Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Sat, 22 Nov 1997 00:32:44 -0800

It seems like every year about this time I always think of one song that
always seems to get me through. I've been playing it all week and it's
really soothed me, and now to hear of the suicide of another artist,
Michael Hutchence, it's just very eerie that I've been playing it all
week. It's Tom Waits favorite recording, for all you Rain Dogs out there
who may have never heard it before, which he also sings on. Something
called "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" which Gavin Bryars released
that you can get at any decent music store.

In 1971, Gavin Bryars, England's leading musician/composer, agreed to
help his friend Alan Powers
with the audio aspects of a film that Powers was making about homeless,
street people. The filming
took place in an area around London's Waterloo Station.

Powers filmed various people living on the streets - catching with the
camera's eye their daily rituals,
trials and joys. Some were obviously drunk, some mentally disturbed,
some articulate, some
incomprehensible. All of them were homeless, poor, and ragged.

As Powers filmed these people, Bryars captured the sounds on tape. Back
in the studio one day, as
Bryars was looking over the audio and video footage, he became aware of
a constant undercurrent,
a repeating sound that always seemed to accompany the presence of one
older man. At first, the
sound seemed like muttered nonsense. But after removing the background
street noise and cleaning
up the audio tape, Bryars discovered that the old man was, in fact,
singing.

Bryars took the audio tape, and listened to it again and again. He could
not escape the haunting
sounds of this homeless, nameless man. He did some research on his own
into who this person might
be. From the film crew, Bryars learned that this street beggar did not
drink. But neither did he
engage others in conversation. His speech was almost impossible to
understand, though his
personality was cheerful. Though old, and alone, and filthy, and
homeless, he retained a certain
childlike playfulness. For example, he delighted in teasing the film
crew, by swapping hats with
various members.

But what distinguished this old man from the other street people was his
song. The song he sung
under his breath was a simple, repetitive Sunday-school tune. For him,
it was like a mantra. He
would sit and quietly sing it, uninterrupted, for hours on end. Like a
film loop, the song's final line fed
back into its first line, starting the tune over and over again without
ceasing. The man's weak, old,
untrained voice never wavered from pitch, never went flat, never changed
key. The simple intervals
of the tune were perfectly maintained for however long he sang. As a
musician, Bryars was
fascinated.

One day, while playing the tape as a background to other work, Bryars
left the door to his studio
open while he ran downstairs to get a cup of coffee. When he returned
several minutes later, he
found a normally buzzing office environment eerily stilled. The old
man's quiet, quivering voice had
leaked out of the recording room and transformed the office floor.

Under the spell of this stranger's voice, this office of busy
professionals had grown hushed. Those
who were still moving, walked slowly, almost reverently about the room.
Many more had taken their
seats and were sitting motionless at their desks, transfixed by the
voice. More than a few were
silently weeping, tears cascading undisturbed down their faces.

Bryars was stunned at the effect the song had on people. Although not a
believer himself, Bryars
could not help but be confronted by the mysterious spiritual power of
this unadorned voice. Sitting in
the midst of an urban wilderness, this John-the-Baptist voice touched a
lonely, aching place that lurks
in every human heart, offering an unexpected message of faith and hope
in the midst of the darkest,
most blighted night. Bryars himself started yearning for the confidence
and faith this old man's song
celebrates. He began to face what it means to feel homeless and alone,
even when we are sitting in
the midst of our families.

Though the nameless man died shortly after the film-crew left his
street-home, Bryars vowed to
respect this homeless person by creating a recording that would
celebrate and accentuate his simple
message - that, no matter what one's condition in this world, no matter
how difficult or sorrowful or
filled with suffering, Jesus "loves us so..." It IS the one thing we can
know...

It took Bryars - England's leading contemporary composer - from 1971
until 1993 to create and
produce what he felt was a proper, orchestrated accompaniment to this
homeless person's song of
trust and obedience. This he did in partnership with one of America's
leading composers, Philip
Glass. The result is "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet."

With every repetition of the thirty second loop of the hobo, a new
orchestral section is added as
accompaniment. Bryars' delicate arrangement builds to a crescendo at a
snail's pace and then fades
away, creating a unique musical and emotional experience for those who
wait it out. The original version lasted 24 minutes and was released in
1975 as an LP on Brian Eno's Obscure Records label. The version
re-released in 1993 is 74 minutes with the first 20 minutes similar to
the original. Beginning with simply the voice of the tramp, Bryars then
adds a string quartet, then low strings, then an orchestra with no
strings, then an orchestra with full strings, and finally Tom Waits

Words can't really do it justice, it just has to be heard.

Just thought I'd share it with you.

Take care,

Malcs