silent night by the temptations
light note on a black christmas canon
On Thanksgiving I spoke to my grandfather who told me he was bringing wine coolers to a friend’s house. I asked what flavor of wine cooler, and he responded “whatever flavor the pink one is”; we laughed. Wine coolers remind me of Chicago.
Holidays remind me of how much I’m not from here,
the place where I am writing from, the place where I’m currently living in; figuratively, literally. I’m from a place that is modest, full of humor, unpretentious-
Silent Night by the Temptations reminds me of that place. It shifts the original out of its lullabilic melody similar to that of the Sistine Chapel Choir and carries it into the sonic tradition of a black American gospel- exemplified in its opening lines
“In my mind, I want you to be free”.
It harmonizes, but only as a framing for Eddie Kendrick’s alto that swings into Melvin Franklin’s baritone. Beautiful, quirky, and with a tempo perfect for a two-step
“if I had one wish in this world, it would be that all men would be free”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My mother tried to convince me Santa Claus was black, which I knew was ridiculous and un-true. She would hang black angels on our apartment door that I was made to fetch in the concrete basement under the building. I always thought the black angels looked like white angels dipped in brown paint. Their little button noses, gumdrop eyes, Betty boop hair. These things were important to her, but they aren’t so much to me.
My mother cherishes these acts of restrained rebellion. Raised in 1980s Chicago Catholic schools, the nuns taught them that slavery was a benevolent system, a civilizing mission. Nowadays such a thing would be framed as an emotional detriment to black students; we were always concerned about the license it gave to the white ones. What are the stakes in refuting the daily sadism of slavery, of empire?
A clear conscience. A White Christmas
The Temptations approach Silent Night without a clear conscious; they do so ideologically, earnestly, (religiously), redemptively -
the (corn)bread and butter of Motown Records.
