“Song in the Air” by Falling Up, December 12, 2022

 

After releasing their fourth album, Fangs! Falling Up went independent, releasing their albums without a label and crowd-funding to produce them, starting with 2011's Your Sparkling Death Cometh. The album was further departure from their former Christian Radio rock sound, the band expounding upon strange space aesthetics and experimenting with longer song formats and delving deeper into science fiction lyrical themes. 


THERE'S A STAR IN THE SKY. In 2013, Falling Up announced the follow up to Your Sparkling Death Cometh would be two records aimed to satisfy two different types of fans the band had gathered. First came Hours, a rock concept album for which lead singer Jessy Ribordy wrote and read an accompanying audiobook. The second record, Midnight on Earthship also had science fiction elements but ultimately the band pushed into their Christian Rock roots to create a spiritually-themed record. But also in 2013, the band released a Christmas record, Silver City. The Christmas record included traditional songs done in the style of post-BEC Recordings Falling Up and an original song. The glittery, electronic sounds of a Falling Up Christmas record feels a bit late in the band's career as their music became less relevant after exiting BEC, but the band manages to take songs that they mostly didn't write themselves and weave them into a what seems like a concept record that has something to do with Christmas and possibly the birth of Christ.

THERE'S A MOTHER'S DEEP PRAYER.  "Song in the Air" is a Christmas hymn written by Josiah G. Holland. A novelist and poet, Holland helped and founded a literary magazine called Scribner's Monthly, which was renamed Century Magazine. Holland's work was more popular in his day as he is seldom read today. Even his Methodist Christmas hymn "There's a Song in the Air," is unfamiliar. It is the Seventh-day Adventist hymnal, and I remember it being sung at least once around Christmas time. My sister made a wisecrack about it, saying something like "this is the most boring Christmas song" or "there's a reason we don't know this one." Falling Up having become an more and more obscure band over the course of their career covering an obscure hymn certainly didn't revive any fandom for this oft forgotten Christmas hymn. The hymn is a mediation on the birth of Christ at the nativity scene. It's not particularly the best mediation, but I have a real soft spot for Christmas worship--the tradition of feeling awe and wonder at the mystery of the incarnation. And it might just be the four-part harmonies of the old hymns that sound more unique on Christmas hymns than general ones. And so today, I present this imperfect Christmas hymn as an offering. Embrace the mystery of Christmas--the mystical emblems and symbols--or don't. I'm certainly not here to force you into religion.



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