Zorn: A lump of coal for Joe Biden

He hung on too long and his death penalty commutation was weak

12-24 2024 (issue No. 173)

There will be no Picayune Plus this week due to the Christmas holiday. Since Donald Trump is not yet president again, I am constrained by federal law from wishing you a Merry Christmas, so I’ll just say happy holidays and thanks to all for reading.

• Trying and so far failing to forgive Biden for not standing down in a timely way

• Last week’s winning quip

• That’s so Brandon! — Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s maladroit mayor

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked

• Asking Asking Eric to be fussier about grammar

• Z-mail —Notes and comments from readers along with my responses

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Mary Schmich — A portion of her beloved Christmas column

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — Change the playoff system in college football and the way we measure “passing yards” for quarterbacks

• Tune of the Week — “Leaping and Dancing”

Trying and so far failing to forgive Biden for not standing down in a timely way

As the weeks since Election Day have clicked past, I’ve been having a harder and harder time forgiving President Joe Biden for clinging to office.

A lengthy account in The Wall Street Journal last week “based on interviews with nearly 50 people, including those who participated in or had direct knowledge” of evidence of Biden’s manifestations of decline revealed how cynical and wrongheaded the Biden family and his insiders were to prop him up and egg him on toward running for reelection well after he should have bowed out and allowed the normal Democratic primary process to take place:

While preparing last year for his interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents, the president couldn’t recall lines that his team discussed with him. … The actual interview didn’t go well. Transcripts showed multiple blunders, including that Biden didn’t initially recall that in prep sessions he had been shown his own handwritten memo arguing against a surge of troops in Afghanistan. …

At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person. …

If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion, in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,” the former aide recalled the official saying. …

At some events, the Biden campaign printed the pre-approved questions on notecards and then gave donors the cards to read the questions. Even with all these steps, Biden made flubs, which confounded the donors who knew that Biden had the questions ahead of time. … Democratic insiders became alarmed by the way Biden described his own polling, publicly characterizing the race as a tossup when polls released in the weeks after the disastrous June debate consistently showed Trump ahead. They worried he wasn’t getting an unvarnished look at his standing in the race.

Those fears intensified on July 11, when Biden’s top advisers met behind closed doors with Democratic senators, where the advisers laid out a road map for Biden’s victory. The message from the advisers was so disconnected from public polling—which showed Trump leading Biden nationally—that it left Democratic senators incredulous

Would Kamala Harris have emerged from the grueling primary process as the party’s nominee, even with Biden’s endorsement? Maybe. But she would have had more than 107 days to introduce herself to the public and refine her message, and she wouldn’t have had to answer for having deemed allegations that Biden was troublingly senescent as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate.”

Biden was not a drooling incompetent as his nastier critics have implied, but, clearly, neither was he up for the job of the presidency for four more years

I went on record in the immediate aftermath of the election saying Biden could have stayed at the head of the ticket or he could have stepped aside a year ago and Trump would still have won, but I’m no longer sure about that. Trump’s margin of victory in the national popular vote has ended up being 1.5 percentage points. Several battleground states ended up being even closer than that.

We’ll never know whether an energized Democratic Party running a long campaign against Trump with a nominee selected by the voters could have turned out or converted enough voters to overcome Trump’s small margin of victory, and that’s a question that is likely to haunt Biden’s legacy.

On balance, he had a very successful presidency. And while historians are likely to be kind in evaluating his accomplishments, they are also likely to be harsh in judging him responsible for giving Trump a second term in the White House.

Last week’s winning quip

Today I learned that you’re supposed to pee on a jellyfish sting and not a jelly stain. So my apologies to the lady at Dunkin this morning. I was only trying to help. — @mauriceb3rd

Here are this week’s nominees and here is the direct link to the new poll (last week’s newsletter mistakenly included a link to a rough draft of the Christmas-themed quip poll).

That’s So Brandon!

Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s mayor

The vote Friday night by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked school board to sack Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez because he was insufficiently deferential to Johnson’s benefactors in the Chicago Teachers Union appears to be his biggest political blunder yet.

Crain’s Chicago Business Editorial Board thundered that it was an“example of rotten government at work” and addressed Johnson directly in no uncertain terms:

The damage done to the school system … is only a part of the story. Mr. Mayor, in your handling of this entire matter you have demonstrated you are not a mayor for all of Chicago but only for your friends at the Chicago Teachers Union. You have demonstrated you are willing to use your power to benefit those closest to you while using the children you say you care about as political cover for your disastrous decision-making. … If you have any interest in resurrecting your reputation — and repairing the damage you've done to the city's — you will resign.

Former Chicago Schools CEO Janice Jackson, said to be a 2027 mayoral hopeful herself, blistered the move as “dirty Chicago politics at its worst”:

By attempting to fire a hard-working education leader, the interim Board and Mayor Johnson are trying to ram through an irresponsible teachers’ contract they know Chicago cannot afford and which will further destabilize the school district. ... These shameful and drastic actions will sacrifice our future instead of investing in it. But there is still time to avoid it. Today, we join the growing chorus of principals, newly elected board members, City Council members, and parent groups fighting to stop this power grab, because it is our children and families who will pay the price. Our entire city will pay the price.

The Tribune Editorial Board called the firing “immoral (and) myopic,” adding:

Deliberately engineering a fiscal collapse of the nation’s fourth largest public school district, which is what CTU and Johnson seem determined to do in order to force the state or the “ultrarich” to bail out the system, ultimately will land at Springfield’s doorstep, something Pritzker and company also know.

Martinez is set to appear in court Thursday seeking to overturn the board’s decision and the members of the board are refusing to talk to reporters even as they are attending contract negotiating sessions. This is already going very badly for Johnson and will not end well.

Meanwhile, the Tribune reports:

The mayor has time and again asserted the ball is in Springfield’s court when it comes to providing ways to make wealthy people pay more in order to plug the city’s next budget gap.

Johnson repeated four times Monday that his administration is working with Pritzker’s on a “regular basis” to come up with progressive revenue ideas. A source close to the governor said they were “baffled” by Johnson’s comments.

Regular, meaningful discussions between Johnson and Pritzker’s camps to find new progressive sources of money have not been occurring, the source said.

News & Views

News: President Joe Biden commutes the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row to life without parole.

View: This move is so morally sketchy as to be incoherent. And, look, I’m a long-standing opponent of capital punishment on practical grounds — our justice system is prone to error, killing prisoners has been shown not to deter murder, capital trials and separate death rows are ridiculously expensive. I shed no tears and light no candles at the executions of those who are undoubtedly guilty of murder, but I still think society is better off without the death penalty.

Consistency and coherence would have been served had Biden done 40 for 40 and included in the commutation message a blanket condemnation of capital punishment in line with his 2020 campaign promise to “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example” and in line with the moratorium on federal executions in place since mid-2021.

Instead he carved out three exceptions:

Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

Again, no tears for these depraved killers. But the two men spared with Illinois connections — a doctor convicted of murdering a potential witness against him in a fraud trial and a former Marine who pleaded guilty to killing two young girls in Zion — are among those getting a reprieve from the death penalty who don’t obviously deserve mercy.

In 2000, when then Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 death row inmates to life in prison, he spared scores, if not dozens, of depraved killers along with those whose convictions were dubious and those who’d totally turned their lives around behind bars. Rather than pick and choose, as Biden has done, Ryan took a principled stand, one that resulted in our state abolishing the death penalty in 2011.

Biden’s effort to split the difference lacks the heft to change the national debate on capital punishment — instead, it looks like a finger in the eye of incoming President Donald Trump, an execution enthusiast.

News: Congress refuses to lift the debt ceiling, defying incoming President Donald Trump’s demand .

View: It pains me to say it, but Trump is right. And here’s why:

Raising the debt ceiling neither authorizes new spending nor increases our national debt by a single dime. It simply allows the federal government to pay the bills Congress has already racked up.

We have a wholly different lever to limit future spending. It’s called the legislative budget process, and, for reference, it’s outlined in your U.S. Constitution.

The debt limit is not in your Constitution. It’s based on a 1917 law that was designed to make it easier, but not blank-check-forever easy, for Congress to fund the military during World War I without having to authorize every last bond issue.

Congress has raised it more that 100 times, usually with little fanfare or objection, because wiser heads have realized that a more accurate name for it would be “the default ceiling.”

And, even getting close to hitting it “threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits,” as the president said. “Interest rates would skyrocket. Instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar.”

Republican President Ronald Reagan, that is. He was speaking in 1987 when Democrats were trying to extract concessions from him on one of 18 — yes, 18 — occasions during his two terms when Congress raised the debt limit.

Maintaining U.S. credit is not a Democratic value or a Republican value. Paying the bills is not a liberal priority or a conservative priority.

That the actual function of the debt limit is so poorly understood by the public — and I don’t mean you, reader, I mean people who don’t read the Picayune Sentinel — that it allows cynical pols to hold it hostage to try to gain leverage in broader debates. The fact that members of both parties have used this form of extortion in the past makes it more, not less, despicable.

Repeal this ancient law. At best, all it does is make the markets jittery and provide an opportunity for contemptible, hypocritical grandstanding that distracts from serious negotiations about taxes and spending. At worst, it crashes the economy.

No president, Democrat or Republican, should ever again have to negotiate with Congress with such a threat over his — or, someday, her — head. No American should ever again have to worry that a stubborn, suicidal caucus might be able to bring ruin upon them.

The time is right for a bipartisan act of great statesmanship.

Mr. and Mrs. Lawmaker, tear down this ceiling.

News: Elon Musk plumps for Germany’s far-right party with neo-Nazi ties.

View: I find this report in the New York Times more than a little troubling:

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, on Friday endorsed Germany’s far-right party, a group with ties to neo-Nazis whose youth wing has been classified as “confirmed extremist” by German domestic intelligence.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Mr. Musk posted to X, referring to the anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany, by its German initials. …

“Literally is a neo-Nazi party. Not even joking,” Adam Kinzinger, a Republican former congressman from Illinois and longtime critic of Mr. Trump, posted on X.

News: House ethics report on former Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz “says his drug use and sex with a minor violated state laws.”

View: I’m tempted to say “Merry Gaetzmas” and join in the schadenfreude, but there are victims and outrages in this sordid tale:

The report, released Monday, tells a story of young women who were paid small amounts for sex, of women who were allegedly impaired during these acts, and of a Justice Department that failed a 17-year-old who allegedly had sex with a then-35-year-old congressman.

Asking readers: Should we ask ‘Asking Eric’ to clean up his correspondents’ grammar?

In Monday’s “Asking Eric” syndicated advice column in the Tribune:

Dear Eric: My younger sister is in her sophomore year at university (her school is far from home). I’m a couple of years older than her, but we are best friends. She just celebrated her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend (same age as her), who she met in her first week in school.

“Older than her?” “Same age as her?” The meaning is clear. “I’m a couple of years older than her” translates easily in the mind to the correct, “I’m a couple of years older than she is.” But it doesn’t seem too much to ask for a syndicated columnist or an editor at the syndicate to tidy up these sorts of basic errors so as not to convey to casual readers that “I’m older than her” is correct, standard English.

Or am I being too fussy. Your view?

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Dissents

Rob Trigg —Eric, you really need to learn how to write good articles again. Your articles have become shit. Please go back to school again and educate yourself all over. Get the lib shit out of your brain. You have lost it big time.

Zorn — This is very helpful. Thank you.

Alan — When did you go full MAGA against Brandon Johnson who has governed exactly as he promised? Say what you will about Johnson at least he is consistently progressive and doesn’t back down to right-wing extremist criticism.

Zorn — Since when is criticism of our spectacularly inept mayor “full MAGA”? I share many of his progressive goals, but I also respect the realities of the political process that he ignores as he tries to sloganeer his way toward “investing in people.” He does not read the room. He does not see around corners. His plans detonate on the launch pad because, his rhetoric notwithstanding, he doesn’t collaborate. And “governing” is not simply about putting forth your notions and browbeating those who don’t agree with you. It’s about getting things done — improving the city’s fiscal condition, running a tight ship in City Hall, transparency and so on.

Immigration prediction

Mark K. — Republicans will never do anything about illegal immigration. Their proposals to enact a robust E-Verify program and begin mass deportations will go the way of the wall and the bipartisan deal scuttled by Trump earlier this year. Republicans need the talking point to rouse up xenophobic supporters but they also understand the impact on businesses, economy, and inflation should a significant portion of cheap labor be eliminated. So just like those "caravans of migrants", this issue will be whipped up to a froth close to elections, but somehow dissipate soon after and the status quo will continue.

Zorn — It is notable that his supporters don’t seem to hold Trump accountable for failed promise in his first term to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it. Like you, I doubt there will be much mass in the “mass deportations,” and I suspect Trump’s attention will quickly turn elsewhere.

It’s a wonderful action movie

Matthew W. — This year I bought the advent calendar of Nakatomi Plaza. Yes, “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. We can't be friends if you disagree.

Rate Field

Michael Gorman —Do these companies actually profit from having their names on ballparks? I doubt there were many fans who returned home after a Sox game and sought a mortgage with Guaranteed Rate because of the name of the ballpark.

Zorn —I have wondered that, too. How many air travelers think, even subconsciously, to buy a ticket on United because they've seen a game or heard a reference to the United Center? To me, the name "United Center" doesn't even conjure the airline. The company should have insisted on “United Airlines Center" similar to the "American Airlines Center" where the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks play.

That said, there probably are people who, when looking for a mortgage company, have a comfort level with Guaranteed Rate — now Rate — because they've seen and heard the name so much. I know very little about how advertising, marketing and endorsements work on the subconscious, but my guess is that pure repetition implants a brand into people’s heads, and the idea that a company has the money to invest in major promotional efforts suggests health and stability that would be important when choosing a mortgage company.

Or an insurance company, I suppose. My rational brain tells me that State Farm must be paying tens of millions of dollars — maybe hundreds of millions— on its ubiquitous advertising, and that those costs get passed along to customers somehow. But my lizard brain tells me State Farm must be a reliable provider of insurance because it’s so robust a company it can afford all those TV spots and all those celebrity endorsers.

Speaking of writing errors

Terry Parrilli — You wrote “hosted by me and Mary Schmich” in the piece about “Songs of Good Cheer.” Ouch!

Zorn — Grammatically I was on solid ground, but I was not minding my manners. I’ll let “Grammar Girl,” Mignon Fogarty, explain:

It’s a matter of politeness, not grammar, that leads people to put themselves last in a list. In the same way that you hold a door open to let others walk through first, you should let everyone else go first in your sentences. So the song titles, “Me and Julio Down the by Schoolyard,” and “Me and Bobby McGee” would be considered impolite.

More cheerful reviews

Patricia Cole — We loved “Songs of Good Cheer”! As always, a highlight of the season. Do you and Mary and the crew consider audience requests? My favorite song is "The Holly and the Ivy." Such a haunting tune.

Zorn — Yes! And we have done that song at previous shows. It's interesting that it has several different melodies — here is one; here is another. Still more are archived here. My choir teacher in junior high introduced this song to me, but she pulled it from our holiday program when the boys couldn't stop smirking at the reference to "the merry organ."

SLM —We made our trek up to the city to once attend "Songs" this year. It was as wonderful as ever so thanks to you and Mary and the wonderful musicians and everyone involved at the Old Town School of Folk Music, including the kind and welcoming volunteers. You can describe it using many many adjectives —joyful, poignant, funny, sad, hopeful. We lost one of our group suddenly and recently and so it was very emotional on all levels. The musicianship is just outstanding and we are so happy to have a CD this year. It's just an amazing experience to be singing not as a choir-but a community. We don't have family close by so attending and participating in this event with dear friends is our holiday season highlight. Thank you.

And, thank you for all the work you put in to publish the PS twice weekly. It seems like it has gotten more comprehensive over time. It provides a lot of timely local, regional and national news, funny stuff and music from a broad array of sources. And the comments make it all a nice stew. Happy Holidays to all!

Marty G. — My wife and I went to SOGC on Sunday for the 3rd year in a row. So so good. Singing in a group is cathartic. Thanks again to all who took part.

Zorn — Mary Schmich collected more audience feedback here. We’re grateful to all who come out and sing with us. We hope to keep the tradition alive for many years to come.

Land of Linkin’

• Ted Gioia in The Honest Broker: “The Ugly Truth About Spotify is Finally Revealed” links to “The Ghosts in the Machine: Spotify’s plot against musicians” by Liz Pelly, which accuses the music-streaming giant of reducing its royalty obligations by putting fake artists onto popular playlists. Pelly writes that “Spotify’s own internal research showed that many users were not coming to the platform to listen to specific artists or albums; they just needed something to serve as a soundtrack for their days, like a study playlist or maybe a dinner soundtrack. … As a result, the thinking seemed to be: Why pay full-price royalties if users were only half listening?”

• Billboard’s all-time top 100 winter holiday hits

• I’m a late convert to Tangle, a newsletter that looks at best arguments on either side of major issues and controversies.

• Keith Olbermann comes off like a still-disgruntled ex-employee in “How Can MSNBC Save Itself? Fire Mika and Joe.” I disagree with his take on the “Morning Joe” duo here, though I do think the network made a mistake parting ways with Olbermann 14 years ago next month.

• Chicago radio ratings.

• Documentary filmmaker and podcast producer Samantha Hodder nominates the 15 best podcasts of 2024 in her Bingeworthy Substack. I blush to say I haven’t yet listened to any of them.

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ The Guardian: A Wisconsin company owned by two of Trump’s top mega-donors—Illinoisans Liz and Dick Uihlein, who’ve complained of an immigrant “invasion”—has routinely brought dozens of its workers from Mexico to staff its warehouses even though they don’t seem to have permission to work in the U.S.

■ A Chicago guy went in for a colonoscopy. And then the hospital charged him for two.

■ Podcaster and tech journalist Kara Swisher is launching a longshot bid to buy The Washington Post

■ Status: MSNBC’s new overlord wants the channel “on better terms with Republicans.”

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Mary Schmich: ‘To those who can’t be with us’

Every year at Songs of Good Cheer, I read from the stage this portion of Mary Schmich’s Christmas Day 1996 column:

For many of us, Christmas comes full of holes. A parent who died. A sibling who moved far away. A family member estranged from the family.

Someone, it seems, is always missing, someone with whom we once shared Christmas and without whom Christmas seems a shade paler than before. … For years, it has been true in my family.

No matter how big or festive the assembly, some ghost is always hovering near the turkey and the tree.

But even as I lament that none of them will be with us, I know that all of them will.

We'll do what families do, plugging the holes in Christmas present with memories of Christmases come and gone, telling stories to conjure up the ghosts.

The spirits of the absent guests always remind me that Christmas is never just one Christmas.

It is the sum of all the Christmases you've known and all the people who have inhabited them.

Perhaps more than any other day, Christmas is the measure of passing time the collective clock by which we count out our lives.

It's a mutating event anchored in unchanging rituals. New characters join any family's cast--new spouses, babies, lovers--but the old cast is still clattering around in the wings.

In my family, we usually take a moment at the Christmas meal to raise a glass and say, "To those who can't be with us."

And in that moment, they are.

I thought once of memorizing it and chewing the scenery a bit with a dramatic soliloquy, but Johanna advised against it, saying it’s important that the audience know I’m reading the words of another, not performing my own words.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

Classic Movie Goofs: Platoon (1986): In the movie Charlie Sheen goes to Vietnam believing he’s fighting for freedom. In fact he’s a mere cog in an imperial/industrial military complex terrorizing indigenous farmers to project US power toward the Soviet regime. Hilarious blooper! — Frank Whitehouse

For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity. — Donald Trump

Quips

No visual jokes poll this week, but I thought you’d enjoy this seasonal one:

The new nominees for Quip of the Week:

• Do you think the Wise Men ever hung out again, having beers like, “Ha ha, remember when we saw that baby?” — @carterhambley

• Imagine bringing a snowman to life just to watch him die a horrific death. — @Brock_Teee"

• Grandma jumped in front of my client." — Reindeer lawyer @WilliamAder

• We are giving each other gifts out of obligation? As adults? I am giving someone who has been happily buying their own stuff for 55 years a sweater that she will burn in a bonfire as soon as she sees my tail lights? Oh and there's a deadline? Cool sounds great. — @meantomyself

• Are we sure the wise men who brought frankincense and myrrh weren't just trying to sign Mary up for their essential oils pyramid scheme? — @simoncholland

• Stages of holiday shopping: 1. Plenty of time 2. Gifts for myself 3. Oh no! — @mxmclain

• Santa has been reading your social media posts all year. Most of you are getting history and civics books. — unknown

• This Christmas I celebrate the 39-year anniversary of not getting the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier. — @simoncholland

• Being alone at Christmas can be challenging. People keep inviting you to things so you have to be very firm.— @MartinPilgrim1

• Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph went out for a pack of cigarettes and isn't mentioned again in the Bible. — @WilliamAder

(Note: Bible Study Tools basically confirms the premise of this last quip).

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why the new name for this feature? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.”

Good Sports

Eight is enough

Four blowout games in the opening round last weekend prompts me to lend the vast weight of the Picayune Sentinel’s editorial voice to the view that 12 teams is too many for the postseason college football tournament.

In any given year, there are only eight teams, at most, that have a shot at winning a national title. The selection committee should pick those eight teams and seed them irrespective of whatever conference they are in, considering a variety of factors including strength of schedule.

Further, the opening round games should be played at neutral, warm-weather sites — home field advantage was clearly strong for last weekend’s winning teams.

If they must have more than eight teams in the bracket, then the lower-ranked teams should have play-in games to make the eight-team bracket. As it is, with this year’s funky seeding based on conference championships, we have Boise State and Arizona State in the final eight, and they are sure to be buzzard meat against Penn State and Texas, respectively.

Why should quarterbacks get credit for yards after a catch?

I’ve never understood why, if a quarterback throws a screen pass one yard forward to a tailback who then scampers 50 yards for a touchdown, he is credited for 50 passing yards. Seems like he should get credit for one yard. Or, perhaps, credit for the number of yards the ball traveled in the air before it was caught — an easy calculation using modern technology.

I’m guessing that a new statistical measurement — air passing yards — would better measure the talent of quarterbacks.

While I’m making suggestions, how about an official scorer who judges whether each incomplete pass was the fault of the receiver or the quarterback? In the case of an error by the receiver, the quarterback should not be charged with an incompletion, just as a baseball pitcher is not charged with an earned run when a player scores after reaching base on an error.

Tune of the Week

“Leaping And Dancing” from the Nowell Sing We Clear ensemble is a particularly joyous, bouncy Christmas song that I’m guessing most of my readers have never heard

Shepherds and lasses, come leaping and dancing,
Leaping and dancing the eve of Noel.
Shepherds and lasses, come leaping and dancing,
Leaping and dancing the eve of Noel.

The British singing duo of John Roberts and Tony Barrand were the core of Nowell Sing We Clear:

John and Tony met at Cornell University in 1968, as fellow graduate students in psychology. They discovered that they shared a common interest in folk song, and started performing together the following year. Unaccompanied two-part singing was always a primary staple of their repertoire, and the stark harmonies of their well-balanced voices soon brought them to the attention of the folk music community.

Roberts is now 80 and living in New York state. Barrand died at 77 in early 2022. The Tune of the Week previously featured Nowell Sing We Clear when I nominated “Chariots” as the best Christmas song of all time. I still stand by that, though the competition is fierce.

No audience poll needed.

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you.

Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise. Browse and search back issues here.

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