Yonder, The Sisterhood (1974)
Track 35 is the last of the song-poems on this year’s mix, and while it appeared on an M.S.R. Records album titled "Christmas Album," the lyrics don't seem to have anything to do with December 25. Frankly, it’s not immediately apparent just what they are about:
Yonder with a
village view sits a village queen
And around all
reading through planted with all colors of green
A little boy far
traveled,
Might also care to
travel back
With a seaboard,
crates and masts
He is educational,
years of more track
Towards yonder,
where all work is done
With harvest
enduring years
And more of
distribution begins where all reading is shown by far and nears
[Repeat both stanzas]
Where all reading is
shown by far and nears
Far and nears
The song is credited to The Sisterhood, a group of several female singers who worked for the M.S.R. label. The lyrics are by a fellow named Thomas Jackson Guygax, Sr., a Springfield, Missouri resident who wrote at least ten sets of lyrics that were ultimately set to music and released by M.S.R.
To say Guygax had an unusual style would be an understatement. Many of his efforts read like a jumble of random words that tumbled out of a high-speed blender in no particular order — and yet . . . there’s a certain weight, even majesty, to some of them.
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| The Sisterhood |
In any case, I’ve grown rather fond of “Yonder” over the many years since I first heard it. I guess I never really paid too much attention to the lyrics, however, for it was only recently that I figured out that this isn't a Christmas song at all. All M.S.R. had to do is include the tune on one of its several holiday releases and that was apparently all I needed to park it in an honored spot on this year's mix.
Before we bid adieu to M. Guygax, allow me to share another set of lyrics from one of his ten M.S.R. releases:
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| Thomas J. Guygax |
A POET
(Thomas J. Guygax,
Sr.)
as recorded by Dick
Charles
A poet once sat
among his papers
Letters from here
and far across the sea
He scribbl'd with
his pencil a moment
Saying, "My!
what's happen'd to me?"
"Should I wrote
poetry or prose?
Heaven only knows!
I wish I had
something to write about
Then I wouldn't have
to sit here and pout
So let's call Jerry and dance about."
Happy Holidays, Robbie Robertson (2019)
I surprised myself by finishing this year’s mix in early September, roughly three months ahead of my typical schedule. The way I have to assemble these things today makes it very difficult to make any changes to the mix once it's complete, so I really figured it was done until the first weekend in November when I happened upon this song on YouTube. I knew instantly that I had to include it, so I removed what had been the penultimate track (“The True Meaning Christmas,” by Ambulances) and stuck this one in its place.
Robbie Robertson has long been one of my favorite artists, and news of his death this past August cast a long shadow over 2023 for me — a year that started off on a sour note with the January 18 death of another of my all-time favorites, the legendary David Crosby. I used to try to include tracks by those artists I really liked who’d passed each year but discontinued the practice because the lists of departing celebrities were beginning to get too long. But I certainly wanted to honor Robertson and this is a terrific and appropriate track to do it with.
Recorded during the sessions for his last solo album, Sinematic (2019), “Happy Holidays” is Robertson’s playful attempt at pointing out the yin and yang of the modern holiday season.
“We love Christmas and the holidays,” Robertson said in statement quoted in Rolling Stone. “[They] brings good cheer, and also stress and depression, so I wanted to do a song that celebrates both sides and have a little fun.” This is evident from the very first verse:
Please don’t leave Old Saint Nick
Too much milk and cookies
’Cause by the time he gets round to us
He won’t be able to get
His fat ass down the chimney.
Proceeds from the song were donated to the American Indian College Fund. Robertson himself had indigenous roots, as his mother was part Cayuga and part Mohawk, and two of his six outstanding solo albums focus on Native American themes.
This is the second holiday song of Robertson’s I’ve used. My 2012 mix Gee Whiz . . . It's Christmas (Again!) included The Band’s song “Christmas Must Be Tonight,” which Robertson wrote for their 1977 album Islands.
I was familiar with Robertson’s work as a member of The Band but became a really big fan with the release of his first self-titled solo album in 1987. I loved the video for the first single off the album, “Somewhere Down the Crazy River,” which was directed by Martin Scorsese. I was also wowed by Robertson’s appearance on Saturday Night Live around that same time, which featured the rock song “Testimony” that he recorded with U2.
Over the next 35 years, Robertson released a string of outstanding albums, including Storyville (1991), Contact from the Underworld of Redboy (1998), How to Become Clairvoyant (2011) and Sinematic (2019). In 1994 he collaborated with the Red Road Ensemble on a collection of stunningly beautiful songs written to accompany a TBS documentary, later released as an album called Music for the Native Americans,
He also worked closely with Martin Scorsese, scoring a series of the famed director’s biggest films. Shortly before his death, Robertson completed the score to Scorsese’s latest release, Killers of the Flower Moon.
Robertson was one of a kind, and he’ll be sorely missed.
One Tin Soldier, Cher (1972)
This year's mix goes out pretty much the same way it came in, with an excerpt from the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. This track features Cher singing her version of the 1969 song "One Tin Soldier," written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and originally recorded by the Canadian pop group The Original Caste. It was later recorded by the group Coven for the 1971 Warner Brothers film "Billy Jack." Cher's version begins with her singing an excerpt from the classic carol "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," followed by Cher singing Coven's version of the song over a video created by animator John David Wilson:
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