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Ash Wednesday

from Jacquerie by Edward Morneau

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about

I’m always struck at masses, weddings and funerals by the language of the respective liturgies. The invocations to power, presence, grandeur, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, grace, holiness, and glory seem embedded in language so elliptical, esoteric, vague and full of presumption that the very art of evocative assumption is its rallying point in the superstructure of liturgical prayer. The rhetorical resonance seems beyond questioning to the faithful, impenetrable to the skeptical, and complete bumblepuppy to the non-believer.

I can imagine, though, even to the non- believer, faced with death, or the calamity of nature, utter fear invokes in the atheist a hope for some impossible, some miraculous, some singular intervention. Or maybe that there is no God-lesion, no cancer that wears away the idea that mortality is enough, and that life is wondrous on its own terms and enough is enough.

For those who were lost, were swept away, were mocked in their mortality in the face of Hurricane Katrina, nothing intervened except for a few precious souls who do what gods can’t do—they behaved humanely.

I cannot image a person of faith reconciling this. In my imagination I have to invoke the same vague language to distill the absence of God among these poor souls. So in
“Ash Wednesday,” the Magi comes to New Orleans to bless the Mardi Gras, and instead of the jubilee, he finds a different abstraction of Providence. Instead of soldiers on fire hanging as a sacrifice to an unforgiving god, he finds humanity literally drowning in prayer and hope.

lyrics

Ash Wednesday

The Bull on the altar, the oil in the water 

The Penitent fasting at the mall

Blood and Guilt kneel and pray for Repentance
While Sin and Death work the Carnival.

Pancake Day—the Feast of Transgression
The Prophet speaks the Litany of Farce
The wind blows mighty through the sands of the empire

Forgiveness staggers to the Mardi Gras.

You say I’m backsliding
I haven’t been hiding
My vigil looks to an empty sky 

There’s nothing but danger 

When truth turns to mumbles
And the ashes fall as dust over my eyes.


The Knight and the Knave lay the Palms for the New King
Of loving kindness, good news for the Mass
But Venial, Corporal, Cardinal & Mortal—
All that has been promised soon will pass.

Even Holy Water can’t clean the stain of sorrow
As the Caissons go rolling all alone 

Through the Family of Man I seek redemption
There’s nothing more to me than flesh and bones.

credits

from Jacquerie, track released January 1, 2010

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Edward Morneau Salem, Massachusetts

Edward Morneau has been a musician and songwriter most of his life. His focus on multiple genres and interest on sound collage experimentation makes his music hard to classify. His muses range from Beatles, Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, XTC, Kinks, Iris DeMent to Mahler, Shostakovich, Penderecki & Zappa. His background as an English & Film teacher gives humor and striking imagery to his songs. ... more

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