Published on December 29, 2024 3:40 PM GMT
Last night was the ninth Boston Secular Solstice (2023,2022,2019,2018).This is not counting the 2020 onewhich was everywhere nearly simultaneously, with carefully calibrateddelay. Skyler continued as lead organizer, with me coordinating musicand Taymon helping in a bunch of ways.
If you were there, it would be great if you could fill out the survey so wecan make it better next year!
For the first time since 2017 we were in a real venue, Connexion in East Somerville.They donated the space, because they want to support this kind ofthing, which was really generous of them. If they'd charged us normalrates it would have been ~$10/person, and if you'd like to make acontribution to the venue you can do that here.
Not being in my living room had pluses and minuses. Reconfiguring thehouse for maximum capacity had been a lot of work, where last year Ispent about six hours on setup and teardown. We also had more peoplethis year—I counted 52—which is more than would have fitin our house anyway. On the other hand, it wasn't as good a space forkids: at home we have separate areas where kids can hang out,including putting them to bed before its over. This time no one elsebrought their kids, and we hired a babysitter to stay home with ouryounger two. We also didn't attend the afterparty, when we wouldhave had it been in our living room. Overall, though, I'm very happyswitching back to a space built for this purpose.
I again prepared two sets of slides (audience,musicians).Next time I want to include placeholders for the speeches on themusician slides, so it's easier to follow along.
Here are the songs we did this year:
- AlwaysLook on the Bright Side of Life, by Eric Idle
I don't have audio for this one because the recording shut off forsome reason. My guess is that the cable jiggled and it briefly lostthe connection, which it doesn't recover from. USB-C is not as sturdyas USB-A, especially with adapters giving extra leverage on the port.Regardless, I think this is the one where my piano playing was worst,so I don't mind having missed it too much!
GatherRound, Ray Arnold(mp3)
It took me a long time to figure out a way of playing Gather Roundthat I was happy with, but I'm decently happy with where I ended up.The main thing that made it tricky is that it uses very few chords:almost the whole song just wants to be over a C chord.
The Circle, by Taylor Smith(mp3)
A song about the expanding moral circle that I like a lot. We didmake a few tweaks to it this year:
We merged the "bring the stranger in" and "bring the far ones in"verses, since both of them cover expanding the circle to include allof humanity:
And will we bring the stranger in,
Circle, grow and grow.
every state and speech and skin?
Circle, grow and grow.
For the hands you'll never hold,
for the names you'll never learn,
for all far-off hearts that yearn,
let compassion boundless roll!
Circle, circle grow and grow.
Julia reworked the lastverse, with some help from Claude, tobe less ominous while still expanding the circle to the far future:
And will we bring the future in?
Circle, grow and grow.
Every soul that might begin
Circle, grow and grow.
From Earth's cradle, shining bright
Spreading through the starry deep
Lights unborn, for you we keep
will and hope, though dark the night
Circle, circle grow and grow.
(mp3)
Mostly straightforward, with a tricky bridge ("someother folks might be..."). I do like the bridge, but in this contextit didn't work so we decided to cut it.
Unison in Harmony, by Jim Boyes(mp3)
Easy to pick up, good feeling.
Somebody Will, by Ada Palmer(mp3)
A very difficult song melodically, but we've now been doing itlong enough that we have a good range of people who can carry thetune. I like how it sounded this year.
Give My Children Wings, Kathy Mar(mp3)
Our first time doing this song. It fit thematically and isn't toohard to pick up; you can hear over the course of the song as more andmore people figure it out and start singing confidently.
WeWill All Go Together When We Go, by Tom Lehrer(mp3)
We've done this several times and it's often on-theme, but it's a bithard to fit in energy-wise because it starts somber and endsincongruously happily. This time we did it in the second half, but Ithink I like it better in the lighter part of the program?
When I Die, by Glen Rafael(mp3)
I learned this at the initial2011 solstice, and it's a good fit for group singing.
When I'm Gone, Phil Ochs(mp3)
We cut this down two four verses, since seven is quite long. Inretrospect I think five would have been moderately better.
No One Is Alone, by Stephen Sondheim(mp3)
The original is for two voices and has some complex sections. Juliaput together a version with a single melodic line, drawing from the BernadettePeters version. We did keep the "people make mistakes" bridge,even though it's tricky, because the song really needs it.
Brighter Than Today, by Ray Arnold(mp3)
Bostonversion, as always.
This time we turned on the house lights in parallel with lighting theaudience candles. I now think it would have been better to just lightthe candles and leave the house lights for later in the program. Someof this is that I really like the feeling of the room when it's justlots of people with candles, and no electric lights.
Endless Lights, by Ray Arnold(mp3)
Possibly this is when the house lights could have come on?
I edited the song slightly for length, removing some of the morerepetitive sections.
The Mary Ellen Spider song, words by BobBlue to music by Stan Rogers(mp3)
I asked Lily if she wanted to lead a song at solstice this year, andof the ones Skyler had picked out this was the clear best choice.
BattleHymn of Truth, words byScott Alexander, adapted from words by Julia Ward Howe, to traditional music.(mp3)
Songs that people already know the melody to are ideal.
Old Devil Time, by Pete Seeger(mp3)
I like that we have a tradition of ending with Old Devil Time eachyear.
It was fun working with Skyler, Julia, Alex, Charlie, and Lily on themusic! There were three songs I didn't play or sing on, which is morethree more than we've had in years, and is great. Looking forward tonext year!
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