Thursday, April 2, 2009: Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” - "Christmas Bells"

Have you ever had one of those days when everything seems to run over onto itself? Not necessarily bad, just really busy. Today seems to be one of those days for me. It is the kind of day where you wonder if there is ANY way to get everything done. In fact, it is really appropriate with the way my S-I-T-Head started this morning.

My eyes opened this morning with about ten songs in my head. They were all playing over and on top of each other. It was really quite strange, and kind of annoying. I couldn’t figure out how I would come up with a S-I-T-Head if I couldn’t key in on one song. However, it was the layering itself that lead me down a different path and pulled in another song. That was the one stuck. At that point I was listening to the music from Jonathan Larson’s rock opera, Rent.

Rent is set in New York City’s Lower East Side. It is the story of several young artists and musicians and their struggle to live, love, and survive. One of the main themes of the shows deals with living with, and coping with having to live with, AIDS. Many of the elements in the show are drawn from Puccini’s La Bohème. I was fortunate to see Rent twice. Once in New York City, where it ran on Broadway for 12 years before closing last September, and once in Boston. I really enjoy this show and recommend it highly. But, how did it get me to where I ended up on my journey for today’s S-I-T-Head?

Larson uses an interesting overlap kind of effect in quite a few of the numbers in the show, including the title number, Rent. However, for me, the one that sticks out the most is Christmas Bells. It seems like there are points where almost every actor on stage is singing different lyrics, and in some cases in different times. But even with all of that the sound just melds. As you listen to it you can start to discern the different components. From there you can pull parts of the story out that you may have missed after seeing/hearing it only once. Really cool stuff.

I wanted to include in this S-I-T-Head report the lyrics for this song as noted on lyrics007.com (http://www.lyrics007.com/Rent%20Lyrics/Christmas%20Bells%20Lyrics.html), just because that is how I roll. However, there is a lot going on in this number and the lyrics are really long. It just won’t do it justice unless you hear it. (And it would make this entry 10 pages!) So, the best that I can do is to give you the link to look at them. I really have to urge you to find a way to listen to it to really appreciate what I’m getting at.

I guess the point of my S-I-T-Head today is that life gets hectic. We all have so many things that overlap over each other. Like this song, we have to drill into the noise to find the story so we don’t miss out on something. It is up to us to figure out what is important and what is there to make it sound pretty. Unlike this song, however, we have to do all of this real time while singing along and we don’t often get a second chance to listen again to find out what we missed the first time around.

Here’s to finding your one song when your mind is swelling with 100 others that all want the spot in your S-I-T-Head!