Can’t think of why this song was written but I have this vague memory that somewhere on a Joni Mitchell album, either in the lyrics to one of her songs or in the liner notes, Beethoven and Sylvia Plath were juxtaposed for some reason. And so this song erupted out of my guitar, with the two of them accounting for the first two verses. I tag Carolyn on this song only because I wrote it during the time I was seeing/not seeing her. The last verse contains the line: I’m heading now towards Bethlehem perhaps to be reborn. Originally it was: I’m slouching now towards Bethlehem… but the song is already so incurably pretentious I didn’t have the guts.
Lyrics
Christmas Carol
Listen to the deaf musician
Barely keeping time
Won’t you help him carry on
He maintains that no physician
Can release his mind
Won’t you help him carry on
You have never seen him smile
His words are unkind
Yet God has smiled at his Mass
For Brothers Left Behind
A sculptor struck by leprosy
A painter going blind
Won’t you help them
Carry on.
Witness the frustration
Of a poet giving birth
Won’t you help her carry on
Doomed to try to cultivate
The hard, unyielding earth
Won’t you help her carry on
Though she stutters when she speaks
The power of her verse
Has warmed the hearts of sisters
Long imprisoned and accursed
A dancer crippled by her age
The baby that she’s nursed
Won’t you help them
Carry on
I am just an orphan now
Searching for a storm
Won’t you help me carry on
Wondering to what discipline
I’ll finally conform
Won’t you help me carry on
That my soul might yet be freed
My body has been torn
And my brain to ease the pain
Assumes another form
I’m heading now towards Bethlehem
Perhaps to be reborn
Won’t you help me
Carry on
Carry on.