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The Making of
MaevenSong
Who knows when a project begins? In the recording studio? With the first spark of an idea? I say MaevenSong began in June, 2008 when singer songwriter Tim Dillinger, in the midst of devastating personal crisis, found The Passion of Mary Magdalen on a library shelf in Nashville and decided to read it instead of “throwing himself under a truck,” as insists he would have. He read and re-read the novel over the next eight months, and says it became his lifeline. Later that year he moved to New York, and early in 2009 he contacted my publisher to arrange to do an interview with me on his podcast “Out the Box.”
We met on March 20th in a club in Harlem called The Shrine where he would be performing with his amazing vocal trio Soulkiss later that evening. During the course of the interview I sang “In the Night.”
“Oh,” he said. “You can sing!”
I told him there were lots of other songs from The Maeve Chronicles, and Tim said:
“You are going to make an album. In Nashville. I will arrange everything.”
It sounded natural and inevitable. By the summer we had set a date for three days in October. Though I am not a professional singer and have never recorded anything but nine minutes of my voice a cappella, it did not occur to me to think twice or do anything but be grateful for having an experienced guide and companion who has produced two of his own albums. I didn't even get nervous until a just before the trip. Then I wondered if I was crazy. I would have been more worried if I had known that three days is considered a very short amount of time to make a full length recording. But I knew Tim had arranged for an expert guitarist, Dave Martin, to create accompaniment for the songs I had sung into Tim's phone in August.
On Monday morning we all met at Colorblind Soul Productions, the sound studio Mike Torino runs from his home. Before going upstairs to the studio, we sat around Mike's dining room table.
"So," said Mike, looking from me to Dave, the guitarist. "You two have never met before? You've never rehearsed?"
Dave, who was having surgery later that day, remained calm and said that he'd heard the songs and had some ideas. I sensed that Mike was thinking something like: here's this lady who wants to make an album and doesn't have a clue.
"Do you know what key and tempo they're in?" he appealed to Dave.
"Some of them don't have a tempo," Dave allowed.
"Elizabeth has perfect pitch," Tim interjected at one point, perhaps picking up on Mike's skepticism.
"Some of them do have tempo," I spoke up. "Some of them have very standard forms, like Mountain Song. Let's start with one of those."
"Mountain Song?" said Dave. "I don't remember any Mountain Song."
It seems Mountain Song somehow got dropped from the songs Tim sent Dave.
"It's easy," I told the other three as they searched for the lost recording. "I'll just sing it."
And then the collaborative magic of music began to unfold. Dave and Mike brainstormed and found cords, and I soon understood that Mike was not just a sound technician but a brilliant and imaginative musical director with a perfect ear. I instantly forgave him for treating me like a dotty old lady. Dave's guitar playing was rich and supportive, and when we began to work on Pentecostal Alley blues, I was in heaven hearing his blues guitar. In less than an hour we had a rough arrangements for three songs including harmonies created by Tim, and we headed upstairs to lay down Dave's tracks so he could leave for his appointment.
Mike was thrilled to have a chance to work with a guitarist of Dave's caliber and he admitted to Tim that that I did indeed have perfect pitch. It made me feel a little better to be considered a dotty old lady with some natural talent, but I was worried about the songs that did not have a conventional form. I was especially worried about Miriam's Lament. I had never been able to sing it the same way twice. I was doing some short pieces a cappella, but Miriam's Lament seemed too long and uncertain to sing unaccompanied.
"I think I'm going to have to scrap it," I told Tim. "They'll never be able to find a tempo or a structure." Things both Dave and Mike had insisted were essential.
"No," said Tim. "You're not going to scrap it. I know just what to do. I'm going to go get Ron. I'm going to get my son!"
Tim is not only a brilliant vocalist of immense range, he has another genius: people. Knowing people, seeing their gifts, bringing people together. Everyone Tim loves becomes family. His son, Ron, is a young incredibly talented musician Tim has mentored since Ron was sixteen.
"I don't know what I'm doing," I told Ron when he arrived. "It goes something like this." I sang a bit. "But it never comes out the same twice."
Ron didn't bat an eye or respond in any particular way at all.
"It's a preach, Ron," explained Tim. "You'll know what to do."
So we went upstairs. Ron sat down at the keyboard. I sang a phrase, and a miracle happened. I knew just where the notes were, and Ron supported each one with rich, complex, soulful sound.
"Let them do this live," said Tim. "They need to do this live."
So I stood up, put on the head phones and went with Ron, as Tim later put it, to the foot of the cross. When it was over, we all wept—even Mike!
That was Ron's first miracle. The next day, he also played with me on Psalm, which despite its Biblical form, lacked the requisite tempo and structure. The Prologue, which was to have been sung and spoken without accompaniment, now has blues piano all the way through. It was done in one take.
The biggest challenge was Resurrection Song. Dave had valiantly returned the day after his surgery to lay down the rest of the tracks. He has found some beautiful hypnotic chords for Resurrection Song and created a structure. It was taking all my concentration to stay within it, and I was having trouble building the intensity the song needs.
"I haven't raised him yet," I said to Tim at one point.
"Let Ron accompany her live," said Tim. "In addition to the guitar."
It took more than one take, because of the complexity of the rhythms. Ron turned to Mike between takes, and asked for a pad. I think that's the term. They searched around. At Ron's suggestion, they decided on strings.
I sang the next take carried on a swelling river of sound, and at last I was able to go where I needed to go, to the tomb, to the beloved. At last I raised him.
The night of that day, only the second day, a day in which time must have been suspended, Tim's friends singer songwriters Pam Mark Hall and Jerry Chamberlain came over to sing on Thou New Moon, an a cappella piece. My idea was to go from a straight singing of it to a jam, perhaps with drums.
"No," said Mike. "I can't record that. That would be chaos. I thought you wanted a choral piece. Let's record it that way and then you can improvise over it on another track."
In record time, Pam and Jerry learned the tune and the upper and lower harmonies Tim had created. Together we laid down three tracks. Mike looped them to make it sound as though we were a huge choir. He had no way of knowing that this song was the one the entire druid college sang to Maeve went she was sent beyond the ninth wave. The effect was gorgeous, and I happily let go of my idea improvise over it.
"So," I said to Mike. "Maybe it could be a solo voice, then unison voices, then harmony?”
“No," Mike said bluntly. "The purpose of this song is to be a break between some of your other songs. Once is good, but three times, no."
By this time I had learned Mike was almost always right, and I appreciated his directness. That night when I woke at 3:00am to lie awake for two hours, as I had every night, I remembered what he said about the song's use, and the whole structure of the album became clear to me. I knew exactly how to group the songs.
When I woke up on the third morning the sky (which for two days had been as dark as the crucifixion, in Tim's words) was a brilliant blue. We went to the studio where Tim laid down harmonies on two more song and Mike added percussion to two others. I didn't have to do anything but sit and listen. I remember thinking I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a sound studio making music with wonderful people.
When our work on MaevenSong was all done, Tim and I went to see sacred Nashville sites, first one: the shelf in the library where Tim found The Passion of Mary Magdalen some fifteen months ago. It was there on the shelf in very battered condition, which Tim admitted was probably because of him.
MaevenSong text
1. In the Night
from The Passion of Mary Magdalen
This story begins in the night. There will be a dawn, I promise.
I will also tell of mornings when I didn’t want to wake and noons full of harsh light and judgment. Sometimes there will be shade and ease in the afternoons, camaraderie and rest, even pleasure.
There will be passion, I promise. Morning, noon, and night, season after season. Passion that breaks time open wide so that you can taste the mystery inside.
This story begins at night. It begins in the middle of the story. In the middle of the night. When the thief comes, when the bridegroom comes. When the bride has long since given up hope. When the foolish virgins are snoring. When only a whore is awake.
2. Prologue
from The Passion of Mary Magdalen
The last Stranger has gone home. That’s what we call the men who seek the priestess-whores at Temple of Isis Magdala—Temple Magdalen for short aka the hottest holy whorehouse in the Galilee. Magdala is the place for nightlife on the Lake, the place where all the clashing elements in this country of crossroads mix it up. A honky-tonk town full of juke joints, bars, and street brawls. Where else will you find Roman soldiers and Jewish guerilla fighters gaming together?
At Temple Magdalen, on the outskirts of town, we welcome them all, because we remember what most religions teach but people prefer to forget—the Stranger could be a god or an angel.
Now the last Stranger is gone for the night. Reginus has barred the gate. The priestess-whores are heading for bed. There’s a storm rising on the lake. I decide to go to the roof of what I call the tower. I lived so many years inside high narrow walls, I love the roof and sleep there every night I can. It’s too wild tonight to stay out, but I will watch for a while. The huge living darkness of the lake moves below me. Even through the wind I can just hear the sound of our spring rising and flowing through the Temple towards the lake—the spring that called me to this place so far from the tiny island where I was born.
“Red!” Reginus calls up the stairs. “There’s someone at the gate. I told him we were closed for the night, but he won’t go away.”
“Is he a suppliant?” our other term for the Stranger who comes seeking the goddess (even when he thinks he’s just looking for a whore).
“No,” Reginus climbs the rest of the way up. “He says he has a sick man with him. That’s what makes me suspicious. It could be a trick. They might be robbers. It could be even an ambush. It’s so dark tonight I can’t tell if the thing slung across his donkey is a man or a sack of grain.”
“I’ll go speak to him,” I say.
“Domina,” says the man at the portal, using the Latin word for lady, but he is no Roman. “I have a sick man. Near death.”
The man is a Samaritan, I am guessing by his accent.
“Why do you seek help at Temple Magdalen?” I ask in Aramaic.
“Please, there is nowhere else. I found the man naked and bleeding on the Jerusalem-Jericho road. He’d been beaten and left for dead. What was I to do? I couldn’t leave him there. I’ve been traveling for two days now. But no one will take him in. They don’t know who he is—a Jew, a Samaritan, an outlaw, a demoniac? I’ve heard you welcome the stranger here. I’ve heard there are healers here.”
“If it’s a trick, it’s a trick,” I say to Reginus. “We’ll have to risk it. What you have heard is true,” I say through the portal. “In the name of Isis who welcomes all, I welcome you.”
Reginus and I open the gates, and the merchant leads his burdened donkey inside. It is a man and not a sack. That much is clear by the torch in the wall.
“Help me, both of you. The rain hasn’t started yet. I want to examine him first by the spring, and wash his wounds there. The water has healing properties,” I explain to the Samaritan. “I’ll get a lamp while you move him. Carefully.”
Even though I am a seasoned healer, I am taken aback by what I see. This man hasn’t just been beaten. He’s starving. I can count all his ribs. He is covered with sores; his hair is matted and thick with dust. The Samaritan has done his best binding the man’s wounds, but he has bled through the bandages. I kneel down and place the lamp at his head, so I can get a better look at his face.
His face. My heart knows before my eyes; my eyes know before my mind. All I know is I am lost. There are lines here that go on for miles, for years. I am looking at his face, and what I see are his feet, brown as earth, beautiful, lost. I see the sun wheeling out of control, and the stars trying to find him. The moon flinging the ocean after him. And he is lost. No, I am. We are. From each other.
“Maeve, we are lovers,” he pleaded on another shore in a terrible dawn after a long night long ago.
“You are lovers,” said the old woman, “but not just of each other, you are the lovers of the world.”
“We can’t love if we’re apart,” he said.
“We can’t love unless we part,” I answered him.
I didn’t know then what I meant. But now here I am, here we are, in this moment and all the loss is lifting, changing, like leaves turned by the wind before the storm.
“Red, honey,” says Reginus. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“Whore’s tears,” I say. “Cure anything.”
I soak them up with the hem of my garment, and begin to wash his wounds.
And my own wounds.
By our wounds we are healed.
Here is the story, of my lost years and what I found, of our found years and what we lost. Stories unfold in time, backwards, forwards, every moment changing the meaning of all the others. This is a passion story—my passion, his, ours, yours.
Passion breaks time open wide.
Come. Taste the mystery.
3. Song to the New Moon (solo)
text from Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael (in public domain)
appears in Magdalen Rising
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance in the night!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance on the billows!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance on the ocean!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance of my love!
4. It’s not all pretty
from Magdalen Rising
It’s not all pretty
the earth knows terrible things.
She receives all deaths, gentle and brutal
She bears the pain of every birth
She turns all things back into herself
And she worries the bones to dust.
She is changing, always changing
She is changing
Layers shift
her own bones crash and break
tides heave
and rocks erupt into fire
She is changing, always changing
she is changing.
Layers shift
her own bones crash and break
tides heave
and rocks erupt into fire
It’s not all pretty
It’s not all pretty, pretty, pretty
It’s not all pretty.
Beauty never is.
5. The Pentecostal Alley Blues
from Bright Dark Madonna
Well, some say I’m a whore
Lord and some call me his bride.
I said some folks call me a whore
and some say I’m his holy bride.
All I know is I’m in this alley
and I’m heavin’ up my insides.
Well, now some will say I’m the number one
disciple of the bunch.
Yes, some folks call me the number one
disciple of the bunch.
But me I’m in the alley
just tossin’ up my lunch.
Well, you know I loved that man,
loved him all my life.
You know I loved that man,
all his life and death and life.
But don’t call me no disciple
cuz I’m a priestess, whore, and wife.
Well, I raised him in the tomb
and I rocked him all night long.
Yes, I raised him in that cold, dark tomb
and I rocked him all night long.
till I found him standing
by the tree of life at dawn.
You don’t have to be a virgin
to get knocked up by a god.
Don’t have to be no virgin
to get knocked up by a god.
That’s why I’m in the alley
where no angel feet have trod.
Well, the preacher men are preaching
they’re starting up a church.
Yes, the preacher men are preaching
they’re starting up a church.
But I’m here in this alley
with my lunch still in the lurch.
6. Mountain Song
from Bright Dark Madonna
The mountain is high and the valley’s so low
and only the river knows where to go.
Wrapped in the clouds or bare to the sky
my heart is so lonesome, at night I still cry.
So mourn you doves, sigh your sad song
mourn you doves, low, sweet, and long.
I once had a lover, so deep and so true.
He says he is with me, so why am I blue?
My arms are still empty, he’s sure hard to hold,
his spirit is willing, but my bed is so cold.
So mourn you doves, sigh your sad song
mourn you doves, low, sweet, and long.
I have a small daughter, so sweet and so wild
and all of our love still lives on in that child.
I watch her grow taller, a straight mountain pine
one day she’ll leave me to seek what she’ll find.
So mourn you doves, sigh your sad song
mourn you doves, low, sweet, and long
Until that day comes on the mountain we’ll dwell
my tears with the snow melt the river will swell.
His mother, his daughter, his lover, we three
we’ll bide with each other, so lonesome and free.
So mourn you doves, sigh your sad song
mourn you doves, low, sweet, and long.
7. The Song of Black Sarah
from Bright Dark Madonna
They call me Black Sarah, Saint Sarah, la Kali.
In the merry month of May the Roma bathe me in the sea
where I greeted—or arrived—with a bunch of Saintes Maries
but no one knows my story, no one knows but me.
They say I came from Egypt or the valley of the Rhone.
They say Black means obscure, forgotten and alone
or else fertile and abundant like the rich Camargue loam
but no one knows my story or how far I had to roam.
Now they like to wonder was I really something more
than a servant to assorted saints who landed on the shore.
Was my father a true savior, my mother bride or whore?
Still no one knows the story I keep hidden at my core.
Black Sarah, Saint Sarah, I am no slave to history.
I will not bear the burden of some secret legacy.
I will ride the bare wild backs of the mares of the sea.
Call me what you like; I will still be free.
8. Ave Matres
from Bright Dark Madonna
Hail all mothers
graceful or not
god or goddess is with you, believe it or not.
Blessed are all women
and blessed are the fruits of our wombs
whatever names, ridiculous or not, we choose for them
and even when they’re acting rotten.
O mothers
holy human mothers
all our children are divine.
Long after they leave us
they will curse us and pray to us
now and in the hour of our death
now and in the hour of their need.
9. Psalm
from Bright Dark Madonna
My goddess, my goddess, you have forsaken me in my time of need
and in my hour of desolation.
For I have failed utterly to protect my daughter, to keep her safe
from all danger and iniquity.
Once I carried her beneath my heart, now my heart is broken within me. For she has gone far from me; from my countenance she has fled.
By night and by day, I will seek her, and my lament shall not cease
until I behold her again, yea, until I see her beloved face.
10. Miriam’s Lament
from The Passion of Mary Magdalen
I am Miriam
my name means bitterness
and I will mourn
mourn and not be comforted
for the Lord God has dealt bitterly
with his handmaiden.
Once I said yes yes
be it unto me according to your will.
I am Miriam
my name means rebellion
and now I say no
the holy one will not win
what the holy one wills
he shall not have.
For I am the mother
and I say my son shall sleep
sleep in my womb
sleep until he rises
rises with the sun.
I am Miriam
my name means bitter rebellion
the angels are round about me
And you shall not have him
terrible one, you shall not
you shall not have
my son.
11. Hymn to Ma of Ephesus
from Bright Dark Madonna
I sing to the mother of all
she whose heart is honeycomb
who follows the spiral flight of bees.
I sing to the mother long bereft
to the one who is leaving me
for the far high reaches of light and air.
When you are gone, will you be my road?
When you are gone, will you show me the stars?
When you are gone, will I find your face in my own?
I sing to the mother who is more than mine
to the girl grown ancient gathering eggs to her breast
to the abandoned mother who has never left.
12. Song to the New Moon (choral)
text from Carmina Gadelica (in public domain)
appears in Magdalen Rising
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance in the night!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance on the billows!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance on the ocean!
Hail to thee, thou new moon,
Jewel of guidance of my love!
13. Resurrection Song
from The Passion of Mary Magdalen
Set me like a seal on your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is strong as death,
passion as relentless as Sheol.
The flash of love is a flash of fire
a flame of Yahweh himself.
Love no flood can quench
no torrents drown.
For the river that flows from my heart is a flame
that will carry me over the seas
and I will unbind you from the tree
from the tamarisk tree and the oak
yes I will unbind you from the tree
the bare tree and the leafless one.
For love is as strong as death
passion relentless as Sheol.
No flood can quench my love
For I am the queen of all rivers
who makes the waters rise and recede
and I will seek you among the reeds
I will find you forever.
For mine is the power to remember
and I will re-member you.
I will kiss you with the kisses of my mouth
I will fill you with the breath of life.
Set me as a seal on your heart
like a seal on your arm
For love is as strong as death
passion as relentless as Sheol.
The flash of love is the flash of your fire
and you shall rise with the sun.