Darling Kore - Or, Discovering Greek Myth In A Folk Song

Many of my favourite musicians were signed to Chris Blackwell's Island label. Among several I will mention the Incredible String Band and Nick Drake. Chris Blackwell was a visionary in promoting singer-songwriters at the time this musical movement was flourishing. The Beatles had popularised the idea that pop artists should write their own songs; Bob Dylan had shown that pop song could be a kind of lyrical poetry informed by folk tradition and pervaded with political and visionary meaning. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and a thousand others then brought intimate acoustic music to a mass audience. One of the best of Island's acts in the early 1970s happens to have been my uncle Bryn Haworth, a fine guitarist and a slide guitar virtuoso who combined a solo career with a busy second strand as an in-demand session-man.

As a result I was lucky to hear some fine music as a young boy and also gained a lifelong love for the mandolin which Bryn occasionally played when not wailing the blues. One song I'm sure I liked at a young age was Bryn's countryish version of the traditional song Darling Cory, arranged in a gutsy country/folk stomp with low-strung guitars, banjo and Fairport Convention as the backing band! (Dave Mattacks' drums are particularly recognisable). Hearing this song again 30 years later I was struck by something I have observed over and over again with durable songs, particularly folk songs that stick in the imagination, as if one had always known them. As that wonderful information resource Wikipedia says, Darling Cory "is a well-known song about love, loss and moonshine". It exists in various versions. The final verse, in Bryn's version, goes

"Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow

Dig a hole down in the ground

Gonna take my darlin' Cory

Gonna lay her body down

Now she roams in the mountains

And the valley down below

The devil took my darlin' Cory

And he will not let her go

I hear him singing...singing

Students of Greek mythology will know why I almost fell over listening to this again. There is an ancient story, versions of which appear in many old tales, of a young girl who is abducted by the Lord of the Underworld. In other words, she dies. The story was already ancient by the time of ancient Greece, but in the most famous Greek version of the tale, Perspephone, the daughter of the Earth Mother Demeter, is abducted by Hades or Pluto who comes up into the meadow through a cleft in the ground and steals here away. Demeter grieves and thus the Earth stops producing food. Although Persephone was later rescued, she ate pomegranate in the Underworld which meant she had partaken of its substance. The result is that it was decreed she must spend half the year above ground and half the year below. This is why the Earth has seasons of growth and withering, birth and death.

Persephone's other name is Kore meaning Maiden. Kore is pronounced much like Cory, and attributes of Hades the Lord of the Underworld were transferred to the later Christian conception of the devil (which did not really exist in Judaism in the same way). Translating ancient Greek myth into country idiom, the Devil really did take Darling Kore away!

The story of a process of corruption which leads to a beautiful young girl being snatched away whether the Greek Kore or Darling Cory in the 20th Century folk song will not cease to haunt the imagination. Another famous example from Greek myth is that of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was the great musician of Ancient Greece, the original singer-songwriter guitarist, the lyre player whose music so enchanted listeners that stones moved and animals became mild. Orpheus' bride Eurydice danced through a meadow on their wedding day, but she died after stepping on a serpent. (You will remember that the serpent and the woman's foot are also linked in the Bible). Orpheus descended to the very Underworld, charmed and moved even its grim rulers and almost brought Eurydice back to life. There are multiple versions of the legend, but in the one made famous by Virgil, Orpheus made the mistake of looking back to check Eurydice was behind him, on the very brink of the return to the Underworld, and so she slipped away and this time forever.

Some early Christians were also devotees of Orpheus and there is iconography why shows the composite Orpheus-Christ motif, appropriate to the beautiful singer and mover of hearts who descended to the Underworld.

My uncle Bryn has been a born-again Christian for his entire solo career which doubtless has meant that people judge his music on these grounds. Being a Christian is not necessarily a 'career move' in the world of rock and roll! But music is a spiritual calling with its own laws. To judge the Spirit with the mind is folly, for 'the heart has reasons which the reason does not understand' - and this goes for all forms of prejudice which close the ears and the heart to the single letters of the Word revealed throughout the World. Song has its own logic which comes directly from the Spirit. Never trust an angry wordsman over one whose voice rings true. New truth comes to light with time but there are also stories that have always been told, will always be told. The journey through the Underworld through death and rebirth is one, and I will describe another song about this in a future blog, called The Cruel Mother.

The Song is Eternal and Everywhere. But do we know the Singer?

Things that make my blood boil: Anti-semitism

At the instigation of a friend this morning, I've been reflecting on the poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen and, as sometimes happened, inspiration led to anger. In my professional life I work in politics. I am a public policy officer for a church, which means that I campaign on social justice issues. This never ceases to amaze me as I am an eccentric Christian with a deep distrust of the political system and of institutional religion, basically a kind of Green, New Age christian anarchist. With an anarchist's ingrained mistrust of party political rhetoric I find it hard to be self-righteous as it is so obvious that the more confident people are, the more likely they are to be wrong and the more agressively righteous and self-congratulatory, the more likely they are to be a danger to humanity. I know my feelings are very often *just* my feelings and I cannot prove I am right; I can only invite you into discussion with me.

I am not very politically-correct! One reason for this is that I notice that people who are always policing others' morals and accusing others of being 'racist' etc are very often horrible people personally, and those who go on about how much they hate 'fascists' are usually deeply supressive people who say derogatory things about the working classes in private and do not believe in democracy. I have observed this too often to believe it's a coincidence. Of course equality and social justice are infinitely worth fighting for, but just as it is often those with psychological flaws that end up ruling because of their desire to dominate, it is, ahem, not unknown for those working out their psychological problems through politics to end up as social justice campaigners. And to circulate political memes on Facebook. Legislating for 'good behaviour', policing people's thoughts and insisting that people are punished for not being nice are sad signs of a lack of faith in love and people's natural goodness. These are people who long for centralised power with which to control people's actions.

But in my line of work, not much is said about anti-semitism. One of the bizarre but often demonstrated reasons for this seems to be that not a few on the Left have a visceral dislike of Jewish people. This is covered over by the self-righteousness of 'I am a left liberal, no one is allowed to accuse *me* of racism. That is the weapon *I* use to attack *others* and silence them with'! Such people often attempt to court Muslim good-will while indulging their anti-semitic inclinations, without seeing that the problems faced by Muslims are those that have been faced by Jewish people. Often it doesn't take long for generalised discussion of 'Jews' to lead to disturbing comments about wealthy banking elites, international conspiracies, and before you know it you are listening to the (fake) Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other neo-medieval horrors.

Anti-semitism! To me it is the most inexplicable virus of the mind in human history. Left-wingers often misuse the word 'prejudice': for the grievances and dangerous grudges between different kinds of people are often not prejudice, but rather the raw anger of the unsophisticated, bad feeling, the desire for vengeance and redress that must eventually turn into reconciliation. But anti-semitism is - apart from its wrong-headed bigotry that has become genocide on a scale of millions and is never to be forgotten - a genuine prejudice. Europe has been served by Jewish people far more than it has served them. So this is a sign of a kind of madness beyond even malice as ordinarily understood.

The very religion of Europe's last 2000 years is a Jewish revelation - or heresy depending who you ask. And yet the history of Christianity is the history of marginalising the Jewish background to Christianity. Spiritual Christianity is incomprehensible without the Kabbalah and indeed the Talmud and Midrash. To get a genuine feeling for Jesus, listen to the Canadian Jewish (Buddhist!) poet Leonard Cohen, especially songs like Suzanne. Or read the mystical writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, an Indian Sufi combining Eastern and Semitic inspiration and remember the deep shared roots of Judaism and Islam. You will find more of the spirit of Jesus there than in the professed spiritual leadership of North Europe or America. Thus will the Abrahamic faiths find reconciliation to the blessing of the whole world.

So many of the world's greatest musicians, writers, philosophers, scientists and mystics have been Jewish. In fact for my money the most talented people in the Western world have been Russians and Jews, with Russian Jews absurdly over-represented!

I do not want to talk about Nazism. But I do want to reflect on why certain people project their own soul-failings onto Jewish people. Firstly Christians: there have always been a healthy proportion of guilt-mongering, self-righteous Christians. After Hitler's holocaust, Christendom was never again going to be complacent about its 'righteousness', its assumed privilege to make others wrong, or its unacknowleged anti-semitism. So campaigning against Israel and Zionism all too easily becomes a psychological mechanism - see, Jewish people are bad (or 'bad too'); I can get away with saying this and *they* can stop making me feel guilty for being a Christian. A classic example of self-important ego inflation and megalomania being at the roots of guilt. For all Israel's problems, Jewish people have observed that Christians are particularly quick to criticise Israel for things they tolerate in other countries or indeed in their own lands. This is true.


Then there are the conspiracy theorists - ironically this trope of far-right fundamentalist paranoia has been adopted by many the Left and again it is a guilt-compensation mechanism that obscures the truth. For the truth is that a wealthy elite does indeed run the world: but it is ludicrous to suggest this has anything to do with a 'Jewish' conspiracy. Rather, materialism and power run the show, with the implicit collusion of those who use unadmitted anti-semitism to avoid seeing that is people just like them who rule the world, with a rather similar psychology indeed. It is easier to speak of Jews or paranoid delusions of 'reptilian shape-shifters' than to admit that one is envious of the global elite that control the world. And also to admit that while moaning about the Bilderberg Group, they are personally the best off and most privileged genereration that has ever lived. How easy to revive conspiracy theory: much easier than helping the poor or putting oneself to any inconvenience, or admitting that one *likes* the status quo and feels guilty.

Various archetypes and images have been projected onto Jewish people throughout history. Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew is one - but then as Jesus said 'Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay hid head'. The Jewish people before, during and after Jesus life, have generally been denied a place to lay their head. The cliched insults hurled at Jewish people - words like cunning, avaricious, insular - are actually distinguishing marks of humanity, intelligence and culture misconstrued through envy and bad faith. Those in denial of humanity or filled with self-hatred insult Judaism to insult themselves. Those who love humanity will always give the Jews special recognition for what they have given humanity. Egypt, Babylon, Ancient Greece have fallen, but the Jewish people have preserved their culture, their wisdom within their own unique identity.

Yet of all archetypes we see in Jewish history, Job stands out. Afflicted, tested, tormented, abandoned, he never loses faith nor yet does he deny a jot of his reality. Humanity is Job. And we ache for our fallen brothers and sisters, those who have fallen before reaching the Promised Land. And we love our fellow humans with whom we rejoice and suffer, live and die in this corporeal world. This compassion is spiritual yet deeply somatic, of blood, bones and skin. Our heart faints within us in expectation.

"But the skylight is like skin for a drum I'll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year's man"
Leonard Cohen, Last Year's Man

Shalom.

A Concert That Changed My Life Forever - Carl Nielsen's Fifth Symphony

I have never really recovered from a concert I heard in my teenage years. I hope I never will. In a world where the media mostly report war, political lies or drivel about vacuous celebrities, I think it's important to remember that there is such a thing as excellence. There are emotions such as wonder, selflessness and bliss. There are scientists, artists, explorers and mystics who catch moments of greatness, luminous and evanescent like motes of dust in a sunbeam. Like dandelion seeds floating unseen in the void. Like stars floating in the radiant darkness, blown by the lips of the Unseen. There is music that is worth living for, even dying for.

Because I ended up playing the Double-Bass, which led to playing in youth orchestras, my mother (bless her) often took me to concerts at the Barbican music hall which had and has excellent acoustics. I was lucky that I didn't own many records, which meant I frequently heard great pieces of music for the first time played by world-class orchestras. This is a rare privilege in our over-saturated age of canned music.

One evening around 1987 my mum booked a concert  featuring two 20th Century composers I had never heard of. In the first half was a strange, unsettlingly modern piece by the Hungarian composer Ligeti. At that age, I had no knowledge of 'modern' classical music, i.e. atonal or challenging sounds without melody or Romanticism. The Ligeti was ok: I didn't really get it, but my ears felt refreshed by listening to something different from the normal cliched popular favourites. We decided to give Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) ago, never having heard of him.

45 minutes later, I staggered out of the concert hall not quite able to describe what had just happened. My mother noted that she saw grown men in tears, but that they looked like 'nice men'. A couple of days later I went and bought a book about Nielsen by the leading British composer Robert Simpson, which was deeply reflective and introduced me to the idea that one can write about music as a philosophy, a code and even a reason for living. Nielsen had had this effect on Simpson - and, as I later discovered, on Sir Simon Rattle as a young boy. He is just unclassifiable - modern music as it should have been.

The 14 year old boy felt the hush descend on the audience, then a wavering, oscillating violin line. Interesting. Mysterious wind chords twined around each other. Lower strings entered, and by now we were in a new sound world. Far from strident dissonance or manipulative effects, I was hearing pure sound, pure harmony. I was enthralled. The music flowed on, utterly gripping and full of tense drama. Suddenly the mood moved towards a change to a sinister war march. The music sounded Russian, gripping, as if the composer both hated war and felt its excitement and remorseless imperative. The intensity faded and then...the most exquisite and joyful polyphony, calm, invincible and mighty, as I later read in Robert Simpson, an impossible fusion of the perfect structure of Bach and the dramatic power of Beethoven. But it had a joy and conviction all of its own. Suddenly the tension builds as the dark and sinister tendrils of music re-entered.

And then something unimaginable. The snare drum, which had played military rolls before, suddenly started improvising, deafeningly loud over the joyous, glorious and sad music. An out and out war between the massed orchestra and the snare drum led to a chaos where the drum and the orchestra were destroying yet mysteriously enhancing each other. Finally the drum was carried along with the sun radiant melody as the music died away into a wistful, desolately victorious clarinet solo, full of warmth and loneliness. It sounded like one DNA strand of music had evolved into a beautiful tree of music, fractally showing the original shoot. 

Then the second movement - in a different and bright key, full of wildly free energy, moving somewhere, forward to more glorious melody (including - to my surprise the theme tune from Star Wars, which John Williams evidently pinched from Nielsen) leading through a chilly, arch and fiendishly virtuosic section of Bach like fugal writing. Once again the tension and excitement built to the final section where I realised that I and the entire audience were utterly transfixed, floating in an altered state and held to the music until the impossibly glorious happy-sad fanfares of brass finished this unique 2 movement symphony in a blaze of light.

Over the next few days, I experienced various emotions. One was a barely articulate realisation that this symphony was about something - that its triumph included pain, that life was beyond trivial feelings of pleasant and unpleasant. Another was that this was obviously the greatest symphony of the 20th Century and why was Nielsen not better known - my first education in the inadequacies of popular and critical judgement. Later it became obvious that this was a direct response to World War One and that the gunfire like snare drum evoked the senseless horror of that war, without the usual nafness of programmatic music. When I began to study Nielsen, I realised how he used emergent tonality - rather than sticking to one key, his later music developed from one tonal centre to others, giving his music a unique sense of dynamism. He was also vastly proficient in the older techniques of polyphony and counterpoint and by blending these with his own innovations he proved that there were other ways forward for classical music than the willful ugliness and posturing of much atonal music.

I was lucky that one of my school teachers happened to have a large collection of Classical vinyl and lent me what turns out to have been one of the great recordings of Nielsen's Fifth Symphony - Paavo Berglund's 1970s recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. I have listened to this piece many times over the succeeding 25 years and every time I still have the same reaction. Most music has an element of self-consciousness - we get clicked out of the zone by a mannerism, a sense that the player or writer is 'doing' something. It is very rare for 40 minutes of music to grip the listener from start to finish. This isn't entertainment - it is the actual, raw force of life beyond sentiment. It is life which is, as Nielsen said, inextinguishable.

My other musical revelation of that year was discovering The Beatles. An old cassette of Abbey Road lying around the house - and like Nielsen, whether you liked their songs or not, the pure sound of their music was amazing. The Avatar light of Here Comes The Sun; the dark black hole inferno of I Want You / She's So Heavy. I later realised there is a direct line between the great Classical composers who reintroduced folk modes in the early 20th Century like Nielsen, Bartok and Vaughan Williams and the 1960s phenomenon of (particularly)  British folk-pop-rock. It revolves around the interval of the 7th. Come back to my blog at a later date to hear more about my discoveries and how they relate to Eastern music.