When I encounter the Good News as read by Johnny Cash, I encounter it as a living proclamation—not as a dead letter.
Music
Posted inBooks
John Lennon and Paul McCartney: Friends, competitors, soulmates
John and Paul were friends, yes—competitors, too. John may have even been attracted to Paul. But their connection was more profound than any single word can describe. And as proof, we have their songs.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead’s reluctant spiritual ministry
Jerry Garcia might not strike one as the most likely of priests…but to his fans and generations of listeners, he was indeed an oracle and a prophet.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Twenty years on, Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Illinois’ is still telling an American story
“Illinois” describes a state and a nation in motion, full of complicated human beings who do bad things and good things.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
‘A singing church is a praying church’: The East Brothers’ gifts of faith and music
For Monsignor Ray East and his brother Nathan, their faith feeds their music and their music feeds their faith.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Masked man: Al Jolson and the politics of performance
Richard Bernstein tackles difficult topics in his short study of an extraordinary entertainer, Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson in Lithuania in 1886), and a profoundly important movie—and not just because “The Jazz Singer” is recognized as the “first talkie.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and the Communion of Saints
Bob Dylan, more than anyone, fused the pop cultural and the religious experience into one.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
A Bob Dylan nerd reviews ‘A Complete Unknown’
As a young Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” Timothee Chalamet captures some of the iconic singer’s enigmatic yet magnetic personality.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
How a scandalous love song became a sacred Christmas carol: ‘What Child is This?’
On the final episode of Hark! this season, prepare yourselves for a wee bit of scandal because we’re looking at a tune that began as a bawdy love song and has long been associated with an evil monarch, but which, over the course of three centuries, finds its redemption as a Christmas carol. This is the story behind, “What Child Is This?”
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
‘What Child is This?’ brings us closer to Christ and the mystery of His birth
While “What Child Is This?” is an explicitly Christmas song, the tune speaks to the mystery of identity and purpose—questions that transcend religious boundaries and appeal to the human experience.