Tuesday Tune Two-Fer: Every Stroke a Bucketful

One of the things that surprised me the most about The Wicker Man was that it seemed to be almost a musical. There were entire scenes devoted to a song, often pivotal to revealing something about the island or its plot.

My favorite is “Willow’s Song,” which the lovely young innkeeper’s daughter sings to herself to help fall asleep and for no other reason. I love it for many reasons, including how her movements emphasize the pounding of the drum beat. But mostly for the lyrics, which have the quality of the best folk songs — so abstract or metaphorical that it would take a historian to explain how they were unspeakably provocative for the time — until the last couplet, which could hardly be any more direct.1

(I usually try to keep a strict rule that the two-fer should never become a three-some, but I really like a cover of “Willow’s Song” titled “How Do” by Sneaker Pimps. It’s pretty faithful, but fills out the arrangement with the late 90s stuff you’d expect from the Sneaker Pimps, and really drives home the drum beat, which makes it as sinister as it is lovely).

The Wicker Man is so musical, in fact, that at times it felt a bit like a pagan Godspell. The films came out in the same year, and I admit I like the image of the two of them battling it out in the box office for the souls of the youth.

I deeply, deeply love Godspell, and I have ever since I first saw a high school production of it as a teenager. I vaguely remember a mild controversy over the choice to use it in my small home town deep in the Bible Belt, since the costumes, and the whole Hair-meets-the-gospel-of-Matthew concept could be assumed to be mockery. Not to mention setting everything to popular music!

It’s funny to think now, seeing as how the play is so earnest and so reverent. And especially that one of the most wholesome and reverential musicals based on Biblical material was written and performed by so many people who are ethnically Jewish and presumably non-Christian. (Not to mention that several people key to the production are gay or bisexual, which at the time was mostly considered to be completely incompatible with Christianity).

It’s a perfect illustration of how a faith that’s driven by dogma and ritual is a faith unchallenged. Beliefs that can’t tolerate differing interpretations and differing representations are weak and brittle, depending only on tradition and blind acceptance, instead of examining what the words mean and how they have value. Which actually makes it an excellent companion to many of the ideas in The Wicker Man.

My favorite song in Godspell is… well, it’s “Day by Day.” But that’s kind of like choosing “Stairway to Heaven” as your favorite Led Zeppelin song — it’s not wrong, it’s just basic. I think the most powerful song in Godspell is “By My Side”. Even as a cynical middle-aged man, decades removed from having any patience for musical theater that doesn’t deal in ironic detachment, hearing the entire ensemble join in for “I can walk” still gives me goosebumps.

1
Although as long as we’re being blunt, after all that build-up I’d expect a lot more than just a handy.

1 Although as long as we’re being blunt, after all that build-up I’d expect a lot more than just a handy.