Enjoy Every Sandwich

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:18:15 -0700

One Saturday last winter, I attended a dinner party and was seated next to lovely middle-aged woman who, as the party progressed, confided in me that she suffers from glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly virulent and fast growing brain cancer. The day before the party, she was told she had three months to live. She had lived with the cancer for a year and thought it was beaten, but now, it had returned. I was struck by one of her comments, “…but you know, I’m ok with it. I think I know where I’m going.” I didn’t press her for more information on her views of the afterlife, but all weekend, I thought about her comment and considered different depictions of the afterlife, which reinforce the view that when one dies, one goes somewhere.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers, a nineties band that fuses blues, jazz and swing, depict the afterlife as a Boschian place of damnation, torment and torture, “teeth are extruded and bones are ground/then baked into cakes and passed all around,” in their song, “Hell,” but the music is at odds with the sentiment of the lyrics. An infectious swing/Caribbean rhythm and piano, saxophone and trumpet musical phrases elicit the excitement, energy and bawdiness of a thirties dance hall; Hell might be a bad place to end our days, but it will be a lot fun getting there. The composer, Howard Shore, also employs the place-of-damnation theme, in “The Bridge at Khazad Dum” from the film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Japanese taiko drums, gongs, and low-register brass, describe a Hell of damnation and undying fire. Male choral voices imitate the whoosh and flare of sudden bursts of flames as the fires of Hell are stoked, and doomed, enslaved souls burn for all eternity.

Descriptions of the afterlife are prevalent in much of gospel and camp meeting music. Many songs of this genre interpret the afterlife as a place of sanctuary, safety and refuge. C.J. Johnson’s “You Better Run to the City of Refuge,” is sung a cappella, with handclaps supplying a rhythmical accompaniment. The handclap rhythm increases during the verses then slows at the chorus, reinforcing the notion that flight must happen quickly and that Heaven is a place of reprieve; No more worries, no more running.

Other representations of the afterlife are less dramatic, but powerful nonetheless. In Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck imagines a mythological region in the Underworld that is a tranquil and idyllic land of the contented dead, Elysium, in his work from that opera, “Dance of the Blessed Spirits.” Woodwinds imitate the spirits assembled before Orfeo in Elysium and supply them with an ethereal grace, while strings provide stateliness to the spirits’ existence in this section of Hades. Gluck’s composition creates the impression that in this land of blessed contentment, all the inhabitants are at ease in pastoral tranquility.

Is there a life after death, as my dinner partner believes, is there a place to go to? In the last few months of his life, the American singer-songwriter, Warren Zevon, provided his view to those questions when he recorded, “Keep Me in Your Heart for a While.” Zevon’s view is that perhaps the afterlife is simply the memories left behind when a loved one departs, memories, which serve to comfort the ones who suffer with the departure of a loved one--the living. “Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house/Maybe you'll think of me and smile/You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse/Keep me in your heart for while.” When asked about his thoughts on death and the afterlife on a David Letterman Show appearance, Zevon summed up his belief succinctly when he replied, "Enjoy every sandwich."