Garrison Keillor Dips Into Mysteries of Human Behavior in The Adventures of Guy Noir

“A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life’s persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.” This intro, accompanied by the distinctive piano melody composed by Richard Dworsky, is instantly recognizable to fans of A Prairie Home Companion, the radio show that Garrison Keillor has hosted for more than 35 years. The show has featured hundreds of installments of the adventures of this hard-boiled detective voiced by Keillor; the two-disc album The Adventures of Guy Noir, Radio Private Eye collects 11 of them, with a final track dedicated just to the theme.

Guy Noir is a rather acerbic man, and he often spends time ruminating on his displeasure with Minnesota’s weather or the ignorance of today’s youth or the tendency of clients to underpay him for his services. This collection is particularly pensive. Indeed, we sometimes spend more time in Guy’s head than we do actually doing anything. Some stories don’t involve a mystery at all; others put Guy on the case but spend most of the time sidetracked. I really don’t mind; I’m used to rambling tangents from Garrison Keillor, and I often find that the more random he gets, the more I crack up. Then again, my all-time favorite Guy Noir sketch, in which Poet Laureate Billy Collins had a guest role and imitations of William Carlos Williams poems flowed freely, retained a narrow focus and kept a mystery in the forefront. Those looking for that type of story might be disappointed here.

While Guy Noir, like A Prairie Home Companion, is based in Minnesota, he often travels for business, usually in conjunction with the show being on the road in a particular city. Hence, in this collection, he heads to New York, Los Angeles and a couple of other places, always commenting on the differences between them and his hometown. He’s an equal opportunity spoofer, making fun of the habits of Minnesotans as well as visitors from other states and those he visits elsewhere. There’s also plenty of political talk, again poking fun at both sides but seeming to give Republicans a slightly harder time. He also makes a number of pointed observations about Lutherans, particularly in the two stories about New Yorkers coming to Minnesota in search of love. While I’ve never been to Minnesota, I’d say his comments about Lutherans there apply pretty well to Lutherans in other parts of the country, particularly Erie, PA.

It always amuses me to hear him go on about casseroles and mild-mannered ministers and Norwegian bachelor farmers. I especially chuckled over Guy’s warning in one tale that “When it comes to finding single men in Minnesota, the odds are good but the goods are odd.” I guess Guy would know; most of these stories involve him pining over some gorgeous woman or another. He never seems to be romantically involved with anyone for long; most of them seem to just use him for his surveillance services and then move on.

This collection does include some puzzling cases, but it’s much more comedy than mystery. Sue Scott, Tim Russell and soundman Tom Keith, who also adds zany effects to each episode, provide their voice talents playing multiple characters, and guest stars turn up here as well, though I confess that Renee Fleming and Al Franken are the only ones I’ve heard of. The tales also frequently mention famous figures. For instance, in one story set mostly in New York, we get to hear New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura and singers Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan – all imitations, naturally.

My favorite track has Guy Noir stopping in on the taping of a movie based on a Minnesota radio show in what seems likely to be a commentary on the experience of filming his own movie, though this album was released before the movie so I’m not sure how much work was done on the film by that point. In any case, it’s a hilarious peek at the trials of making a movie, and it’s hard to say whether the Minnesota yokels who can’t seem to hit a cue or the breathless Hollywood starlet incapable of pronouncing “young’un” take first prize in the cluelessness department. This is also one of a few sketches that include music, and while it’s funnier if you know what they’re spoofing, the lyrics should be goofy enough to elicit a laugh on their own, and I love the harmonies even if the song’s primary intent is silliness.

I’d never heard any of the tales on this album before. While I was a little surprised at how little actual mystery was involved most of the time, I got a good laugh over the discussion of the tedium of calling a company for repair assistance or an order of clothing, the headaches that holidays like Halloween and Christmas can bring, the degradation of the English language and the blandness of Minnesota Lutherans in general. Meanwhile, I confess a couple of the tracks inspired my sympathy, particularly one in which a high-class New Yorker falls hard for an unassuming Minnesota dairy farmer, only to conclude that there is no way to bring their worlds together.

These are stories to make you think. Mostly, though, they’re tales to tickle your funny bone, something that Garrison Keillor does very well indeed. While I’m not sure these 11 tracks are necessarily the best possible representatives of the series, they are definitely entertaining.

My Favorite Versions of Traditional Religious Christmas Songs

It’s always a pleasure singing traditional Christmas carols in church, around the neighborhood or near our little Advent wreath this time of year. But as much as Christmas music is a communal experience, hundreds of musicians have recorded these sacred songs, giving us many different ways to enjoy them. Here are a few of my favorite specific recordings of various religious Christmas songs.

Angels We Have Heard on High – Having just recently seen Straight No Chaser in concert, I have to award them the honor of my favorite version of this celestial-sounding carol. Jerome Collins puts a soulful twist on the melody, and all those gorgeous voices coming together really does sound like a choir of angels. Throw in the visual element of some crystal blue lighting, and the effect is heavenly. “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!” This one is bundled with Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, and it’s a logical pairing; I always have to stop a minute to think about which song is which. Though it’s the former song that makes the bigger impression on me in this mash-up, both are beautifully done. “Hark! The herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king!”

Away in a Manger – I consider this the most basic of Christmas carols, the first one that most children learn how to sing. There are two different melodies commonly used; I prefer the slightly more somber-sounding one to the one most Sunday school students cut their musical teeth on, but both are lovely. When it comes to conveying sweet simplicity, John Denver is hard to beat, and his gentle acoustic rendition of the “kid” version gets my vote. For the “adult” version, meanwhile, Anne Murray’s heartfelt recording, which incorporates both piano and guitar and includes a nod at the other melody, is my favorite. “Be near me, Lord Jesus. I ask thee to stay close by me forever and love me, I pray…”

Carol of the Bells - It has no words, and it starts out with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. It’s a little unconventional. But boy, do I love Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s electrified rendition of this song, which is one of the harder carols to sing anyway. I prefer clutching my invisible hand bells in my fists and ringing them out in time to the music. If you’re going to go with a vocal version of the song, I do love Straight No Chaser’s version of this one too, with the men using their voices to imitate the sound of bells. “Hark! How the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say, ‘Throw cares away.’”

Children, Go Where I Send Thee – This one isn’t exactly as in the mainstream as most of the songs on this list, and it’s a little funny that I like it so much since I find The 12 Days of Christmas so tedious and really, this song only makes marginally more sense than that one. But there’s something so joyful about it, especially when Peter, Paul and Mary, who introduced me to the song, belt it out along with dozens of choir members. “Children, go where I send thee! How shall I send thee? I’m gonna send thee one by one, one for the itty bitty baby who was born, born, born in Bethlehem.”

Do You Hear What I Hear? – This is a song that seems to be very hard to get wrong. I’ve heard probably dozens of versions of it, and everybody, from Kristin Chenoweth to Bob Dylan, seems to bring their A game to this stirring anthem that celebrates the birth of Christ and expresses a desire for peace at a time when the threat of nuclear war hung heavy in the air. But Vanessa Williams’ version has just an extra something in it that puts it at the very top of my ranking. Her vocals are so clear and soulful, and I just love the exuberant instrumentation and African chanting that comes into play later in the song. Whenever this comes on the radio, I’m completely swept away in the wonder of it all. “Said the king to the people everywhere, listen to what I say. Pray for peace people everywhere. Listen to what I say. The child, the child sleeping in the night, he will bring us goodness and light…”

The First Noel - Clay Aiken recorded a Christmas album that came out just a year and a half after he emerged from the second season of American Idol the runner-up. I was pleased with the album, but my favorite Clay Christmas recording remains this song from the American Idol compilation released late in 2003. The sparse accompaniment allows Clay’s voice to truly shine as he builds toward a dramatic finish. This is one of those songs I’ve always liked but that never stood out that much from the pack. Ever since I heard that recording, it does. “Noel, noel, noel, noel. Born is the king of Israel.”

The Friendly Beasts – I really love the traditional rendition on Peter, Paul and Mary’s Christmas album, with each of them taking a verse and doing his or her best to convey the personality of the animal at hand and the choir helping out on the other verses. Meanwhile, the song, with a reworked melody, serves as a cornerstone on Jimmy Webb’s oratorio The Animals’ Christmas; as the only song on the album that Webb didn’t write himself, it brings an air of familiarity to an otherwise wholly original work for which he recruited the vocal talents of Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant and the Kings College School Choir. “Thus, every beast, by some good spell, in the stable rude was glad to tell of the gift he gave Emmanuel…”

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen - They call it Comfort and Joy, which really is probably a better title, albeit less instantly recognizable. Simon and Garfunkel never recorded much Christmas music, but for whatever reason, they did record a couple of traditional carols. While it always seemed to me that Silent Night was used for ironic emphasis, with the exquisite harmonies juxtaposed against the far from tranquil news broadcast, this a cappella rendition with the increasingly complex harmonies can be taken at face value. Just a very nice recording. If you miss the instruments, of course, there’s always Trans-Siberian Orchestra… “Remember Christ the Savior was born on Christmas day to save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we were gone astray. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.”

Good King Wenceslas – My brother recently identified this very old ballad as his favorite Christmas song, and we set out in search of a version to play for him before he set out for college again after our little First Sunday in Advent service at the conclusion of Thanksgiving weekend. He didn’t think much of the Irish Rovers rendition we played; it was much too peppy, he informed us, and he preferred versions that really made us feel that faithful page’s pain. But there’s a lot of joy in this song about a warm and generous monarch whose chief concern is the well-being of one of his poorest citizens, so the Rovers’ exuberant version is fine by me. “Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.”

Joy to the World - This is a wonderfully ecstatic song, but it’s one that’s in danger of getting a little over-the-top, as it does on Clay Aiken’s Christmas album. I prefer versions that show a little restraint before going all-out, and my favorite is Anne Murray’s, backed by some nice Gospel-flavored piano accompaniment and eventually joined by a choir. It works quite nicely and is easy to sing along with. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let Earth receive her King!”

The Little Drummer Boy – This gentle song about a little boy who gives the best that he has to the Christ Child is representative of a large sub-genre of Christmas stories, most of which are quite touching. The original Harry Simeone version is nice, but as far as basic versions go, I love the punchy way Bob Seger does it. But probably my favorite version is the odd pairing of Bing Crosby and David Bowie, with the counter-melody in which Bowie dreams of a day when people can learn to get along with each other. At first it seemed a bit of a strange juxtaposition to me, but upon reflection, it reminds me of the passage in Isaiah that concludes with “and a little child shall lead them.” Anyway, a very poignant recording, especially considering how late it came in Crosby’s life. “I have no gift to bring, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, that’s fit to give a king, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum…”

O Come All Ye Faithful - Art Garfunkel recorded this one for some obscure collection a few years back, and it’s the most intricate, exquisite rendition I’ve heard. It’s a shame it’s rather hard to track down. With simple acoustic guitar accompaniment gradually joined by gentle percussion and accordion, what really makes this stand out is the dense layers of Art harmonizing with himself, especially toward the end. I also have to mention Trans-Siberian Orchestra once again, as their reworked rendition is quite moving, and Phil Coulter integrated the song into Christmas Morning Donegal, the haunting, nostalgic ballad that I’ve come to think of as the Celtic Thunder swan song of powerhouse tenor Paul Byrom. This is a song that tends to inspire the best in musicians… “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!”

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - I’ve always thought that this Christmas carol had a very Jewish feeling to it, so it seems appropriate for Neil Diamond to take top honors here. His version feels mysterious and solemn, and the pairing with We Three Kings just emphasizes the idea of this birth being a long-anticipated event. “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…”

O Little Town of Bethlehem – There are plenty of appropriately somber versions of this song floating around, but my favorite is the peppy, bluegrass-tinged Prairie Home Companion edition, in which it is mashed up with It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and We Three Kings, which makes a smashing chorus. There are much more traditional versions of each carol readily available, but Garrison Keillor and his band really do a bang-up job on this one. “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by…”

Silent Night – Now this is certainly a tough one, since it seems almost everyone who has ever recorded a Christmas album with any religious content at all has recorded this song. I love Simon and Garfunkel’s version, and Prairie Home Companion has an unusually bouncy instrumental version that’s a lot of fun. I find the Muppets’ German rendition quite moving. But I think I gotta go with Celtic Thunder on this one, especially since they paved the way for it by recording Christmas 1915, which incorporates the beloved carol. Their version of Silent Night itself is richly harmonic, with an interesting backing chorus, and one of the verses is entirely in Gaelic. It’s hauntingly beautiful. “Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love’s pure light…”

What Child Is This? - This is a pretty carol with a rather melancholy edge to it, largely because it takes the melody of that lovely lament, Greensleeves. I love John Denver’s simple but heartfelt rendition for all the reasons I love his Away in the Manger, and the faint presence of the harpsichord just makes it all the more appealing. “This, this is Christ the King whom shepherds guard and angels sing…”

O Holy Night - I always tell people that this is my default favorite Christmas song. In the month or two leading up to Christmas, my favorite will change on any given day, but if I’m not particularly gripped by anything at the time, O Holy Night is what I always fall back on. But I don’t have a favorite version. Of all the versions I’ve ever heard, the one that affected me most profoundly was a performance by a seven-year-old girl at a long-ago Christmas pageant. No version I’ve heard since can quite recapture that experience. Preferred versions include Josh Groban’s, Celine Dion’s, Straight No Chaser’s, John Denver’s and Celtic Woman’s, but I’m still on the hunt for that elusive definitive version. If anybody has any recommendations for me, I’d be happy to take them – bonus points if it includes my favorite, often-left-out verse. “Truly He taught us to love one another. His law is love and His Gospel is peace. Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, and in His name, all oppression shall cease…”

So there’s my list. It doesn’t begin to cover all the great Christmas music that I love so much, but it’s a start anyway and gives you a good idea of where my musical tastes lie. Of course, at no time of year am I more likely to embrace new artists than at Christmas; the familiarity of the songs opens a door for me. So I hope this list continues to expand…

Celebrate National Poetry Month With Billy Collins

This past Tuesday, Billy Collins gave a reading at a local university. When I read that he would be coming, I knew that I wanted to attend. My first official introduction to Collins came back in 2002 when, after hearing his name tossed about in the English department of my college, I caught his guest appearance on A Prairie Home Companion. He was still Poet Laureate of the United States at the time, a distinction that was an integral part of his role in that night’s Guy Noir sketch, which still holds the distinction of my favorite of all the adventures featuring that gritty gumshoe.

How I chortled as he, Garrison Keillor and others delivered one dubious imitation after another of William Carlos Williams’ This Is Just to Say and Collins ardently discussed his recent revelation that novelists lead much more exciting lives than poets! At another point during the night came a more serious moment as he read The Lanyard, a self-deprecating tribute to his mother that I liked so much I read it myself at a college poetry night the following week. Billy Collins had won me over.

At the reading, Collins read The Lanyard again, and the many members of a large audience applauded loudly. It’s a poem in which a very simple image conveys a universal message about the inability of children raised in loving homes to repay their parents for a happy, healthy childhood.

“She gave me life and milk from her breasts, / and I gave her a lanyard. / She nursed me in many a sickroom, / lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, / set cold face-cloths on my forehead, / and then led me out into the airy light / and taught me to walk and swim, / and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. / Here are thousands of meals, she said, / and here is clothing and a good education. / And here is your lanyard, I replied, / which I made with a little help from a counselor.”

Both wistful and humorous, it remains my favorite of his poems, and when I approached the table to select a volume of poems to take away from the evening, I was grateful that one of the men on the selling end pointed out, even before I could ask, which book contained that particular poem.

That’s how I came to buy a copy of The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, which Collins signed for me on page 45, the first page of section three, which is where The Lanyard is printed. The book contains four sections, along with one poem that serves as an introduction to the reader, spread across about 80 pages. I’m still mulling over the significance of the bear gazing placidly at the reader from the cover; haven’t quite worked that out yet. But perhaps one of these nights I will find myself awake at three o‘clock in the morning, struck with the sudden conviction that I know exactly why he put that bear there.

If bears don’t jump out at me from within the pages of the book, other creatures do. In the Evening succinctly discusses the winding down of a day, with a line each devoted to a bee, a cat and a horse. Flock is a rather twisted meditation on the 23rd Psalm inspired by the fact that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible required the skins of 300 sheep. A cat inspires a reflection on mortality in The Order of the Day, and in the darkly amusing The Revenant, the speaker is a deceased dog addressing the master who had him put to sleep.

Indeed, the subject of death comes up a number of times, sneaking its way into a majority of the poems in some form or another. It is blatant in The Peasants’ Revolt, which is at its most despairing when it speaks of “just a hole inside a larger hole / and the starless maw of space”, and Theme, in which, at one point, the speaker yearns to “echo the longing for immortality / despite the roaring juggernaut of time”.

Meanwhile, Bereft is essentially a litany of things that the dead no longer experience, culminating in this image: “More like an empty zone that souls traverse, / a vaporous place / at the end of a dark tunnel, / a region of silence except for // the occasional beating of wings - / and, I wanted to add / as the sun dazzled your lifted wineglass, / the sound of newcomers weeping.” And in Reaper, the sight of a man “carrying an enormous scythe on his shoulder” brings the speaker, who is driving down the road, a “jolt of fear // whose voltage ran from my ankles / to my scalp”. Pretty bleak stuff.

Yet just as prevalent throughout the book is humor, often just lines away from emptiness and sorrow. At other times, the entire poem is simply laugh-aloud funny. Collins read several extremely brief poems of this variety on Tuesday, but the ones in this collection are a little more complicated - or perhaps convoluted is the correct word. For instance, in The Introduction, we are told, “I don’t think this next poem / needs any introduction - / it’s best to let the work speak for itself.” What follow are references to and vague definitions of a dozen different items mentioned in the poem, none of which have any apparent connection to the title, which is finally revealed in the last line. Similarly, Freud describes a bizarre dream incorporating many disparate elements, including “a little shop called House of a Thousand Noses”. And The Lodger makes brilliant use of the phrase about beating swords into ploughshares, using it as a starting point for a series of practical transformations.

There’s something in this collection for everyone - even, I was pleased to discover, the avid LOST fan. Those who don’t share my level of obsession with this ABC show hurtling toward its long-awaited conclusion will hopefully forgive the digression, which I can’t bring myself to resist. Consider Building With Its Face Blown Off, whose title feels right at home with all the explosions that have rocked the show, and which includes “a leader on a horse,” “clouds that look like smoke” and “a man pouring wine into two glasses,” all images with deep LOST resonance. And given the centrality of mirrors in this sixth season, and their connection to a sense of self-awareness, I had to smile at this, from In the Moment: “I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink / to see if that crazy glass / had anything special to tell me today.”

And then there were the two poems in which the connections were so clear that, were it not for the publication date, I would have almost sworn that Collins was a LOST fan. In Traveling Alone, we meet a traveler who reminds me very much of Jack Shephard. He takes note of “the tiny bottles of vodka” on the airplane, as well as those whose acquaintance he makes ever so briefly at various stages of his journey. “I began to sense that all of them / were ready to open up, / to get to know me better, perhaps begin a friendship.” This makes me think of all the times in which characters have crossed paths back in the “real world,” little knowing that they would become intimately acquainted in the future, and in Sideways World, suspecting a connection but not understanding it. And then there’s this delicious little nugget: “And was I so wrong in seeing in Ben’s eyes / a glimmer of interest in my theories / and habits - my view of the Enlightenment, // my love of cards, the hours I tended to keep?”

Finally, Statues in the Park, taken as a whole, reads like a love letter to redshirts. While walking through a park filled with memorials to fallen soldiers from the Civil War, the speaker thinks about all of those whose deaths have gone largely unnoticed by society at large. Those whose names were not carved into an impressive-looking bit of stone, rather like those actors whose names have never been listed in the opening credits of LOST, whose characters have never been mentioned by any of the most prominent castaways. But what really got my attention was the line “In the shadow of the statue”. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and I simply stared for a moment, so that when I went on to the next line, I burst out laughing. I now had, “In the shadow of the statue, / I wondered about the others”. Now there is a statement that has LOST written all over it. What it looks like to me are the first two lines of a poem in which Sun recalls her experience in the season five finale, surrounded by people she doesn’t know, all of whom she previously considered enemies. Am I inspired? Perhaps...

If you lean toward the poetic, there’s a good chance you’ll find inspiration here too, especially as so many poems deal with the act of writing poetry. You, Reader gives us this wonderful insight into the communal nature of the writing process: “I was only thinking / about the shakers of salt and pepper / that were standing side by side on a place mat. / I wondered if they had become friends / after all these years / or if they were still strangers to one another // like you and I / who manage to be known and unknown / to each other at the same time - // me at this table with a bowl of pears, / you leaning in a doorway somewhere / near some blue hydrangeas, reading this.” So does Eastern Standard Time, which begins “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, / but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”.

Monday is built around the idea that “the poets are at their windows,” which is their proper place in the world. “Just think - ” he posits, “before the invention of the window, / the poets would have had to put on a jacket / and a winter hat to go outside / or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.” Evidently he also finds the bathtub an ideal spot for musing, as we read in The Long Day that “I closed my eyes and thought / about the alphabet, / the letters filing out of the halls of kindergarten // to become literature. / If the British call z zed, / I wondered, why not call b bed and d dead? // And why does z, which looks like / the fastest letter, come at the very end?”

Finally, there is the title poem, again a reflection on poetry as an interactive experience between writer and reader. With a chagrined comic touch, Collins speaks of the way in which poets draw inspiration from each other. “But mostly poetry fills me / with the urge to write poetry, / to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame / to appear at the tip of my pencil. // And along with that, the longing to steal, / to break into the poems of others / with a flashlight and a ski mask. // And what an unmerry band of thieves we are, / cut-purses, common shoplifters...” What thieves indeed - though I contend that perhaps the poets rob from the rich to give to the poor, and that the victims may find themselves enriched in the process.

I’m an old-fashioned gal who tends to veer toward poetry of the rhymed variety. Billy Collins doesn’t rhyme, at least not often, but he has, to quote again from The Lanyard, “two clear eyes to read the world,” and what he sees is both extraordinary and marvelously commonplace. Collins writes with a wit and accessibility that might just encourage the fervent verse loather to give poetry another chance. This Poetry Month, pick up a collection of poems by Billy Collins. Then pick up a pen.

With Come Darkness, Come Light, Mary Chapin Carpenter Offers Twelve Unusual Christmas Songs

I don’t know that I had ever listened to Mary Chapin Carpenter before I ran across Come Darkness, Come Light, the Christmas album she released in 2008. But thanks to Art Garfunkel, who covers her song Dreamland on Songs from a Parent to a Child and sings her praises as a songwriter, I knew who she was, and his endorsement was more than enough motivation for me to check out her album. I’m glad I did.

Once In Royal David's City - Carpenter sings this traditional carol, while John Jennings contributes electric guitar, percussion and, most strikingly, accordion. “For that child so dear and gentle / Is our Lord in heaven above / And he leads his children on / To the place where he is gone.”

Hot Buttered Rum - This soft, reflective song is not one I’d heard before. Jon Carroll’s piano and Jennings’ guitar give this romantic ode a slightly country flavor. A sweet song that gives me an odd hankerin’ for butterbeer... “In the dead of winter when the cold feelings come / You’re my sweet maple sugar, honey, hot buttered rum.”

Still, Still, Still - Carpenter harmonizes with herself a bit on this gentle lullaby that makes good use of the piano and acoustic guitar. I’m not familiar with the tune, but it’s listed as traditional, and it’s easy to imagine it being sung by a chorus of carolers. “Still, still, still, / One can hear the falling snow. / For all is hushed, / The world is sleeping, / Winter Star, its vigil keeping.”

On a Quiet Christmas Morn - Prairie Home Companion mainstays Robin and Linda Williams wrote this reflective song about the beauty of Christmas, 2000 years ago and today. The verses focus on tranquil modern images, while the choruses take us back to the Nativity. “The hardest heart is softened by the blessing that was born / When the gift of grace was offered on a quiet Christmas morn.”

Come Darkness, Come Light - Carpenter wrote this welcoming song that invites everyone from all walks of life to embrace the Child in the manger. Guitar and piano alternate in prominence as the song gradually grows louder. “Come doubting, come sure / Come fearful to this door / Come see what love is for / Alleluia.”

Christmas Time In the City - Carpenter and Jennings share writing credits on this piano-driven song reminiscent of Pretty Paper. A tender narrative that acknowledges both the beauty of the season and the many disenfranchised people for whom the holiday is more of a struggle, this song nonetheless has a much more optimistic tone to it than that classic. “And it’s Christmas time in the city / When the air is filled with cheer / And the storefronts looks this pretty only once a year...”

Candlelight Carol - Another gentle lullaby, this one by John Rutter, the verses pose a series of hypothetical questions, while the choruses paint a lovely picture of the first Christmas. I first heard this one on Neil Diamond’s second Christmas album; I’m not sure which version I prefer, but both are very nice and soothing. “How do you capture the wind on the water? / How do you count all the stars in the sky? / How can you measure the love of a mother / Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry?”

Longest Night of the Year - Carpenter wrote this song about the winter solstice and the darkness that accompanies it. Acoustic and electric guitar join together for a nice instrumental duet midway through, while Jennings adds harmonies to her vocals on this song speaking of hope in difficult times. “So keep me safe, hold me tight / Let the candle burn all night / Tomorrow welcome back the light / After the longest night of the year.”

Thanksgiving Song - This piano-driven Carpenter song is a soft blessing for Thanksgiving or anytime people are gathered together. Thanksgiving is a rather neglected holiday song-wise, so it’s nice to see a specific nod to it here. “Father, mother, daughter, son / Neighbor, friend and friendless / All together, every one / Let grateful days be endless.”

Bells Are Ringing - Carpenter and Jennings co-wrote this song that catalogs a list of absent comforts, assuring the bereft that there is still hope to be found in seeming emptiness. A heartening song with a faint ripple of jingle bells to accentuate the message. “Wherever you’re walking tonight / Whoever you’re waiting for / Somehow by a stable’s faint light / Peace in your heart is restored.”

Christmas Carol - This final Carpenter original on the album deals with Christmastime malaise and the desire to recapture the unadulterated joy of a childhood Christmas. A really lovely and fairly lengthy song dealing with many of the disappointments of the season while focusing on some specific cherished memories - particularly involving snow and Beatles records - and a hope for peace on Earth. Probably my favorite track. “And maybe next year we won’t go insane / When they rush to hang the bows and candy canes / Because peace will shine in me and you / From Bethlehem to Timbuktu / Even if the forecast is for rain.”

Children, Go Where I Send Thee - A very mellow take on this cumulative folk song. I prefer the much more exuberant Peter Paul and Mary version, but if you’re in a quieter mood, this one is nice too. Besides the tone of the song, the major difference here is that there are twelve verses instead of ten, making it more comparable to The 12 Days of Christmas and hence a very appropriate way to close an album subtitled Twelve Songs of Christmas. “Children, go where I send thee. / How shall I send thee? / I’m gonna send thee one by one / One for the little bitty baby / Was born, born / Born in Bethlehem.”

This is a beautiful album with an overall tone of reverence, as most of the songs are at least partly religious in nature. There’s also an undercurrent of sadness here, with negative elements a part of several of the songs, but optimism always wins out. Carpenter has a deep, mellow voice that fits well with her folksy songs, and when Christmas has come and gone, I’d be interested in listening to what else she has to offer. In the meantime, I heartily recommend Come Darkness, Come Light, especially if you‘re looking for a change from all of those well-worn Christmas classics.