Yvonne Elliman and Cast, "Could We Start Again, Please?"

My posts became fewer and farther between this year as I found I simply had less to say - about music, about my life, about the human condition. 2009 proved for me a downer of a year on the whole, and writing about it would only have reinforced and magnified it. Better to turn away from a mostly sorrowful year and decade and look ahead.

And so we come to Mary Magdalene, Peter the Denier and the other cast members of Jesus Christ Superstar, looking to a Jesus who was right but betrayed by many of those closest to him. Do I believe their remorse when they sing "Could We Start Again, Please?" No, not really - especially since they can't resist the dig, "You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home." But I give them a B+ for effort. Yvonne Whinyface Elliman sings with genuine pain and anguish, and the Rice-Webber arrangement is nothing short of tear-inducing.

So the '00s, a period of considerable pain and suffering, come to a close tonight. But the slate shall not be wiped clean: those who were poor and hungry at the close of the aughts will be poor and hungry at the start of the teens; those in war-torn lands will continue to fight and kill for their lives; and most of the rich will continue to pretend that they all don't exist or at least are something short of human. I can't stop them; I can only clean up my meager backyard. I may continue this blog if I begin to feel passionately enough about music and my relationship to it again. Until then, thanks for reading this far.

Go in peace.