Hard Times Come Again No More

Once a year to our Unitarian Universalist community comes Music Sunday. The bluegrass band played Gillian Welch's heart wrenching "Orphan Girl" and the choir reached back for Stephen Foster's "Hard Times". How can an hour of hard times and a girl yearning for death's reunion be uplifting? I guess you'd have to be there. "Let the Mystery Be."

This wonderful rendition of "Hard Times" by Mavis Staples says it all for me. Buddy Miller, Steve Fishell and Matt Rollings back her up. The McGarrigle/Wainwright clan have a corner on the more traditional rendering that comes readily to mind, but our choristers gave it all they had and it was great in an arrangement by our own Bill Weber. Oh, you beautiful voices, how you break our hearts in joy.