One of my favorite folk bands is Bread & Roses from Boston, Massachusetts. They broke up a year or two ago and had only played together for a few years. It was one of those folk bands that comprised of musicians who had grown up listening and playing punk rock music. The music was doused with bluegrass and Celtic styled banjo playing, mandolin, acoustic guitar, gruff vocals, fiddles, and upright bass. Their songs were a mix of old and modern stories, from stories of soldiers in World War I to the ironic sales of selling GG Allin t-shirts at the mall. Their last album will probably never be released but I have a copy and have been listening to it every day for the past few weeks. Before I had only the live bootleg versions so hearing a “proper” recording of my favorite song, “Boxing Day 1914,” is like listening to it for the first time all over again. It wasn’t until I heard the recorded version that I realized what the song was about.
I remember around 7th grade I was reading about holidays celebrated by many countries, excluding America, such as May Day and Boxing Day. I had European friends with parents that celebrated May Day but I never knew anyone that celebrated Boxing Day, usually on the day after Christmas. My history teacher in 7th grade knew quite a bit about it and he also was the first person to tell me about the World War I Christmas Truce. He told us of how German troops and English troops sat in cold, wet trenches fighting nonstop. There was always sounds of gunshots and bombs blasting day and night. You could never have a silent moment to yourself. But on Christmas Eve, the Germans ceased fire. They lit candles and decorated the ground level of their side of the battlefield with Christmas trees. They sang Christmas carols that echoed out of the trenches. The English troops also ceased fire, although apprehensively. They, too, started to sing Christmas carols. Written in broken English, the German troops began holding up signs asking for a momentary truce. The English troops also held up signs asking for a temporary cease of fire. Then slowly, the soldiers on both sides of the war crawled out of their trenches, walked across no-man’s-land, and shook hands. For two days, they exchanged gifts instead of bullets and ate dinner together instead of individually. They played soccer against one another instead of war. But more importantly, they allowed each other to bury the dead, something neither side could do because of the dangerous gunfire above ground. During the truce, some soldiers of opposing sides actually exchanged addresses to write each other after the war. The celebration lasted until Christmas. By Boxing Day, the war continued.
Bread & Roses’ song “Boxing Day 1914” (which I hosted here to download) is about an English soldier during these two days who exchanged addresses with a German soldier. I can’t believe I never caught this years ago; it makes perfect sense. Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, of 1914, the year of World War I. I should’ve known instantly.
Old friend, can you remember the tiny lights that sprung up over no man’s land? And how without a signal, we threw down our weary arms and how without a second thought we stood and ran.
Old friend, can you remember the frozen muddy wasteland suddenly pristine? For the first and last time ever, I could hear myself think over the grinding voice of the machine.
Corporals translated our delight as Christmas Day turned into night. With laughter on our tongues where there’d been only orders and screams. We danced along the bodies like children in a dream.
Old friend, can you forgive me? The Pidgin English promises I’ll never keep. Christmas Eves that I spent drinking at my writing desk and Christmas mornings my children watched their father weep.
And nothing I’ve done since has felt as real as the first step I took across that frozen field. When we said our last goodbyes, I can’t remember who blinked first, but I can see your face as clearly as I read this scribbled curse, this scribbled address that I hid away in shame.
Long after we had found out
All the slaughtered soldiers’ names,
Can you forgive me my old friend?
I picked my rifle up again on Boxing Day.
