Over the last few year's this has become part of our Christmas Eve, although usually in a truncated fashion. We'd all gather together in the family room with the lights out, the room a muted kaleidoscope of muted colours from the Christmas tree in the corner. We start with the CBC recording of Al Maitland narrating Frederick Forsyth's
The Shepherd and then we'd play
A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas. Now I didn't have the recording, and we'd find selections on YouTube, but seldom the entire version. This one was important to my wife, and was more a nod to my her childhood memories.
Last year I found this vinyl copy, and we forgot to go to the basement and listen to it as we got lost in the hustle of trying to ensure everything was in order for Christmas morning. This year I'm cheating, I am sitting here a couple of days in advance hoping to take this in and see what the fuss is all about. I have it ready for Christmas Eve.
This recording was made February 22, 1954 and Mr. Thomas recited the poems that were meant to be the first side of an album. "Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night," "In the White Giant's Thigh," "Ballad of the Long-legged Bait," and "Ceremony After a Fire Raid." They were recorded first, and then apparently there was a discussion as to what would he could do for the other side. He decided to retell a story rather than recite more poetry. There are various versions of the flurry of activity trying to find a source to read from, and some accounts state that Mr. Thomas was a little lubricated for the performance. Doesn't matter, however it came to be, it was this version of, "A Child's Christmas in Wales" that would end up taking up most of the first side of the album. Although it sold slowly at first, it would eventually become a Christmas staple. This record on Caedmon, who's slogan was "a third dimension for the printed page" was the Ninth printing from January of 1964 - meaning this pressing is coming up on 60 years old.
Yeah, I know ... math.
The collection of poems on the second side are classics, especially "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" However, I am focused on Christmas, at the moment, so no slight is intended to the fine works on the other side.
There's something riveting about the voice of Dylan Thomas, a resonance the belies his relative youth. He was only in his late '30s when this recording was made. Looking at the picture on the back of the jacket you'd think he was born a middle aged pudgy Englishman.
As to the story, it's rather hypnotic and I find that I often lose the thread of the story, but then pick it up again. The images evoked are a pastiche of anecdotes, and I would often find myself thinking of some of my own family memories.
Each time I hear this I catch a little more. It is magical, and at times a marvellously ridiculous collection of dissonant snippets that mines the depth of childhood memories.
It makes one wonder what could have been if Dylan Thomas' life hadn't been cut short. He died a month after his 39th birthday.
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