan Baez live in Stockholm, 1966, singing “With God On Our Side,” written by Bob Dylan.

In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

I don’t take the oversimplified path of belief that wars, conflicts, battles, whatever you want to call them are somehow problems with easy solutions (make peace or get ‘er done), from either side. But I wonder if God, able to take the long view and seeing the starvation, the disease, the murders and genocide which war involves, would agree? Then again, God’s relationship with humanity vis a vis the suffering of innocents has always been problematic at best. I am troubled. Weltzschmerz: sadness over the state of the world. I have it today.

Music Moment: Mason Jennings

You are all like, “These Music Moments with talented ladies are really great, E, but surely you do not only listen to female artists — when are you going to highlight a dude?” and I am all like, “Right now!”

Oh, my god, you guys: Mason Jennings. Mason Jennings. Sooo cool. Mason sang two Bob Dylan songs in the 2007 Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” He’s a big guy for cleaning the ocean, integrating conventions of pop writing with stripped-down folk and acoustic songs, inventing rustic characters as the voices for his music, and looking mighty, mighty fine doing all that.

“I wrote about how hard it is to be 34 and be a parent and sane and married and true and positive and yourself and a man and funny and a decent person and a not decent person and human and in love. I turned the music up so loud so often that my ears rang every night. I wrote about death, of course. I wrote about life. I wrote about pain and addiction. And I let it flow and left it raw. I worked fast and I let my heart lead.” –Mason Jennings, “Bio,” Official Website.

This is the title track from the album whose composition he’s describing in that quote, Blood of Man (available as of September 15, 2009, he advocates that you purchase it from iTunes, so I’d encourage you to go that route).

Blood of Man

Babies in jars, luxury cars
Seasons that don’t come true
Happiness waits outside the gates
Watching each thing we do
Ocean mother, ocean child,
Are you mine, or are you wild?
Are you calling for the blood of man?

Confidant

And with the world comes misery
Comes jealousy and pain
And with new friends come enemies
The fortune brings the fame
And oh my dear confidant
(tell me how to feel)
Tell me how to feel
(tell me how you’ve been)
I’ve been overwhelmed
(overwhelmed by what)
By what lies up ahead

I love the lyrics to this song, they make me think of some of my dearest friendohs who, by putting my trust in them, teach me to put my trust in others, too.

I realized these Music Moment posts tend to run really long because I like music way too much, and can’t bear to only give you half the story on someone I think is really special, so click here to keep reading about Mason Jennings (and see more of his hotness!).