I was laid up sick at home this past Good Friday evening… Edith and Kate took Will over to his school for a Living Stations event in which Will was participating, and I hung out at home and watched the Godspell DVD I had borrowed from the library.

I had not seen this movie in something like 35 years (I remember watching it in the basement of St. Mike’s church in around 6th or 7th grade) and honestly did not remember much of it at all, except for Prepare the Way of the Lord and Day By Day.  I’d always thought the musical and the movie were kind of cheesy, but watching it again I found myself really liking it a lot.  Sure, it’s got that certain post-60’s early 70’s Jesus loving feel to it, but many of the performances are strong, and the songs are overall really really good.  The backdrop of early 70’s New York City is also fascinating, if not eerie considering the prominence of the World Trade Center buildings in the film.  I do have a problem with the ending of the movie (they miss the entire point of Jesus’ death by leaving out the resurrection.)

As luck would have it, the movie was on TCM in the early morning hours of Easter Saturday, so I set the DVR to record it, and I’ve been able to watch it again at least twice since Good Friday.  One song in particular, By My Side, I’ve fallen in love with – it has a certain Natalie Merchant or Dar Williams feel to it, and I love the lyric:

Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold
And needs warmth
Where are you going?
Far beyond where the horizon lies

Where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh please, take me with you

Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I’ll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk (watch me walk)
I can walk
I can walk!

I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will talk, we will talk together
We will talk
About walking Dare shall be carried
And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing
“Meet your new road!”

Then I’ll take your hand
Finally glad
Finally glad

That you are here
By my side (By my side)

By my side (by my side)
By my side (by my side)
By my side (by my side)
By my side (by my side)

(Matt. 26:14-16)
[spoken]
Then the man they called Judas Iscariot
Went to the chief priests,
and said “What will you give me to betray Him to you?”
They paid him thirty pieces of silver.
And from that moment,
he began to look out for an opportunity
To betray Him.