The Arcadian Wild’s new recording, Happy Golden Days, is out!
While traveling on I-35 today, I listened to it on loop for several hours. What an incredible selection of songs, so joyously expressed in an uplifting Arcadian Wild mode. It succeeds, as they hoped, in highlighting “some Christmas tunes that, while still timeless and beautiful, don’t often make it on everyone’s playlist each year.” Here’s what I wrote on their Facebook page when I made a brief stop for gas:
Every song on the album is now already a favorite of mine, starting with the opener “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” (lyrics), followed by Christina Rosetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” (lyrics; which reminds of me of our family’s a cappella rendition).
They make the verses of “O Come All Ye Faithful” (lyrics) joyful and triumphant!
“Nations That Long In Darkness Walked,” written c. 1752 by John Barnard (hymnary.org), features Bailey on vocals, then joined by Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn, with harmonies in a captivating arrangement (lyrics). Although new to me, this carol — whose lyrics call to mind Handel’s Messiah — is now instantly one of my favorites! I just absolutely love this song.
The moving ballad of “Good King Wenceslas” (lyrics) helps me imagine following in the footsteps of Christ, especially in his care for the poor. It also awakens fond memories from several weeks in the Czech Republic some time ago.
With “Up on the Housetop” I feel invited to imagine Lincoln, Isaac, and Bailey are jamming in our living room, with extended friends and family all around.
Finally, they close with the wistful war-time “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which I once regarded as smarmy and sentimental, but in 2020 came to appreciate as a serious call for hope in hard times, a “daring proclamation of hope in the midst of World War II before the end of the war was in sight..”
What an incredible album, a timely gift to an anxious world on All Saints Day in 2024!
(Cf. Welcome, my previous Arcadian Wild post.)
