Page 35 - Write Away Magazine Dec 2019

Jason Baker

Christmastime While I have been a musician Jason Baker is a songwriter &

since age 14, songwriting is
performer from Burlington,
something I started in earnest
songs in 2017, and performing
in 2017. As part of learning Vermont. Jason started writing
Blues several songwriting communi- “America Dreams”. On his new
in 2018, releasing his debut,
how to write songs, I joined
ties, including local groups that album, “Common Man Blues”,
hold song feedback meetings
influenced by the deep roots of
monthly. One thing that song Jason continues to write songs
communities provide is song old-time & acoustic music, yet
prompts to help inspire song- modern in lyrical perspective.
writers get into the practice of
completing songs. 2019 New England Music
Awards Nominee for “Best in
One of the very first prompts I Vermont”
used was “write a holiday song”. Nov/Dec American Songwriter
Most “holiday” songs are about Magazine Lyric Contest Run-
Christmas, so I had to decide if ner-Up for the song “Christ-
I wanted to do that, or mastime Blues”
something “alternate”. As an
atheist from an ethnically-Jew- My Website:
ish background, I didn’t feel http://jbakervt.com/
particularly compelled to write
about Chanukah or other
holiday. While many, many
“Christmas” songs are in fact
secular in content, while
celebrating the trappings of
“the season”, I didn’t feel ike
I needed to add to that large
body of work. I decided to
write a song about Christmas,
and to focus on the main char-
acter and event, Jesus and the
Nativity.
I thought about when I first
learned about Jesus and his life
as a kid, and the thoughts I had
at the time, mixing Chanukah
and Passover, Christmas and
Easter in my young mind, and
wondering… “If they knew he
was a prophet, why didn’t they
warn him?”. So this song is
simply a sympathetic message
from one Jewish kid to another.

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