Remember, O Thou Man, Finale: Apparently the Finale is always Fan Folktion now, feat. a niche Gaelic song, a weird English song, and Grim’s questionable singing

Hello hello and welcome to the week of all weeks. It’s Holy Week, my friends. I hope you are sufficiently hype for all the glorious holiness we are about to experience and hopefully benefit from. (that’s probably a gloriously technically erroneous statement but there you have it.)

I hope you are all well? What have you done thusfar to observe Holy Week? Are you helping in any specific way at your church over the Triduum? Tell me all the things. *flaps hands at the comments*

Okay but do it QUICKLY because we have stuff to get to.

(just kidding. what you have to say is almost certainly more interesting than the substance of this questionable post.)

Annnyhow. Here we are at the finale, and I have gone and done it. I’ve done a fan folktion. I think it’s actually been quite a bit since I posted one of those, so I’m excited. Let’s get into the parts and pieces of it, shall we?

The Idea

Disclaimer: I am not a theologian. Not even well read in that respect, I don’t think. What follows–as always on this here chaotic corner of the internet–is solely personal speculation based upon my knowledge of Scripture and Tradition and general Catechism and stuff, as well as long hours of reflection and prayer on these topics in the light of those things. Basically what I’m saying is don’t quote me on anything, ha.

Now that that’s out of the way.

Okay so I’ve spent a lot of time in the past yearish thinking about the philosophical/theological implications of loneliness. My theory at this point is that it’s the longing to fully know/be known. Which would explain why we struggle so much with it, especially in our human relationships. We can’t ever fully know/be known by another human.

BUT

of course we can fully be known by God.

And we can fully know Him hereafter in paradise, but not yet.

But if you love somebody, you really want to know them well.

So yes, I am sorta postulating here that the more you grown in holiness and love for God, the more you struggle against loneliness. Not the kind that wants to be known, but the kind that wants to know.

Which would track considering some of the greatest saints of all time have gone through the whole ‘dark night of the soul thing.’

But I also think it’s why loneliness can lead to the greatest spiritual pride in a weird sort of way? Because you can get obsessed with this idea that you want to know as well as to be known, and it can quickly lead you to the idea that you ought to know, that you deserve in some way to know, and then it all goes downhill from there.

I digress. But I think you get the idea.

However, you may have realized something already, which is if my statements are correct, Christ in His Humanity has got to be the most truly lonely man to walk this earth.

He loves us so fully and so deeply and most of the time, even if we care, we just…fail Him. All the time. Don’t seem to care to know Him as He wishes to show Himself to us.

Of course the Trinity is a model of love and one wonderful thing about it is that God can never be lonely because He is communion unto Himself (if that’s the right terminology. This is one of the statements I’m most positive about; I just don’t know if I’m saying it right, heh.)

But still. I think you get what I’m saying. As Chesterton put it in Orthodoxy, Christ’s cry of ‘my God, my God, why has Thou abandoned Me?’ on the Cross is evidence that even God can feel totally forsaken, even of Himself.

It’s something that’s proved very interesting to reflect upon for me as far as my understanding of God’s unconditional Love goes…and it seemed a good topic for a Holy Week reflection.

That being said, have at thee…

The Components

The whole reason I decided to write a fan folktion about this idea is this song:

I actually think the Iarla O Lionaird version of this song is better, and that’s the person I originally heard it from (shoutout to my folk music buddy on the Fic Frenzy server who shared that beauty with me to begin with). HOWEVER. Iarla O Lionaird is a) male, and so sounds very different singing this song than I do. b) an absolute legend in the Sean Nos technique (which, if you didn’t know, is characterized by vocal ornamentation among other things). His ornamentations are unmatchable…and also make it hard to follow along with him. Beautiful, and very worth a listen, but hard to adapt a tune from because you can’t tell where the ornamentation ends and the song begins. So I chose the still gorgeous but slightly simpler Karan Casey version to pull the tune from and to give you all as the original example.

This song is niche, and often done in Gaelic. Do you know what this means practically for our discussion? *cups hands to ear and waits for the chorus* that’s right kids. that means it’s not on Mainly Norfolk. Our more robust friend Mudcat.org doesn’t have an entry but does have a forum discussion of it. I don’t usually reference Mudcat on here, mostly because it’s far less user friendly, and I haven’t yet figured out the best way to make it work to my advantage. But Mudcat is a far bigger collection of music, so I probably should get that nailed down at some point. (For reference: if you wish to have a go at Mudcat yourself, you will likely have to search the site via the Google search box (i.e: site:mudcat.org “YOUR QUERY HERE”), as the site’s been down for a lot of people for some time. running theory is that it’s connected to the British Library, which catalog has also been down for some time due to hacking.)

OKAY ANYWAY. I sure do digress. Case in point, it’s hard to find info on this song, but the liner notes somebody put up on the Mudcat forum seem to imply that the song was potentially translated from English into Gaelic originally, and survives now in both forms. Which would make sense, because I was wondering why it was that there’s any rhyming at all in the English form. Of course I know translation on these things is sometimes -ish in order to create rhymes, but it would have to be a pretty piece of it in this case if that were in fact what was going on. (I swear to you I have a reason for saying that, I’m just finding it hard to put into words my idea of it. Maybe Sam will do it in the comments.)

Annnyhow. So there’s that. I heard that, and its haunting beauty and was like ‘dude I HAVE to do something with this’, and then the loneliness thing came up and here we are.

The nice added benefit is that it…*coughs*…doesn’t have much of a rhyming scheme. Which means your girl did some pretty intense slant rhyming in this bad boy.

Tune number two has the same thing going on with the slant rhymes, which makes my job even easier. Have yourself a listen to John the Red Nose, if you haven’t already. It’s a very old trad (it’s speculated to be as old as the 14th century, although the oldest written edition is from 1776) with some very peculiar lyrics (recommend looking them up) having an even more peculiar connection to folklore. Suffice it to say: I need to write a whole post on wrens, because at this point it’s like that scene at the end of Tangled where Rapunzel looks around her bedroom and realizes she’s plastered the whole thing in subliminal messaging by accident. I mean. What is with the Wren thing? Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Irish holiday customs. Freakin’ weird English folk songs from who knows how long ago. Everybody’s obsessed with them and usually in gruesome ways and I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHY OKAY.

Ahem.

Annnyhow.

You may be asking yourself why there are two tunes. I usually only have one.

Welp, kids, I’ve written a dialogue, that’s why, with one part from Our Lord’s POV and one part from humanity’s. ‘I’m Weary of Lying Alone’ is for Our Lord, and ‘John the Red Nose’ for humanity.

And now you may be asking yourself why the heck I chose John the Red Nose.

Well, I actually have several good reasons for that one.

a) I needed to pick a song that fit with ‘I’m Weary of Lying Alone’ in terms of the key and general sound. After singing snatches of Lying Alone alongside snatches of probably at least a dozen other songs whilst doing the dishes one evening (my poor roommate happened to be home that night), I settled on two options: Banks of the Lee, which I discussed extensively in the very first Remember, O Thou Man post ever, or John the Red Nose.

b) I chose John the Red Nose chiefly for the difference in tone. Lying Alone and Banks of the Lee are too similar in tone to make for a good dialogue pairing. Both are laments, almost dirges. John the Red Nose is not. What’s more, John the Red Nose does have a sort of mournful quality about it despite not being a lament, which I actually did want. Last point for John the Red Nose in terms of tone: it has a sort of…*thinks*…almost panic about it? It doesn’t sound quite sensible. I don’t know how to describe that to you other than to say it. Please tell me if you agree with that idea in the comments or if you think I’m crazy, but there’s just something about the tone of the song that gives ‘I’m pacing back and forth having an existential crisis and blowing something way out of proportion.’ And seeing as how that was exactly the vibe I wanted for humanity’s part, I chose this one.

c) finally, cutting back to the words, John the Red Nose and its strangely large catalog of similar songs’ weird plot of ‘let’s go march into the woods and murder this bird’ is speculated by some scholars to be a reference to some old pagan ideas of the sacrifice of the Year King. I’ve also heard some very different legends about the whole ‘let’s go kill a wren thing’, ones far more tied in with Christian tradition, and I know people have a weird obsession with attributing pagan roots to stuff, so I’m not positive about the whole pagan thing, and I can’t find much to back it up. (Wikipedia straight up says at the top of the entry that the song’s origin and meaning are ‘disputed’, so there ain’t no way you and I are going to get anywhere on that matter fast.) But one thing I do know: the wren is traditionally thought of to be the king of the birds. This song is basically about a huge rabble going to brutally murder a giant wren who apparently has done nothing to deserve such treatment. If you can’t see why that seemed an appropriate thing to adapt to this topic of Christ’s passion, then…well I don’t have the brains to explain it further right now. you’re on your own.

Anyway. All that being said (my gosh this is a long post), tallyho, and pardon my questionable singing as per usual.

Dying Alone

In the cool of the evening, I walked in My Eden

And found you despoiled and gone–

But My Heart is set on you–by Myself, I shall save you,

If even by dying, alone, alone

If even by dying, alone.

• I decided to put ‘Christ’s’ part in italics and ‘humanity’s’ in bold throughout this discussion, just fyi.
• Okay first off, this is a reference to the beginning of Genesis. Y’know, the bit where God walks into the Garden after Adam and Eve have sinned? But it’s also a reference to the idea that our hearts are a garden God wants to take residence in (and if you haven’t heard that idea before, shut up, you have, or at least trust me that it’s not mine and all over the writings of the saints and stuff). So it’s meant to be a bit of a double-meaning. He entered Eden, yes, but He also came unto the heart He called His–that is, ours–and found it despoiled.
• As for ‘gone’, I wanted to play around with the idea that a human struggling with any sin of their own or any impact of another’s sin–in this case, I guess I was thinking particularly loneliness (which is of course an impact of original sin)–anyway if we’re in that position, we will often kinda…space out. Ignore what’s happening in our own heart. I know I’m guilty of it. I’m sure somebody reading can relate. You just kind of turn your brain off and distance yourself from your own heart and keep moving. You’re not really present in your own head, and at times you’re almost afraid to take up residence in your own heart, if that makes sense. Of course, we should never be afraid of that–because a) Jesus made our hearts, so there’s no reason to fear them even at their worse b) when and if we come back around to our hearts, we’ll find Jesus has been waiting patiently there for us to let Him in to clear things up. c) Jesus is always willing to be present there with us, so who are we to deny Him that? And yet…well, we kinda do when we sin, and did in original sin. So that’s what that was supposed to mean.
• ‘By Myself I shall save you’–another double meaning thing. It is by the sacrifice of Himself that He has saved us, but it’s also meant to reference Genesis 22: 16-17 where He swears by Himself to Abraham.
• And the dying alone thing…well, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory, to be frank.

Oh why aren’t You going, and what are You doing,

And why do You come here to suffer below?

And ought You to leave me now that I’ve deceived You,

And why do You love me, and why don’t You go?

• I really wanted to convey a certain idea with humanity’s part here, and that is…well, I don’t know if this is a problem for everybody, but I certainly know I’m not the only one that struggles with the unfairness of God loving us as He does. It just doesn’t seem fair to Him, and sometimes I find myself foolishly wishing He had more self-preservation, for His own sake. To explain it another way: have you ever had somebody you really love do something that hurts them repeatedly, for very good reasons, and if so did you find yourself getting almost frustrated about it for their sakes? Of course, though, applying that same reasoning to God is a fallacy, because God knows exactly what He’s doing and does all for the glory of the good, true, and beautiful–i.e. Himself. So it’s really a type of pride to struggle with that impulse, I think–as our priest says ‘you think you know better than Our Creator?’. But I kind of meant humanity’s part to be a bit…erroneous, if that makes sense? At least at first.
• And then we come to the incessantly questioning nature of this and all of humanity’s verses–which kind of further ties into what I said above. I meant humanity’s part to sound like the panic-y, slightly irrelevant questioning of a child who’s been told something he doesn’t like and doesn’t quite know what to do with that information. Because frankly, if there is one thing I (and I know many others) struggle with as regards our Faith, it’s ‘why the heck does God love me so much?’ Why doesn’t He leave us, when we ill-treat Him so? By all rights oughtn’t He to go? And I kind of wanted to address…well, not necessarily the answer to those questions, but the fact that they are such widespread and deep-seated questions for us poor fools.
• I also wanted to point out an idea that’s sort of relevant here, that Father A (my spiritual director) has brought up before…’Being angry at God is in a large way an act of faith. Because it is predicated on the idea that God is all-knowing and all-loving and all-powerful, and so could do something even though He’s not.’ It’s not exactly relevant to this verse but I wanted to address it all the same; it seems overall to be topical.

Before you were born, I laid claim to your burden,

So that you might find yourself known.

But you would not know Me, and turned your back on Me–

So it’s for you I’m dying, alone, alone

It’s for you I’m dying, alone.

• The main point I feel like I should expand upon for this one is the first phrase. I’m referencing something I wrote about in last week’s post–the idea that God, in bearing all sin and all effects of sin ever, took up, too, our own specific crosses–and He did so long before we ever bore them ourselves. He knows a part of your cross that you have yet to encounter or carry–He bore it all for you already. So when you round that corner and take that blow, you will find yourself already seen and known in that suffering–He’s already taken the blow for you.
• I think the rest of the verse is pretty self-explanatory?

Oh why don’t You go then, and why not despise men

Who’ve bled You and sped You so far from our heart?

What comfort take from us? Oh why do You love us?

When You stand not to gain the littlest part?

• I can’t really think of anything I need to say about this verse? It’s meant to more or less be an expansion on the first ‘humanity’ verse.

My people, my people, what have I done to you?

Oh I surely don’t reap what I’ve sown!

For I led you through water, and loved you by fire,

But by your hand, I’m dying, alone, alone

By your hand I’m dying, alone.

• This verse references, pretty explicitly, a traditional part of the Good Friday liturgies, called the Good Friday Reproaches. It’s basically just Jesus listing off all the things He did for his people and then all the things we repaid Him with via the Passion. (Full text here, recording here.) In a Catholic Good Friday service, it’s usually sung during the Adoration of the Cross (about mid-liturgy) and part of the refrain is the ‘My people, my people, what have I done to you?’
• The ‘led you through water and loved you by fire’ is a sort of a poetic adaptation of the verses of the same text. ‘I led you through the Red Sea…’/’I went before you in a pillar of fire..’

Oh You have gained nothing from loving us dead things,

And yet you have staked Your own Life on Your Love!

Oh trembling and terror, and joy beyond measure,

This Gift of the Lonely Almighty above!

• Okay so this first line is of course a reference to human mortality and the fact that we are kind of dead men walking, but the second one is meant to be a nod to the idea that God sort of…well, if one makes the argument that we are not worthy of God’s Love (which we aren’t, but you know what I mean), it can quickly be retorted that God is so entirely certain of the fact that He loves us that He staked His very life on that affirmation. And there’s something absolutely awe-inspiring and kind of terrifying about that…but also something indescribably joyful.

Oh, Beloved of Heaven, it’s you who are chosen,

And by Calv’ry, cruel death is undone.

I have sacrificed Love for My just right to love you,

So come and die with Me as one, as one

Come and die with Me as one.

• First I would like to remark that by Love (capitalized), I mean of course, God Himself.
• Second, I would like to take a quote here from the fantastic book I Believe in Love (by Fr. Jean C.J. D’Elbee; I’ve spoken about the book before and so have others, but rest assured I would highly recommend it). This is on page 6: “Jesus bought a twofold right on Calvary at the price of all His Blood: the right, for Him, to love us in spite of, or even because of our sins, our unworthiness; and the right, for us, to love Him from the depths of our immense misery and to contemplate His divine attributes, including His justice, within His infinite mercy.” so that’s what that was referencing.

To Father, and Spirit, and Son, all most blessed–

To God, three in one, be the glory and crown,

Who’s baptized our suff’ring by Blood of His Off’ring,

Who’s deigned we may reach Him by dying alone.

I think this one is…pretty self-explanatory. It is death alone that can bring us to Heaven, and it’s dying to self alone that can prepare us for it.

***

Welp there you have it. I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of concluding thoughts…partially because I’m hurrying off to a Seider night… partially because I hope the piece speaks for itself.

But I hope you have a blessed rest of your Holy Week, my friend.

May God be with you…and never forget how much He loves you–and how He is so certain of it that He staked His life on it.

How beautiful it is to know we are never truly alone…