Lost and Found ....Stan Rogers

Driving home late one Saturday afternoon from participating in a basketball tournament in Corvallis, Oregon, I heard one of the simply most achingly beautiful, plaintive songs come over the car radio. Verse after verse it seemed of people hurting and yearning for something they couldn't have. At the songs conclusion, as was far too often the norm with FM-radio in those days and stations that took pride in lengthy song sequences and lack of commercials, there was no identification of the song title or the musician. This was the early to mid-1980's. Still a ways from home and no cell phones to call the radio station with an inquiry. No internet to refer to for a stations playlist. All I had was a guess at the title ..... First Christmas, and I wasn't even positive about that. Several years passed and the song would often come to mind, vital in my mind but haunting me in its lack of identification. It must have been the late 1980's and I was on one of my pilgrimages to one of the Tower Records stores in the Portland area, specifically the Beaverton store, rummaging through bins in the Folk Music section and I came across a album with a song titled, First Christmas. My heart was actually racing, Was this the tune I had been hearing in my thoughts and hoping to physically stumble across for so long? Could I actually be so lucky to literally stumble across it? After purchasing, I still had a 45 minute drive home to confirm my suspicioans and hopes. The longest 45 minutes of my life. But well worth it. Not just for the discovery of the lost song but for turning me onto a great singer/songwriter, Stan Rogers! A Canadian Folk singer with a huge voice and great songs of storytelling and emotions. And later I was to discover his brother, Garnet Rogers equiped with a similar deep booming voice that causes the listener to stop and pay attention.

First Christmas is a song about people alone and far away from home for the first time at Christmas time. And of their yearning to be home. To me its much more meaningful and essential than any number of Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer type of offerings. It's what Christmas music should be!!