15th December 2003

LET OUR MERRY ORGAN GO!

The ritual hilarity of a very English Christmas

“O come, thou Branch of Jesse! draw the quarry from the lion’s claw;

From the dread caverns of the grave, From nether hell, thy people save!”

We had no idea what it meant but, as directed, my Dad and I resoundingly belted it out amongst a sea of blue rinse last Saturday night. I had visions of a troop of effeminate men in robes – sort of Graham Norton meets the Polyphonic Spree – confronting the king of beasts in a fire-and-brimstone cave, which, in the festive context, confused me somewhat. No time for confusion though! For with the imperiously capitalised MEN at the top of the verse – and the nearest fellow fellow surely two hymns away from reaching for his breathing apparatus – it was left to the father and son team to hold their own. The ladies-of-a-certain-age all around faced majestically forward, awaiting their cue to pour out their “Dayspring bright”, their “healing light” – and, ultimately, their soul when extolling the virtues of the perfect mince pie come the interval.

This was a Christmas carol concert and a good time was to be had by all. For some, it may have been life-affirming and spiritually satisfying. For many, it was a comforting ritual, evoking small children wearing tie-die shepherd gear, the whiff of cloves and cinnamon, the gathering of family and friends, a point of snuggly repose in frantic lives.

It’s dead special, is Christmas, and these carols, these ritual incantations repeated from toddlerdom upwards, are the soundtrack to this special time of year. Perhaps I should show more respect. But, take “Unto Us Is Born A Son”: a classic. When the organ booms into a grindingly discordant descant, stern counterpoint to The Men singing about giving the word to “slay and slew (?) the little childer” (which rhymes with bewilder), a small band of normally reserved and undemonstrative Midlands blokes pretending to be an evil child-murdering king, how can you not be a little tickled? And then their wives and mothers responding angelically, organ strains now pure, breathy and harmonious, with word of “His love and mercy mild” – their perms nodding to the beat in gentle Sunday School admonishment of their naughty royal hubbies?

Notwithstanding the ritual role-play, the words themselves are brilliant. There’s so much “ass” around, it’s untrue! “O and A, and A and O, cum cantibus in choro” is sidesplitting enough – any amateur musicologist can guess that the caroller’s brief must have been five verses and he made up any old shit for the fifth. But what comes next is just the limit. For when this lyricist conceived the line “Let our merry organ go”, it surely could not have been Immaculately. Even then, it seems, Christmas meant Office Party.

A lot of people would of course be horrified with such thoughts. According to a poem read at the concert, Christmas (at least in Lancashire, in 1910) was all about sitting round a table playing snap by candlelight – and still should be, was the implication. Another reading – didn’t catch the author but it may have been a friend of Richard Littlejohn – talked of the crib in which Jesus was born. It’s empty these days, it cannot be displayed “for fear of offence”, said the middle-aged matriarch, her knowing eyebrows arched towards her captive audience, who nodded back at her, in a collective tut. While these people were together, united in the common knowledge of that descant in “O Come All Ye Faithful” and of how to pronounce “Adonaï”, turbaned scroungers and wibbly liberals stalked the cold night outside, ready to undermine everything they stood for. Asylum seekers were striking at the very heart of Christmas, draining it of spirit like they drain the country of cash, getting easy handouts, sitting around in places like … Lancashire, just playing cards by candlelight – the shadowy so-and-sos!

It wasn’t all pandering to populism, though. We were treated to a fine recital of avant-garde organ music, written by some Dutch bloke who, in his variations on a Christmas theme that had just been angelically sung by the choir, had managed to evoke (skilfully, I thought) the death throes of a Space Invaders machine after having been dropped from a great height. Most in the audience stared politely into the middle-distance, afterwards confiding to their neighbour that they had enjoyed the John Rutter a little more. Some turned around, towards the organ, just to check that Beagle 2 hadn’t smashed through the rose window, and then unashamedly made disgusted faces at the industrious and insistent organist, who was revelling in the ruffled feathers I’m sure. One man clapped enthusiastically. Pretentious tosser.

I had a fine evening. (But I do not want to begin to describe the Disney-style carolling of a group of schoolgirls who couldn’t sing, evidently thinking yucky schmaltz would carry the day. It didn’t.) What an essence of our national character, encapsulated in a couple of hours in a church. People moan about never being able to express their Englishness. Go to a Christmas carol service – it’s oh-so-English cultural Christianity at its best, when people go to church and God is not really the main event. It’s a chance to be nostalgic, a chance to prove that there are still constants in the world after all. Unless you’re disagreeing about the perfect mince pie recipe, that is.

© Ben James 2003