Category: Holiday Coverfolk


America, The Beautiful, Redux:
Coverfolk for a Thoughtful Fourth

July 3rd, 2011 — 10:02 am





I had big plans to share some thoughts about my conflicted love for America this year on the anniversary of our birth as a nation. But looking in the archives, I see I’ve written it before: both last year, when we mused upon the complexity of patriotism in a modern age, and in our first year, at a time when our national discourse was increasingly polarized by the impending presidential election.

Our Single Song Sunday from last year remains live, and I encourage you to head back into the archives for 10 covers of Paul Simon’s American Tune, and some thoughts on the complicated times which continue to characterize our national zeitgeist. But since it’s been a while, here’s our 2008 post revisited. Its sentiment stands: may your Independence Day be thoughtful, too.


I’m not exactly the patriotic type. I’ve been to more countries than states; I prefer solitude to mall culture. Heck, we don’t even have basic cable. But all power-hungry, commercial/corporate complex, bittersweet modernity aside, I believe in the ideals which frame the constant American dialogue with itself — including first and foremost the requirement that we keep talking, lest we abdicate our role as government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And I believe that, by definition, as music which speaks of and for a people, American folk music holds a particular place in that conversation which is America. Folk focuses that conversation, making it real and vivid, whether it is through the lens of policy critique or protest cry, the immigrant experience or the internal monologue of a singer-songwriter struggling to be free.

Checks and balances and a mechanism for self-correction; fireworks and barbecue, and the right to make dumb mistakes and have to live with ‘em. Losing love, and falling in it again. Finding hope, and being scared to dream one more time. It’s the American way, all of it — and it’s been that way since inception.

Which is to say: if I may sometimes work to change the policies of those in power, through sharing song or through town meeting politics, it is because I love this country. And I hope I never lose that fluttery feeling in my stomach when we come in for a landing at the international terminal, and I know that I am home.

So let other bloggers share patriotic song today. I’d rather take the country as it is: dialogic, complex, open about its faults and favors, and always looking for a better way. And if saying so means posting songs we have posted here before, then so be it — for these are, after all, timeless songs, with messages that bear repeating.

Happy Birthday, America. Long may your contradictions endear us to you. May you never lose hope. And may we never stop singing.


Bonus repost tracks, 2011

12 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk, reposts

Single-Shot Coverfolk: O Canada
(Reid Jamieson Folks Up The Canadian National Anthem)

July 1st, 2011 — 06:03 am





News from North-of-the-border fave Reid Jamieson, whose tribute to the songs of 1969 found exclusive first-round coverage here on these pages back in March: it’s Canada Day, and he’s recorded a sweet upbeat cover of their national anthem in his signature countryfolk style. Take a minute and twenty out of your busy Friday schedule to celebrate, won’t you?

Like it? There’s plenty more coverage where that came from, including Reid’s takes on songs from fellow countrymen Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Gordon Lightfoot, and Great Lake Swimmers, over at Reido Radio!

8 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk, Reid Jamieson

Memorial Day Coverfolk, Redux:
More songs for soldiers past and present

May 29th, 2011 — 12:08 pm

As in previous years, we’re off today, cleaning house and burning the social calendar at both ends for the long weekend. So here’s our traditional Memorial Day post, plus a growing set of bonus tracks for our regular readers.





For most of my life, the military has been an abstraction. Though war itself lives everpresent in our newsdriven culture, and memorial statues and parades a recurring part of community, my concept of life in the armed forces, and the risks and stresses thereof, is based on popculture parables, mostly: fictionalized movie and television portrayals fleshed out by fleeting glimpses of men and women in uniform in airports, reporting to places I cannot imagine, to carry out tasks I could not describe.

My connection with family members who have served has been long after the fact. My father spent some portion of the sixties as a clerk typist in the Coast Guard reserves, but other than a truly dorky picture which he kept in his bedside drawer, and a few well-worn tales of short-haired inspection wigs and furloughs which I have evoked over the years, I could not identify those parts of him, if any, which were forged in service to his country.

Similarly, though my grandfather’s work developing radar in the Army is an important part of the family mythos, it was long over by the time I came to consciousness. Though I carry his dog tag in my wallet, the man I knew as Grandpa was a quiet shirtsleeved man, his service so much a part of who he had become that I never really considered how his military past had made him until it was too late to ask.

Surely, both of these men, and the usual assortment of greatuncles, met men along the way who never came back. But their stories are not mine. Their losses, if any, are their own. And so, for most of my life, Memorial Day has been a secular holiday, atheistic, with no trace of sentiment.


But teaching in a school with an ROTC program means living with a daily reminder of the armed forces as peopled by real, three-dimensional human beings. Students show up in class crisp and confident in uniform; I pass them in the hallways lined up for inspection, or pacing out their cadences.

Jerome and Lori Anna, my two 2009 graduating ROTC seniors, were still just kids, off to Prom on Thursday, on the cusp of graduation. This year, Pam fills the same shoes, wearing her dress uniform under her graduation gown at class day last Friday. Their lives are ahead of them, but their choices were limited. For them, service is a way out of the inner city, perhaps the only one available to them. It will pay for college, and help them focus their abilities. It will give them a future.

And so they choose to lend their bodies and hearts to the protection of our shores and skies. And their very real and present future — fighting wars, combatting terrorism — lends new credence to the need for memory.

May they serve proud, like our fathers before us, and our grandfathers before them. May their service be swift, and their burden light. Rest assured; we will remember them.



Repost Bonus Tracks, Memorial Day 2010:



Repost Bonus Tracks, Memorial Day 2011:



Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features and songsets twice weekly.

103 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk, Theme Posts

Love, Afraid: Coversongs to Prepare the Heart for Valentine’s Day

February 6th, 2011 — 08:37 pm

It’s been a long, busy weekend, and it’ll be a long night, too, with end-of-term grading due in the morning and a thick stack of final exams to go through first. I’ve got a great Covered in Kidfolk post half-drafted, complete with a contest give-away for Putumayo Kids’ new acoustic lullaby CD, but it will have to wait; for now, here’s a taste of Valentine’s past, originally posted in 2008, to remind you to start making plans for next Monday.


I spent all morning trying to script a post about songs which struggle with the infinite and indescribably complex mysteries of love. The idea was to celebrate this complexity, and acknowledge as valid the stuff that often holds us back from putting a name to what we feel, lest we call it wrong and mess everything up.

But every time I try to put words to love, things fall apart. Love’s like that, I think. I guess that was the point, after all.

Instead, in anticipation of Valentine’s Day, here’s a mixed bag of folk-tinged coversongs that address the myriad and multiple fears we have about love: naming it, finding it, losing it, and losing ourselves to it.

May each of us, regardless of our romantic status, find something in the words of these poets and songwriters which speaks to our secret heart – the better to withstand the oversimplified, candy-red onslaught of emotion sure to come by Thursday.


As always, all artist and album links above go to artist websites and stores, the better to show our love for the folks who speak for us when we run out of words.

Hoping for some more traditional Valentine’s Day fare? Never fear: we’ll back next Sunday with more short, sweet romantic soundtracks for the lucky ones.

1,070 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk, reposts, Valentines Day Coverfolk

Covered In Folk: Phil Ochs
(On songs of social justice in a post-millennial world)

January 16th, 2011 — 03:40 pm





It’s Martin Luther King Day, and I’ve been thinking about social justice, even going so far as to try to explain the term to my eight year old in the car on the way to the dentist. But explaining why I teach in the inner city in the language of a third grader is easier said than done. Two generations after King, Kennedy, and so many unnamed others fell as martyrs to the civil rights movement, we live in a world of twice-removed injustices, deeper, more abstract, more slippery and subtle, harder to name, and harder still to put into words.

That the obvious differences which once separated us are now encoded into law and practice as taboo subjects for discrimination shows just how far we have come since the sixties. That in our pursuit of change and justice and equality we have reached the murky core, where it is harder to name the abstract injustices which still linger deep at the root of society, is perhaps King’s greatest legacy, and it’s a fine legacy, indeed.

But it still leaves us with the problem that that which we have to overcome is much harder to define than it once was. So much of our rhetoric is defined by dissatisfaction and dis-ease, and though it’s easy to rally around such ill- and negatively-defined straw men, it’s almost impossible to leverage that muddy, vitrolic speech as a clarion call to well-defined action. The distance between We Shall Overcome and I Don’t Wanna Be An American Idiot is vast, indeed. And the fatalism which has replaced This Little Light of Mine with the deliberate aloofness of We Didn’t Start The Fire is a constant threat to our ability to live the dream, to stand up and lead the charge for the subtle change we all know, in our deepest hearts, remains urgently at hand.


As a tool of political discourse, folk songs – which spread by word of mouth, and speak of and for the community – play a vital role in cultural change. And though it is his speeches which ring so indelibly in the ears of history, MLK, Jr. was a firm believer in the power of song as a vehicle for freedom, seeing it as a critical tool in the hands of the movement.

Most of the songs King’s followers chose to utilize, of course, were remodded from older sources, in keeping with the folkways approach to song which best characterizes the movement itself. But many of the songs which the civil rights movement has chosen to adopt since then come more directly from the generation of singer-songwriters who grew up in the midst of the struggle.

And though his name is not as familiar as a host of others who survived the era to continue performing, and who spread the gospel through a more diverse collection of songs, perhaps no artist has had more of an impact on the modern protest songbook than folksinger Phil Ochs.

Which is to say: like so many great songwriters of depth and poignancy, Phil Ochs – who came to the Greenwich Village scene from the world of journalism, and never shed the constant search for the truth which this entailed – was haunted and ultimately done in by depression, truncating his canon and corrupting his legacy. And in keeping with the discourse drift described above, his catalog is rife with the kind of songs hardly anyone sings any more.


Indeed, Guthrie’s famous guitar slogan nothwithstanding, there is perhaps no other artists who so deliberately and successfully focused his career on protest through music as Ochs himself. The Ochs songbook is relentlessly political, almost exclusively so, unlike those of the numerous artists who include social justice songs in their work – Michael Franti, the Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco, Guthrie, Seeger, Dylan, and others among them – but also diversify their message to include more generalized narrative tales of love and life.

And as a result, though Ochs hated the term “protest song”, preferring to say that he wrote “topical songs”, most of which he claimed he wrote based on articles in Newsweek, the vast collection of songs he left behind are a legacy of political protest much like that of the words of King himself, and arguably of a scale and scope which rivals that of the fallen Reverend.

There’s an inherent risk in staking your claim on topical song. But the best protest songs merely gain power through metaphor as they lose their direct relevance in the world of the concrete as history moves ever-onward – Biko has been dead for decades, for example, but Peter Gabriel still sings his life story into fervent life on stage. And though several of Ochs’ songs have been updated in recent years, the best live on intact, their potency all the more for their inward gaze.

Today, Ochs’ critical gaze and determined lyrics still ring true in the hands and mouths of artists across the globe, many of them – From DiFranco to Seeger, from Billy Bragg to John Wesley Harding – known for their own association with the continued struggle for rights and justice in modern society. And his prescient anthem When I’m Gone – surely his most covered song – speaks achingly to the need for every one of us to live and fight for today, while we still have breath.

Which is good. Because even as talk radio and Facebook become tools of discourse, rallying spaces are not rallies: as long as there is still injustice, we still need to be able to stand up and be counted in physical space. Facebook may be a great way to organize, but its silent screen is no match for the full emotional power of the spirit uplifted by song.

Singing to make change cannot be done without songs that demand it. We still need songs that give us courage and hope; we still need the deep feeling of standing together, singing loud and strong, to show ourselves what can be done, to keep us strong and whole and connected in the darkness.

And sing we must, in the end. For there is still so much to overcome.




For more coverage and covers of Phil Ochs, check out Life of a Rebel, a blog devoted to news and memories our featured artist.


[UPDATE, 3:50 pm: thanks to reader Dave, who reminds me that the brand new documentary Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune, had its US theatrical premiere just last week. The film, according to fellow folkfan Jeff of Notlob Concerts, "reveals the biography of a conflicted truth-seeking troubadour who, with a guitar in hand, stood up for what he believed in and challenged us all to do the same." Phil's sister Sonny will be a guest on Jeff's Tuesdays 5-8pm, WCUW-fm show In The Tradition on March 8th, just before the Boston premiere of the film. Look for it in theaters near you!]

918 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk, Phil Ochs

A Last Minute Christmas Gift from Catie Curtis & Friends

December 22nd, 2010 — 09:04 pm





From a commercial perspective, dropping a newly-recorded holiday album three days before Christmas seems risky enough. But this afternoon’s newest release from Compass Records, a digital EP from Catie Curtis aptly entitled ‘Twas the Night Before the White House, captures a moment in time too precious not to share.

And though I’ve only had time to play it through twice, it may well turn out to be my favorite holiday release of the year.

Catie’s sweet, warm voice and delicate delivery carry an authenticity which we truly need after weeks of store-bought Santas, commercial radio, and favorite carols ad infinitum. The rich acoustic setting provided by compatriots Elana, Ingrid and John on guitar, harmony, and violin is stunningly gorgeous, a perfect match for Catie’s breathy optimism.

And the album’s serendipitous back-story is utterly darling: four friends, rehearsing the night before a command performance at the White House just last week, find so much to love about the sound in the room that they decide on the spot to record five favorite holiday tunes, staying up until the wee hours making sure that the magic of the night could be preserved for years to come. And within days, it’s in our hands, leaving us to marvel at the intimacy we find in the confluence of technology and community and art, at the rapid speed and global closeness of the modern folkways.

So yes, the time is tight indeed to promote this one last great new album of the season. But the album’s digital-only format is perfect for the immediate gratification we crave. And as an antidote to the oft-ragged ears still struggling to maintain some semblance of holiday cheer in the last throes of the long build-up to the day itself, ‘Twas The Night Before The White House is a timely star, providing something rejuvenating and very, very special, just in time to help us make it through the next few days with joy in our hearts and our ears alike.

Here’s the lead-off track, with hopes that you’ll drop the fiver to pick up the whole beautiful thing from Catie’s site or from Compass Records tonight.



In case you’ve forgotten, we also heard Catie at the tail end of 2009, in last year’s last-minute feature on Rose Polenzani’s holiday songs:

804 comments » | Catie Curtis, Holiday Coverfolk

I’ll Be Home For Christmas: Holiday Coverfolk 2010, Vol. 3
(Plus bonus coversongs of holiday longing and loneliness)

December 19th, 2010 — 09:01 pm





One of my favorite Christmas themes is homecoming. The concentrated call for togetherness, whether wistful or wanton, is tied tightly to the seasonal trend towards family and friends, the desire for closeness around hearth and heart, a ward against the chill and the commercialism.

The intimacy that results – just us and the tree, or perhaps the crowd brought into the home – frames a set of a songs that celebrate being home, or express a longing for it, depending on the narrative stance. But in all cases, the motif is clear: Christmas is a time for love, in its infinite forms, and love from afar is always a poor substitute for love up close.

In our case, that means a renewed commitment to the family itself – a topic on our tongues in the Howdy house, as we look back on an unusually hectic year, in which we allowed management to supplant the true rituals of home, and lost sight of the noble goals which we have long established for both partnership and parenting. It’s early, yet, for resolutions. But a last minute argument-slash-decision not to compromise on the Christmas tree, which now stands proudly decorated in the midst of pre-party chaos, reminded us that the struggle to regain the introspective closeness we have lost will need to be at the top of our self-improvement list in the coming months.


I know that we are blessed to even have the opportunity. Not all of us have the luxury of family nearby, or a home to come home to. But home is something that lives in our hearts, an ideal as much as a roof and a bed. Just as a house is not a home without the love it represents, so can a home be a person, a helping hand, even a familiar voice on the telephone this time of year.

So love the ones you’re with, but love the rest of the world, too. Make peace with your enemies, and bring cookies to the neighbors unannounced. Skip the flat tone of the facebook message, and call that long-lost friend instead. Head out for that drink with a coworker or friend you’ve postponed for far too long. Empty your closet, and give your extra clothes to Goodwill; take that extra present to the Toys For Tots drop-off center in your town. Send a belated Christmas card to an anonymous soldier. Volunteer to serve Christmas dinner at the local senior center. Pay the toll for the cars behind you, and drop that extra dollar into the open hand of the lost and lonely.

Make everywhere part of your home this holiday season. Open your heart to the world, and the world will fill your heart. And may you, too, be together for Christmas, whatever that means for you and yours.



…and some bonus hope and longing songs, for those whose homes will be empty this season…and those who can’t go home again, just yet.



Cover Lay Down is still feeling the holiday spirit. Are you? Then don’t forget to check out our previous Holiday Coverfolk features from this year and last!

2,205 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk

Tribute Albums and Cover Compilations 2010, Vol. 3:
Late year releases, missed gems, and new holiday compilations

December 16th, 2010 — 12:17 am





As regular readers are surely aware, we tend to stay out of the ubiquitous year’s-end “best of” fray, leaving compilation to those blogs that focus on the ever-new. In part, that’s because we’re archivists and folklorists, not tastemakers, here at Cover Lay Down – which is to say, you’re just as likely to find a song from last decade as you are a release from last month being presented in our biweekly missives.

Too, as a matter of policy and preference, we prefer not to play favorites among the best players, believing that there is much to be said of and for the broad and vast diversity of successful songs and interpretations that comprise the threads of the modern folkways. Instead, we work hard only to bring you that which is worthy of pursuit, regardless of origin, as long as it fits into the intimate niche which we have carved out for ourselves.

But it’s hard to pretend that we haven’t trended towards the new a bit more this year than we had before – a fact that is driven as much by a renewed interest in the way that younger artists rise through the ranks, and in how older artists mature as they try to stay current and true to their own development, as it is by the fact that, after three and a half years on the circuit, we’ve featured a good many of my favorite artists in thorough detail by now. And as part of our ongoing focus on the everchanging world at the intersection of folk and coverage, we do try to keep tabs on the best tribute albums on a roughly quarterly basis throughout the year.

As always, we recommend all the songs and artists we tout here on these pages; those looking for something special for that special someone would be well advised to pick up pretty much any of the albums we’ve celebrated throughout 2010, or indeed, since our 2007 inception. But if you’ve scoured the archives, and are still stuck, here’s a few late-year releases and newly discovered collections which might make perfect stocking stuffers for the coverlover on your list.


Like the work of the artist it honors, Versions of Joanna is an eclectic, often strange mix of music, delicate and full of drones and creaky voices, typified by long narratives, pulsing instrumental swells and soaring melodic lines. But Joanna Newsom’s knack for abstract, often cryptic lyrics and fragile nufolk atmospheres translates well in the hands of this well-chosen collection of independent, often genre-bending artists – a list that includes M. Ward, Billy Bragg, Owen Pallette, and Ben Sollee, in addition to an international cadre of modern folk artists new to my ears but eminently worth watching.

At heart, though many of its songs are framed within production that pays apt tribute to Newsom’s frozen sonic landscapes, and though there are a few exceptions to the rule – like Joel Cathey’s amazing, upbeat harp-pop take on The Book Of Right-On, Versions is still mostly sparse singer-songwriter indiefolk, on piano and/or strings, with a few cello-and-bell exceptions. But it’s all beautiful, with a consistency that belies both its sonic diversity and the worrying first impression that it’s a bit early to do a tribute album for a living artist with only a few albums under her belt. The best part: sales from the 21-track digital album, which dropped just last week, will benefit Oxfam America’s Pakistan Floods Relief Fund, making your purchase a true gift in more ways than one.

Jennifer Schmidt: This Side Of The Blue (orig. Joanna Newsom)



Owen Pallett: Peach Plum Pear (orig. Joanna Newsom)



Rosa Hinksman: In California (orig. Joanna Newsom)

(from Versions of Joanna: A Tribute to Joanna Newsom, 2010)


We covered Boston-based altfolk siren Marissa Nadler way back in 2008 as a follow-up to our original freakfolk post, and again in May of 2009, in acknowledgement of the large-but-not-comprehensive bootleg collection of predominantly lo-fi covers which was floating around the webs at the time. But we seem to have missed the midsummer 2010 release of an untitled, “non-official” covers collection from Nadler herself, currently available via crafter’s website Etsy. The collection includes several songs which we already had – but who wants a downloadable set for gift-giving when for just 12 bucks, you can get a personalized collection of 17 favorites lovingly curated by the artist herself, burned on demand, and packaged in a delightful handmade cover with an original linotype designed by the artist herself.

Nadler is due to begin recording her next album in January, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign at the beginning of this month; in the meanwhile, here’s a few of my favorite covers from her past.




Of course, holiday albums are an especially relevant treat this time of year, with inevitable nods to songs old and new, and we’ve featured several of this year’s best already, from the Indigo Girls multifaith collection to Sam Billen and Josh Atkinson’s newest kickstarter-driven freebie. Joel Rakes’ ongoing holiday EP project festive.mood.inducing.music is in rare form this year, with twangy, hook-laden indie pop production filling out the once-a-week-’til-Christmas tunes to great and catchy effect. And the aptly-named Merry Ellen Kirk, whose still, lovely Do You Hear What I Hear we featured last year, has added an yet another song to her own ongoing free holiday EP well worth including in the mix, as well.

Though we included a track from Christian singer-songwriter Sara Groves‘ O Holy Night Tour: The Prison Show, a raw, bluesy set of folkpop carols recorded in an Illinois women’s prison, on Sunday, the free digital-only album comes highly recommended, especially as a gift for the empowered women in your life. In fact, I’m so in love with this collection, I couldn’t help but share a second gem, which totally and delightfully transforms a familiar carol into something sweet, gentle, new, and eminently folk.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention my new and growing affection for Dogs on Tour, a Chicago/Midwest based multi-musician collaborative, who forwarded me their second annual Christmas compilation just last week. Though it’s a cross-genre feast, as much a gorgeously experimental soundscape as a collection of discrete songs, there’s strong folk elements rounding out the mix, and like so much of the best of the season’s underground, it’s free, too, though you’re encouraged to donate a buck or two if you like the work. Plus, it comes with the best terms-of-use notice ever: “If downloaded you are agreeing to the terms of sharing it with everyone you possibly can, passing this link on to others all over the world, and having a Merry Christmas.” Done and done. Pass along the link, and the ones above, for a gift that costs nothing, yet means much.

1,034 comments » | Compilations & Tribute Albums, Holiday Coverfolk, Tribute Albums

Mass Media Monday: She & Him & CoCo
cover Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

December 13th, 2010 — 03:57 pm

They can be a little twee. He can be a little silly. But together, backstage, her pure, sweet voice and the gentle strum and tickle of two true-blue guitar masters make for something heartfelt, a sonic hearth just perfect for the holidays. Thanks to Wears The Trousers for the passalong.





Christmas Eve is 11 days away. Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?

754 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk

Holiday Coverfolk 2010, Vol. 2: The Christmas Story, Covered

December 12th, 2010 — 09:18 pm





As a defining event at the heart of the Western world’s most dominant religion, the Christmas story is perhaps the most sung-about narrative in history. But it’s not just religious importance which makes Christ’s birth so present in the air and the airwaves. The prophecy foretold; the kings, the star, the road; Bethlehem and the manger; Mary and Joseph – as a text, the multifaceted story breaks down into a dozen moments, stretching far enough for a myriad of narrative approaches, from a multiplicity of perspectives. And whether we grow up in Christianity or just aware of its vitality, there’s no denying that the importance of the coming Christian Mass, and the long slide into the season which precedes it, begs for a diversity of song, to sustain the fold as the season draws nigh.

Which is not to deny the immense driving force which culture itself has brought to the fore in spreading this particular gospel, either. The way in which singing and hearing Christmas has become a social phenomenon far beyond the trappings of pews and preacher – in home and hearth, in the community hall and the streetlight carol-sing – has only spread further the demand for a rich and eminently singable songbook. And as its time frame stretches back into November, driven by stores desperate to sell us a commodified Christmas spirit, batteries not included, the modern cry for spirituality in the midst of an ever-expanding commercial culture only strengthens our desire for the authentic.

The result is a canon unparalleled in scope. And where one finds such a vast array of song, coupled with the modern tendency to filter the stories of the past through both community and celebration, it is inevitable that we will find such song in the hands of the people. Indeed, it may be fair to say that there are more folk songs – and more folk versions of songs – about the various events surrounding the birth of Jesus than about any other single event in history, bar none.



There is heavy irony in this, of course. For much of the last several thousand years, the folk tradition and the Church tradition represented opposite, even opposed poles of the musical spectrum, with the Church struggling to displace the folk element with the imposed formality of its own liturgy.

But as we have noted time and time again here at Cover Lay Down, to pursue the folkways is to engage with common, shared understanding of the universe in ways that create communion. And for those of us who sing and listen to find the world in ourselves and ourselves in the world, to take familiar songs with deep meaning and a high recognition factor – such as those of our church childhoods – and filter them through intimate performance, is the very core of this practice.

Which makes for ample choice, when compiling a collection of acoustic and folk versions of Christian hymns and canticles for the holiest of seasons.

Indeed, even in source material, we find a broad selection. Many of the Christ child songs are “newer” hymns penned in and for churches; others come from old poems set to music by later generations, gospel spirituals grafted in the fields of the American south, true folktunes penned in homage to history by singer-songwriters. Regardless of their origin, their modern place among the canon speaks clearly to the relevance of true Christmas music throughout the ages. And though them, we celebrate the birth of every child, and of the presence of the holy spirit in our lives.

What follows, then, is by no means definitive, neither in song nor in version. But the songs I have chosen represent what I consider the core of the Christian mix for my own Jewnitarian home, where we struggle each season to honestly explain each diverse element in a world rich in faith and practice, allowing the true history of Christian retelling to take its place among the Buddhist and pagan elements, the humanistic and Jewish rituals which drive our multicultural household, even as we continue to profess our own core beliefs in something else entirely as part and parcel of raising healthy seekers.

Which is to say: you’ll find no Christian sermon here. But as a multitude of choir liturgies taught me as a child myself, to seek both deep joy and solace for the soul is anathema to a practice of exclusion. Here, then, are quiet songs of meaning, with joy and peace on a depth that transcends belief – even as they recount Christian teachings about a particular child, conceived of a particular mystery, foretold with a particular heavenly sign, born in a particular manger. Do What Thou Wilt with them, with my blessing for a truly meaningful holiday season, whatever you may practice.



See also Holiday Coverfolk 2010, Vol. 1: Christmas, (Re)Covered for new and newly-found holiday songs from singer-songwriters previously featured here on Cover Lay Down. Or, if you’re looking for something a bit more secular, why not try Wednesday’s feature set of Nondenominational Carols?

1,727 comments » | Holiday Coverfolk

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