The Nightingale

Here is some background on this old song newly recorded, and the lyrics, from the liner notes to Persevere. [Meanwhile, as I mentioned in my video on the "Dedication" to A Phenomenal Llama, the late Debbie Clark is also among the nightingales I have known.]

The phone rang a few minutes before chapel. Inconsistent with my usual practice, I had decided to skip the Wednesday (non-preaching) service to write a paper. Vanessa’s voice insisted I come to chapel right away. I dashed across campus, ran upstairs, flopped in the back pew and scanned the bulletin that had been handed to me. Among all the musical selections on the program was my “Lament.” 

 

I had forgotten that, weeks before, Barry Davies had transferred my MIDI file onto his computer. (Was it a Commodore 64? It was certainly of that vintage.)  With Barry at the organ, Vanessa breathed such life into the piece through her flute, she fairly lifted the roof off the place. 

 

Barry and Vanessa played “Lament” at least twice more in those seminary days, the last time for my senior sermon, a communion service, for which I chose far too long a passage and preached an oversized sermon. At the end, she smiled and said, “You owe me,” and sealed the deal with a good natured laugh. Vanessa was exhausted, not just by the service, but by the cancer. We graduated together that May. She was ordained in June. She died in July.

 

Written in the days after her funeral, the song bore the working title “Thirty-nine” until it was recorded in August 2020. On the morning the initial (guitar) tracks were laid down, I decided to call it “Nightingale,” in keeping with the avian imagery of the lyric, the poetry of her name, and the prospect of infusing the song with a free, fluttering flute. Partly inspired by Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending,” partly by a long line of heavenly flautists I have known, and to a large extent by the work of the great Jimmy Hastings, but mostly by Vanessa herself, her courage, her spirit, and the musical friendship she offered me that day, "Nightingale" is an elegy to her and to a number of other noble, visionary, and Christian souls (M. L. King, Jr., Dylan Thomas, Flannery O'Connor, Bonhoeffer, George Herbert, even Josiah of Judah) — all nightingales of a sort — who died too soon, at thirty-nine.

 

Nightingale

in memory of

the Rev. Vanessa Gail Knight

(d. 1995)

 

(1) A friend of God, she walked among us:

A minister, master, servant, priest.

And as her silver throat falls silent

Another caged bird finds release.

 

(2) On a mountaintop once stood a King.

His love for God was his only power.

He wore a dream for a crown and a freedom ring.

Blackbird sails from an ivory tower.

 

(3) Let hammer and nails do what they will.

O Thanatos, where is your sting?

Rolling stones will gather no moss here.

Look, the sky is full of beating wings!

 

(Chorus) My notes upon the page.

Your breath was a sea of wind,

Your life a line of grace,

Your soul my music’s friend.

 

(4) The nightingale was only thirty-nine,

Like so many martyrs, poets, kings.

I’ll see you again when we drink the wine.

Can’t wait to hear what song you’re singing! 

Here are the streamers ...

And here is the YTM vid:

And here is my YT channel. Feel free to share, ... especially with any flautists you know.