“Inside your head there’s a record that’s playing a song called ‘Hold On.’”
Tom Waits’s “Hold On” is not an Advent song. At least, I have never seen it on an Advent playlist. But look closer.
Typical of the Waitsian universe, in “Hold On” we catch glimpses of characters stuck neck-deep in the grubbiness of human existence, yet insisting on hope. In my favorite moment, a man gives the unnamed protagonist a gift: “a ring made from a spoon.” The handle of a piece of kitchenware, twisted around a finger. What better Advent symbol? In circumstances that seem desperate, a promise comes to us. An anticipatory promise on which we can ground our faith, yes. But it doesn’t arrive neatly packaged or studded with diamonds. Rather, it comes in the form of a tarnished spoon handle, like the “jars of clay” where St. Paul tells us our treasures are stored.
The season of Advent challenges us to anticipate deliverance. And to wait for the coming of Christ into our world and our lives. We sometimes think of this posture as passive. It isn’t. It is instead an active posture of defiance in the face of a world that views us as bizarre as the characters of “Hold On.” We would do well to learn from the song’s protagonist. She is, we are told, stuck in a rough spot: “down by the Riverside motel” where it is “ten below and falling.” But in the face of the cold, she closes “her eyes and [starts] swaying.” The dancing doesn’t come easy, “when it’s cold and there’s no music” and her “hometown’s so far away.” But (and here, we can imagine her toying with her ring) she hears music in her head — a “record playing a song called ‘Hold On.’” And she does just that. She holds on. And she dances. Slow dances, let’s imagine, as the words “hold on” repeat for over a minute at the end of the song.
In “Hold On,” the Waitsian universe rings true because it is our universe, reflected in a carnival mirror. Waits urges us — in the face of an existence in which life can be grubby, the world can be cold and our deepest hopes can look like a tarnished spoon-rings — to hope. More than that: to dance. Will we look foolish? Probably. Will others hear the music? Not always. And yet, we are called to wait. To hope. To dance. To look for his coming. We gotta hold on.
