From ANDRAS JONES: I’m both a New Year’s skeptic and a fan. The arbitrary nature of the Gregorian calendar offends my pagan sensibilities but, as one who enjoys the opportunity for renewal offered by ANY and ALL New Year’s celebrations, I still take pleasure in the one we choose to acknowledge at the end of the month of December (named for the Latin word for the number ten) and January (named for the two-faced Roman god Janus). Arbitrary or not, if so many people give this date our attention as the end and beginning of our year, this gives it power, a power which is evident in this reading and in this episode with singer-songwriter LOUISE GOFFIN. I didn’t know Louise was on the verge of releasing a “New Year’s Day” single when I invited her to do our New Year’s week show. It just kinda worked out that way. I did know about her Jewish genes when I decided on my question about “the right time to discuss anti-semitism” but that wasn’t why I chose to drive the show into the ditch in this particular way on this particular day. I did so because it seemed to be the one really important aspect I left out of the deep, dark, solstice episode with Vivian Cook that precedes this one. Also because I just really wanted to ask it. I think it’s one of the most important conversations to have in a culture whose mind has been warped by millennia of Christian cognitive dissonance. Right there with the conversations we need to have about the church’s rejection of the feminine, and the non-white, is the conversation about the Jewish origins of a religion that is built upon rejecting those origins. I made a video about this for Sync Book Radio a few years ago.

New Year’s Day
(Louise Goffin – Guy Chambers)

Verse 1:

everybody makes a dream this time of year

from now on, its gonna be good for ya

all your friends and family

gather round in peace and harmony

it’s a time to remember your blessings

it’s a time to remember your goals

all the people in your life

be they new friends or old

Chorus:

and it could be the time of your life

everything’s gonna turn out alright

it’ll be okay, in every way, making it better

 it’s new year’s day

Verse 2:

and should old friends be forgot

keep everything they gave you

and though they may seem so far away

you walk with them each and every day

and I know sometimes the road isn’t easy

and we’ve said some things, wished we’d never said

Once a few rounds you’ve loved and lost

you pick yourself up and take a chance again

Chorus:

and it could be the time of your life

everything’s gonna turn out alright

it’ll be okay, in every way, making it better

it’s new year’s day

Middle 8:

countdown’s done,

and we’re swaying along with the band

just one more dance, may all your dreams come true

Chorus:

and it could be the time of your life

everything’s gonna turn out alright

it’ll be okay, in every way, making it better

it’s new year’s day

new year’s day