Back Seat Producers

Twenty-Five Days of TSO – Day Five

Three Kings and I (What Really Happened)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Christmas Attic (1998)

Now you all heard the story about Bethlehem

How the child was born and the three wise men

Heard the preacher tell it like the preacher does

But let me tell you, children,

That’s not how it was

The story of The Christmas Attic is one of a young girl who sets out to prove the truth of Christmas after being confronted by everyone around her, older children, even her parents, telling her what they believe to be the truth. At bedtime, instead of sleeping, she climbs into the attic to get a better view to see if she can spy the visitor that she believes will be visiting that night.

While there, she is gently nudged by an angel to investigate a trunk that was left in the attic. What she finds there weaves together many vignettes that are presented through the album.

I imagine that here she finds a child’s theme written about the story of the Three Kings. There is so much fun and joy in hearing about this child’s version of the events, likely translated from a story told to the child by their Grandfather, or some Great-Grandfather.

The late Daryl Pediford’s voice is so rich and magical in the telling that you get sucked in to this familiar, if slightly different, story about the child’s Great-great-great-great-great-great-grand dad and his role in saving the Kings on their way to Bethlehem. It couldn’t be the same though, they just couldn’t tell the story the way that it was, considering copies of the story would all had to have been written by hand.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

05. December 2019 by Tony
Categories: 25 Days of TSO | Leave a comment

Twenty-Five Days of TSO – Day Four

An Angel Returned
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)

Hoping that we’ll all understand

Every dream is there in our hands

And for every bell

May they ring all through your life

The final track in the story that is Christmas Eve and Other Stories is a complementary piece book ending the album that began with An Angel Came Down.

The song steps through the stories and describes the things that the angel has brought back. The glow of a light, the heart of a song, the tear of a child, the wish of a soul… all things that we can’t just capture and hold on to. But we aren’t angels. And the angel brings them and presents them to God.

The story ends and bells ring in the new day, Christmas Day. And quite literally the angel learns, and we learn through him that every dream we want is within our hands, as he holds our dream and wishes in his hands.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

04. December 2019 by Tony
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Twenty-Five Days of TSO – Day Three

Promises to Keep
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)

Yet another track from the first TSO album. There is a magic and a hope in each of the stories, but there is also a bit of darkness. As sweet and as precious as the voices that sing this song are, the lyric also speaks of the real truth of hope and dreams.

Are our dreams just a manifestation of the lives we already live? Are we just pretending to be kind because it’s Christmas? Are we more noble, more kind, more giving, more charitable because it’s Christmas? And even so… so what? Maybe the kindness and charity will rub off and make us all a bit better in the rest of our lives and for the rest of the year.

Do we only now see the kindness that is always there because we are looking for it now at this time of year more than any other time?

Christmas promises that the world is about to reset at turning of the year. Maybe it’s just the time for us to balance the scales of the things that we’ve done through the year. Or maybe Christmas really is magical. Does it matter?

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

03. December 2019 by Tony
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Twenty-Five Days of TSO – Day Two

An Angel Came Down
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)

And as he looked towards the earth

For the source of this sound

On that cold winter night

It was pulling him down

This song is the first song on the first Trans-Siberian Orchestra album. While Sarajevo 12/24 pre-dates this album, this song really sets the stage for the story of Christmas Eve.

Quite literally, an angel comes to Earth with a mission from God to find out the worth of everything that humanity had done since the birth of the son of God.

In the magic of this world, angels have the ability to hold onto things that no human can touch.

The tender majesty of the song sets the stage for the weaving together of a variety of stories that take place through the course of the album culminating in the book ending song, An Angel Returned, which, spoiler, I’ll be sharing here in a few days.

I love the idea that not only is this a mission, but also something that he becomes drawn into, being pulled down by the sounds that he hears from humanity below.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

02. December 2019 by Tony
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Twenty-Five Days of TSO – Day One

Sarajevo 12/24
Savatage
Dead Winter Dead (1995)

I’m going to jump right in with day one and fill in the impetus for this along the way in the upcoming three and a half-ish weeks.

I’ve got a lot of love for rock and metal and progressive/melodic rock. As such, I was a fan of Savatage for quite a few years before their rock opera Dead Winter Dead was released in 1995.

The story of the album takes place amidst the Bosian War which was ongoing at the time the album was released. It tells the story of a Serb boy and a Muslim girl on opposite sides of the conflict, all from the point of view of a gargoyle on a belfry of a medieval church in the town of Sarajevo.

One of the through lines of the album is that there is an old man who sit in the square in front of the church and plays his cello. On one fateful night, December 24th, he’s in the square playing Christmas music…

I won’t say more about the fate of the boy, the girl or the cellist, but this song represents that moment in time, with war raging around them.

This song, and this part of the story crossed-over into Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories.

This was the first hit for the band and most people’s first introduction into the music of TSO. I thought that it was a fitting beginning to my little experiment in sharing 25+ songs from a band that I’ve enjoyed for more than twenty years.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

01. December 2019 by Tony
Categories: 25 Days of TSO | Leave a comment