My little Gnudren,

Old Gnu hopes you are all faring well. Old Gnu is really enjoying his social dislocation, and taking care to stay at home, wash his hands and horns regularly, thus protecting the NHS and saving lives.  And now with time and permission on his recently washed hands, he has to face his perennial problem: piles which need sorting. Facing the task all at once may be too much. But if you file away a couple each day in no time you will be clear of them. It’s not as painful an exercise as you might think!  Some people just pretend they are not there. But do you really want visitors to your home – which we certainly don’t have at the moment – to be confronted with your unsightly piles? Here’s your chance to sort them!

Apparently more than half the population suffer from this affliction. One of our sound engineers, Stephen, at Christ Church Clifton back in the 1980s, who was a nurse in his daytime job, said that this was a universal problem. He told an awestruck Gnu: “There are two sorts of people over 40: those who suffer from piles, and liars.”  It’s amazing what you pick up just before a church service, except we’re not having any at the moment. Just think of all the shared wisdom we’re missing out on.

When Old Gnu got down to sorting and filing he came across two albums that were released in 1980 by two musicians you may have heard of. One is the work of Mr. John Winston Lennon – “Double Fantasy” with substantial interference from his wife Yoko, but you can skip those tracks.

In this album he exhorts us all that it’s Clean up time. Given our present situation this is a most apposite exhortation. Now there are some very knowledgeable people who don’t waste their time making money writing music, but rather altruistically direct us sheep into knowing what’s good and bad; they’re know as ‘critics’ and ‘reviewers’. One such authority probably rightly explains this song as follows. Mr. Lennon finding, for the first time in his life, domestic harmony and pleasure in caring for his toddler, confesses that he is motivated to kick his bad habits and drug taking. Quite so – Old Gnu is rebuked; he takes 8 different drugs every day for years. So, if possible, let us all follow Mr. Lennon’s example and find happiness and contentment in domestic bliss, and clean up! There are plenty of opportunities for this at the moment. You may even find contentment in changing a toddler’s nappy, just like Mr. Lennon. Old Gnu prefers social distancing if this particular opportunity presents itself. He also appreciates that domestic bliss is sadly not possible for many people. He offers daily prayers for such.

The second discovery in Gnu’s piles was an album by Mr. Robert Zimmerman:

He released his album “Saved” in June 1980:

Old Gnu had just spent 1 hour 22 minutes hanging on to his phone while being put through to every possible extension at Tesco Mobile when he stumbled across this. He wanted to change his contract to the £7.50 a month option. The online site would not allow it.  Mr. Dylan’s song “Solid Rock”, that starts with the words, “Well I’m hanging on” was particularly edifying at this point.

Both Mr. Dylan’s and Mr. Lennon’s (minus Mrs. Lennon’s contributions) albums were written after they had made heart warming personal discoveries. They both express a great joy and happiness. They are like confessionals of where they were at, at that particular moment in their lives. My little Gnudren, old Gnu hope you find some heart warming discoveries in your present state social dilapidation, as you clean up and hang on.

And now a final discovery in Old Gnu’s unsorted piles: a song that he had hoped to introduced to the 6.30pm service at CCC, but which did not meet the requirements. It’s words started as follows:

Holding on for unfailing love,
Crying out for a touch of peace,
Needing your grace to fall. 

Not only did the words have a freshness about them, avoiding all the usual cliches of your average warship song, but the tune was also engaging and has a suitable air of ‘hanging in there’. In vain has old Gnu looked for the music. It was, he thinks, in one of those Spring Harvest song books – a new one was published every year – priceless treasures that he felt obliged to leave behind when he departed from CCC in 1998. The name of one of the composers does stick in his mind: Esther Pratt (now Esther Alexander) and Jessie Lane.

But Gnu made a sequenced version on his 1980s synthesizer and cheap drum machine to see if the performers would take to it. So here it is. I hope you are inspired to Clean Up! Keep Hanging and Holding on! But the songs of Mr. Dylan and Mr. Lennon will probably serve you better.

Vetus Pater Gnu
Academiae Musicorum et Theologia
Turris LA
I Mensis Aprilis MMXX