“Jesus' blood never failed me yet, never failed me yet, Jesus' blood never failed me yet, there's one thing I know, for he loves me so…"
On the CD version I’ve owned for years, that short 25-second snippet of an old British hymn is looped, played over and over for the full 74 minutes of this post-modern classical composition written and conducted by British composer Gavin Bryars. The singer is an unnamed elderly homeless man, recorded near Waterloo Station in London as part of a documentary project in 1971. He sings the lines in a weathered, but sweetly sincere tenor voice, while Mr. Bryars’ orchestration ebbs and flows around him.
Truth be told, I know jack about post-modern classical music. Other than Mr. Bryars, I doubt I could name another composer working in the genre. I know for a fact I would never have looked for or discovered this wonderful piece of music if left to my own devices. It came into my life passively, through overhead speakers in a bookstore. It didn’t register for a long time, it’s a soft, slow piece and my attention was elsewhere. I started to notice it when the gentleman’s singing started to nag at me. Why was I hearing the same few lines over and over – or was I? By the end of its 74 minute run time, I didn’t want it to stop. There was something deeply compelling about the waves of gently insistent repetition. The possibility of never knowing what it was and never hearing it again was unacceptable, so I asked the guy behind the counter and bought the copy he had just played, the only one in the store. He was tickled that somebody noticed, he was expecting his manager to tell him to never put it in the CD player again.
The piece has an interesting compositional history, I’ve since learned. Mr. Bryars expanded it a few times as recording technology changed. The original version was released on vinyl, and was only the 27-minute first movement, due to the medium's time constraints. When cassettes came along and allowed up to an hour of music, he added the second, third, and fourth movements. Finally, in the CD era, Mr. Bryars added the fifth movement and the coda. If my math is correct, in the full-length version the snippet of singing is repeated just shy of 180 times.
I rarely play Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet as music to sit and focus on intently, although I certainly have. Most often, I listen the same way I first heard it, as background music for something else I’m concentrating on. I find it especially effective as music to create art or write words by. The piece is simple to describe, the orchestration ebbs and flow in a lovely harmonic embrace of the looped vocal. Sometimes the singing is isolated and stark, other times it’s nearly submerged by louder swells from the instruments. Different sections of the orchestra are used for each movement, which I’ve found creates a fascinating aural illusion. The singer’s voice seems to change, as if he’s singing in a higher or lower register, or at a slower or faster tempo. He’s not, of course, the voice loop never changes, the remarkable effect is created by Mr. Bryars’ creative use of orchestral voicings. When it came time to add the final two parts to fit a CD’s length, Mr. Bryars recorded Tom Waits singing the same lines as the anonymous “Tramp.” In the fifth movement, Tom is singing alongside the original voice; for the coda he takes over completely. An absolutely brilliant addition, making for a deeply moving finale.
I honestly have no idea if I’m writing about this singular piece of music to recommend it to anyone. It’s not pop music, it’s not rock music, it’s barely classical music in a traditional sense. I think if you have an affinity for Brian Eno’s ambient work, or Phillip Glass’ repetitive motifs, you might find a kindred spirit in Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. I don’t crave it all that often, but when I do, it calms my mind and satisfies my soul like nothing else. If anything I've written piques your curiosity, I'm including a link to the full composition below.
Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet :
1. Tramp with Orchestra I (string quartet) 27:08
2. Tramp with Orchestra II (low strings) 15:16
3. Tramp with Orchestra III (no strings) 4:47
4. Tramp with Orchestra IV (full strings) 6:06
5. Tramp and Tom Waits with Full Orchestra 19:38
6. Coda: Tom Waits with High Strings 1:47
Kommentit