Music As An Act of Thanksgiving
Every expression of music—from creating it to playing it to listening to it—stems from thanksgiving
There aren’t many Thanksgiving songs. I mean, not many have sung about stuffing the turkey or post-feast naps soundtracked by ambient football noises in the same way they’ve immortalized chestnuts roasting on an open fire and riding in one-horse open sleighs. Then again, I don’t think any holiday has garnered a musical canon to match Christmas. As I’ve thought about Thanksgiving music, however, I was struck by the thought that music itself is an act of thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving through music takes on numerous forms, some more obvious than others. It offers us an opportunity to offer the people in our lives gratitude, appreciation, and pay our respects when they’ve left us. In keeping with the Quarter Notes theme of music from 1995, we can look at 2Pac’s “Dear Mama,” a tender tribute to the rapper’s mother despite their rocky relationship. Thanksgiving oozes out of Pac’s lyrics as he remembers his mother’s commitment, rapping, “There's no way I can pay you back / But the plan is to show you that I understand / You are appreciated.”
The tradition of the hip-hop eulogy is also rooted in giving thanks. We see this in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s ‘95 song “Crossroad” (and its more popular 1996 remix “Tha Crossroads”). Inherent in the grief Bone Thugs express for the friends and family they’ve lost is a prayerful attitude of thankfulness for the memory of their lives. Music is unmatched in the way it shrinks the divide between pain and joy and offers us an avenue to give thanks in seasons of both.
Even the craft of creating music, apart from lyrical content, is imbued with thanksgiving. I think of the process of sampling in hip-hop, which is literally accepting the gift of music given to us by musical predecessors and innovating it. And what better way to give thanks to a musician than to take something they’ve created, and create a new work of art inspired by and built around it?
The same goes for a well-crafted cover of a song. I don’t mean karaoke or regurgitation of the original thing, though I suppose the heart of those things too can be thanksgiving. But when Rage Against the Machine covers Bruce Springsteen’s “Ghost of Tom Joad,” which in turn offers gratitude to John Steinbeck, they engage in thanksgiving by honoring Springsteen’s spirit and intent, even as they transform the song into something stylistically their own.
At the most meta level, I believe every expression of music—from creating it to playing it to listening to it—has the potential to be an act of thanksgiving. From the creative perspective, putting the pen to paper or fingers to fretboard always assumes a posture of gratitude. Gratitude for the opportunity to create, the skills to perform, the voice and perspective to express, the infinite wealth of inspiration, even the pain and hardship that lead us deeper into the healing work of creation.
On the receiving end, there is always an opportunity to express thanks for the music that voices our deepest yearnings, that helps us grasp eternal truths, that offers another way to see the beauty of our world and inspires us, too, to adorn it through our own work.
Sure, the idea of music as an act of thanksgiving can and has been distorted. But that’s another conversation for another time. Today, I’m optimistic. I’m thankful that in a year of immense heartache, division, frustration, and chaos, goodness and truth persist. And I’m thankful for music’s important role in highlighting that goodness and truth every day.
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