H A R B I N G E R

HARBINGER of Glad Tidings is a side endeavor of Imprimis Systems. It has been accumulating material since 2012, but has only recently begun to sort through it with the intent of distributing selected portions. Public reaction to dozens of songs previously released on social media varies widely. The quantily of listeners often seems inversely related to the quality of the compositions. Most of the recordings are rhymed sermons, rather than songs, created to familiarize listeners with some relatively obscure and unfamiliar portions of the Holy Bible. Harbinger's overarching genre could be described as Gospel Plus; religiously themed lyrics neatly fitted (or roughly shoehorned) into every conceivable musical style. Eclectic, rather than homogenous. Inspired amateurism, rather than polished professionalism. On other words, folk art, of the folks, by the folks, and for the folks, that making music just for the fun shall not perish from the earth.

"Harbinger" as defined by merriam-webster.com:

a: someone or something that foreshadows a future event: one that gives an anticipatory sign of what is to come, robins, crocuses, and other harbingers of spring.

b: one that initiates a major change: a person or thing that originates or helps open up a new activity, method, or technology.

archaic: a person sent ahead to provide lodgings.

Luke 22:7-13: Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.” So they said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare?” And He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?” Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready.” So they went and found it just as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.

The verses above exemplify the third definition of harbinger: "archaic: a person sent ahead to provide lodgings." In the Elizabethan era, Harbingers worked ahead of the royal household to mark and assign rooms during the monarch's seasonal progresses. Shakespeare utilized both the literal meaning and the emerging literary definition of Harbinger, "an omen or sign of things to come." In Act 3, Scene 2 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" it is used to describe the morning star, Venus, which acts as a royal forerunner announcing the arrival of Aurora, the goddess of dawn. Sunrise forces the ghosts and damned spirits to flee back to their graves:

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,

For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,

And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,

At whose approach, ghosts wand’ring here and there

Troop home to churchyards. Damnèd spirits all,

That in crossways and floods have burial,

Already to their wormy beds are gone.

For fear lest day should look their shames upon,

They willfully themselves exile from light

And must for aye consort with black-browed night.