Culture

Column: What is Pagan Music?

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TWH – Welcome to the new Pagan music column for the Wild Hunt, I hope you’ll join me in the months to come through the musical underground of the great below, the stunning and oft-listened to heights of the great above and the balance that makes up our daily musical landscape in the great between. Our lives are immeasurably enriched by music, and with the growth of the internet and the bottoming out of technology costs for recording, we’ve never had access to more of it. Pagan music especially would seem to have benefited from the boon of technology. While it’s impossible to know everything that’s happening, one can still spot trends and pick out the talented and truly creative. You’ll never catch me claiming to be an expert on anything related to music, I’m coming at this as a passionate fan.

Culture

Column: For One Brief Shining Moment, CalderaFest

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I think a little trip in the WABAC (Wayback) Machine is in order. In 1982, Chris De Burgh released an album called “The Getaway.”  The most famous song, by far I would guess, was “Don’t Pay the Ferryman,” an art rock piece describing the voyage of a soul over –- presumably -– the River Styx and warned to keep his obulos from the ferryman until the voyage reaches the other side. On the flip side of the album (a literal location back then) was a short song called “Where Peaceful Waters Flow.” This song is full of Anglocentric imagery that effortlessly echoes Pagan themes. It could as readily be both a song to a beloved as it could be a song to the Goddess.