By The Landlord
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” – A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“They do not love, that do not show their love.” – William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
“Got no checkbooks, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I've got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night.” – Irving Berlin
Last week's pre-Christmas end-of-year summary piece, really just an invitation to share your picks and thoughts about the year and its music, had a bit of a caustic, bitter edge. With no shortage of political and other targets, it pointed a humorous, if somewhat jagged stick at some of the many problematic areas of 2021, of which there was time and space to merely glimpse an iceberg's melting tip.
But as we approach the end of the year proper, it's time, and surely beneficial, and, as it happens, deliberately planned, to explore the flipside, to pause and try and end on a more positive note. The glass is half full as much as it is half empty, and instead of bemoaning what needs fixing, what's going wrong and what may already be gone, to be grateful there's still a glass of drinking water at all, and to listen to that lovely, eerie sound as a wet finger slides across the rim, and so explore how the subject of gratitude might be expressed through the prism of song.
I think my life, just like anyone with its many ups and downs, emotions tipping back and forth, constantly veers between feelings that the glass is half-full and half empty, but of course, like anything it's also a matter of perception.The world can look a different place after some good or bad sleep, something to eat and a good or bad conversation, or a bit of exercise. What delicate, transient, sometimes basic creatures we are.
In the distant past, and in another place, there was a wide-ranging topic of please & thank you songs , and the 10 chosen only lightly touched the topic of gratitude, being as much about pleading and platitude, so there is much yet, in advance, to be grateful for when your suggestions arrive. Thank you is clearly a phrase that will stand out in titles and lyrics, but also appreciation, acknowledgement, paying tribute and honouring in all forms, as well a wide spectrum of mood changes and reflection as much as formally giving thanks.
Currently my gratitude, now I think about it, especially with many of life's usual seasonal sociable fun and distractions slightly curtailed, seems to be holding out a tender hand to simplicity. Gratitude for things like decent health, a brain that functions, well, most of the time, ten fingers and thumbs to type with, ten toes to walk or run with, the simple joys of the body moving through air or water, the miracle of food and drink passing through the gut. These things should never be taken for granted. But beyond myself, being above to love and be loved, to have friends to laugh with, the constant variety, curiosity, oddness and infinite surprises that come with other people.
But simplicity is where this distillation process may lie, and my gratitude in that regard is currently in going for walks and witnessing the beauty and joyous focus of nature, of urban plants and weather and animals, the constant mischief but grateful persuasion of our cats, the scampering gratitude of dogs in the park, or wilder encounters from the birds at the feeder, to the hum and hover of insects, or when they re-emerge, the wriggling and leaping of newts and frogs of the pond.
Is this where happiness and inspiration lie? Is that where meaning squints out through our mind’s eye each morning, yawning, stretching ad reaching for the macrocosm by staring into the microcosm, and briefly glimpsing the whole world reflected in a dangling raindrop? When it all comes to it, perhaps gratitude all about the expression, in all its variety, of simply being alive.
On reflection, just a drop of inspiration
As ever, there are further guests gathered around the Song Bar fireside, tables and chairs, all getting in their first or last say in 2021 about the final topic of 2021, all through the magical portal of this pub time machine.
At one end, looking restless and plotting his next deadly move, is Joseph Stalin, who always kept his enemies close, before having them shot, but in this instance he is sitting at a table on his own. What does he have to say on this subject? “Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs!” But away from his dog-eat-dog world, at the other side of the Bar, there are various guests with a variety of hounds, who are all enjoying a few scraps and Stalin appears to be a dog who already had his day.
“Feeling gratitude isn't born in us - it's something we are taught, and in turn, we teach our children,” reckons Joyce Brothers, the American psychologist, 1950s TV personality and writer. Perhaps there’s something in that though with caveats. As a child, when, occasionally, an aunt or uncle or grandparent included a pound note (remember those?) inside a birthday card, I was instructed by my parents to send a thank you letter, which felt kind of forced at first, even though it did, with the silly drawings and poems it inspired, bring joy, and was hopefully happily received.
So is gratitude natural, or conditioned, a form of behaviour that helps us communicate and collaborate? Or are all children money-grabbing ungrateful little shits? Perhaps being told to say thank you is artificial, a form of social nicety and etiquette, and yet, surely we also discover feelings of gratitude by ourselves, especially through the benefit of time and life experience.
Holding water: Thich Nhat Hanh - Buddhist monk, peace activist and very keen cultivator of gratitude
Meanwhile the other side of the Bar, there is very much a zen atmosphere in the subject of gratitude. “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet,” says Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and peace activist, who repeats something written in his book, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.
While only drinking water, of course, he’s also getting on very well in that regard with the wine-drinking Greek philosopher Epicurus, who adds: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
They are then joined by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who regards gratitude and a form of everyday, all-embracing habit: “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
“Gratitude bestows reverence allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world,” says John Milton, reading from a quote attributed to him, but doesn’t appear to have been in any of his works. However, it’s rather well put.
Does anyone else have something to say?
“Yes, come on, people! Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone,” announces the novelist Gertrude Stein.
“I must admit, I’ve had a remarkable life,” says Carole King, edging towards our piano. “I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.”
“Me too. Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty,” adds Doris Day, also almost breaking into song.
Meanwhile, over on the political statesmen’s table, two heavyweights gratefully trot out two of their most memorable statements on this subject.
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” recalls Winston Churchill, on the all sacrifices of the Second World War. Could such an area also be covered in song?
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them,” says John F. Kennedy.
And buying a particularly large round for everyone, the prolific French writer Voltaire announces: “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
And that’s a good place to stop, because the excellence in others is something we can all appreciate and share here too.
So on that note, I want to express my gratitude most of us to all of you, dear Song Bar punters, for your contributions of all kinds – music, ideas, lateral thoughts, some to 'virtual pint' financial donations to help with the Bar's admin costs, for your sense of fun and infinite jest, for your welcomes and your warmth, for indulging in and letting me indulge in this magical weekly process of creative, divergent thought, synthesis, distillation, and focus. Thank you for the music, and as those coolest of cats Sly and the Family Stone would put it, in that classic previously chosen for the topic of funk, most of all, for …
And thanks too also to this week’s finally guest of the year, and also first of 2022, for taking on this upbeat topic, DJ Bear, aka PopOff! Place your songs in comments below, for deadline followed by song title puns at 11pm UK time on Monday, for playlists published next week.
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