electricland

The ancient ceremony of the Boar's Head Carol was performed for many years on Christmas Eve at Queen's College, Oxford, but now on a Saturday shortly before Christmas, when old members are entertained at a “gaudy”. The College Choir processes into the Hall during the refrains, stopping each time when a verse is sung. When the boar's head is set down on the high table, the Provost distributes the herbs among the choir and presents the solo singer with the orange from the boar's mouth.

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

The finest Christmas songs are never just Christmas songs. Though linked by reference of sentiment to the Christmastide, they are sufficiently universal in their themes to have meaning throughout the year. Surely this is why so many of us return with such frequency and glad tiding to Jackson Browne's "The Rebel Jesus," a song he first performed on the brilliant 1991 Chieftains album, "The Bells of Dublin."

Over the ensuing 16 years, the song has become a favorite for celebrants of the season who suspect the Nazarene might be disinclined toward the commercial chaos that has come to characterize its contemporary expression.

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Browne knows the song has taken on a life of its own, as all great songs do. Yet, through all the renditions over the years, by its writer and the many fine artists who have covered it, "The Rebel Jesus" remains fresh and renewing. Perhaps that is because Browne's lyrics, world-weary and wry in their observations yet warm in their delivery, offer an ancient antidote to the dispiriting crush of commerce, the tyranny of schedules and the theft of meaning that can crowd the better angels of our nature at Christmas.