The Winamp Lent and iTunes Easter

Ha–remember Winamp? That was the coolest.  Anyone still rocking that?

Ever since I saw the Liverpool Nativity and the Manchester Easter I’ve been thinking about what other popular songs could tell these stories.

Picture Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” done with “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” as counterpoint, Jesus on the cross singing the former, Judas the later.  ”No Woman, No Cry” at the Garden Tomb.   “All These Things That I’ve Done” by the Killers  as the Jesus Christ Superstar resurrection reprise.  I wrote some others down to share with folks at the Barn the other day but that scribble is somewhere else at the moment.   I think it’s on a napkin in a pocket somewhere.

I was thinking “Winterlong” by Neil Young (or at least parts of it) as a sunrise gathering song.  Last year we did “Here Comes The Sun” and “The Rising.”   

Liturgically minded readers might get worked up about Easter talk before we’re even at Candlemas (yeah, I didn’t know about that one either, but its existence means I don’t have to feel bad about leaving my Christmas stuff up until February), but apart from the year-end, cyclical, wintery pathos/catharsis I talked about in the Advent posts, the liturgical seasons seem superfluous.  Advent too, actually.  It’s just that Advent fits so well with what’s going on in nature.  The same can be said for Easter (”I’ve waited for you winterlong, you seem to be where I belong…”) but the short drama of Holy Week is harder for me to act.  I admit that I don’t get the whole business of re-creating it.  That’s my rebel Anabaptist rearing right there.  But I do love Faschnacht Day.  And I do love Easter in its churchy, syncretistic form, but only because it’s a chance to think artfully about the story with more people than might usually be interested.  And what’s going on in nature works then too.  

Speaking of that cycle, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the fact that I’m more cathartic about Spring Training and Opening Day than I am about Lent and Easter.  I mean, I really can’t wait for Spring Training.  Perhaps the launch of the MLB Network on New Year’s Day is what has me fast-forwarding. (Or maybe it was the Milton poem).  

Suggestions for the Winamp Lent and iTunes Easter?

On a tangentially related note, shortly after the election our friend Nathan said here that the Obama narrative would soon give way to SuperBowl narrative in terms of our penchant for redemptive story.  I think he’s right about how we tear and cycle through these stories.  Perhaps that’s the wisdom of liturgy.