‘One Way’ is the final segment of three dramatized song-cycles reflecting on the first Christmas in Bethlehem (Angels Calling); a year after in the same location (Promised Land), and finally, ‘One Way’ a song -cycle about a birth in a stable near Bethlehem now.
It’s the ‘now’ part that became the controversy around this cycle. (More about that later on. How can you write about a humble birth near Bethlehem on a Palestinian olive farm in 2006 without raising a few feathers.) It was written at one of those ‘Camelot’ times we are hopefully sometimes blessed with.
This is the prelude, played on a wonderful Casavant augmented organ renovated a few years before I arrived with a totally custom 3 manual console manufactured by the dear Benton brother and sister team.
This is the morning of December 17, 2006 at Knox Church in Dundas, ON. The beginning was chopped off the original recording so I trimmed it within a few seconds of a good place to jump in.
Notice the excited rumble in the background? Picture 20 kids and teens as well as that many adults all dressed and ready for the presentation. Some of the youth 7 and up were playing guitars and the youngest had quiet shakers. What a joyful sound that background murmur of everyone is!
Prelude to One Way
Written by David A. Buckley (SOCAN) © 2006 all rights reserved