Firstly, my apologies for the late column this week, but there’s been a sudden death in the immediate family. Here’s the thing: almost from the instant we received the awful news, I’ve had the same song circling in my head in a relentless earworm.
Always look on the bright side of life…
Earworms are meant to be annoying, but this ridiculous song somehow seemed to well up of its own volition as a source of some comfort.
If life seems jolly rotten, then there’s something you’ve forgotten – and that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
How did a ditty – if ever a song deserved that appellation, it’s this one – of such (intentional) banality become such a paean to finding comfort and happiness in the face of life’s lowest moments?
Despite its surface banality, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” touches on deep themes of, not just stoicism and the Stiff Upper Lip, but finding comfort and even joy in the face of life’s most awful trials.
Fittingly, then, the song appears at the lowest point of Brian Cohen’s (Graham Chapman) life, in the film The Life of Brian. While the movie generated no small controversy in its time, even the most militant of the Pythons, Terry Jones, conceded that it is “heretical, not blasphemous”. By which he meant that its targets were the structures of the churches and organised religion, not faith itself (tellingly, the few glimpses of Jesus in the film are unfailingly respectful, quoting from Christ’s own teachings – which are promptly misinterpreted by would-be followers: “Blessed are the cheese-makers?”).
Philosopher of Religion Kevin Schilbrack has defended the film on religious grounds, arguing that, “religion and humour are compatible with each other and you should laugh about the absurdity [of life] since you can’t fight it”. For life is quite absurd, and death’s the final word. You must always face the curtain with a bow.
So it is that the song appears in the context of both absurdity and trial. As Brian hangs on the cross, his followers respond with petty doctrinal arguments and pointless acts, while he is abused and despised by even his mother. At which point, one of his co-crucified reminds him to Don’t grumble – give a whistle! I well remember seeing the movie on its first release and the startling and abrupt tonal shift, which might be best described by the title of C S Lewis’s memoir: Surprised by Joy.
In this respect it’s a surprisingly Christian sentiment. As James 1 urges, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” Romans 8 reminds us that “all things work together for good”. This ability to find comfort, even joy, in the face of trials is one of the first things Classical pagans noticed about the early Christians.
Writing to the Emperor Hadrian in about 100AD, Aristides of Athens wrote that, “Every morning and all hours on account of the goodness of God toward them, they render praise and lord him over their food and their drink, they render him thanks. And if any righteous person of their number passes away from this world, they rejoice and give thanks to God.” If a child was born, he said, “they praise God”. If the child died in infancy, they also praised God “mightily”. They were happy, Aristides wrote, “in the face of anything”.
It’s fitting, too, that this Christian joy should be expressed in song: music has long occupied a central place in Christian worship. St Augustine, in De Musica, praised music as a reflection of the divine order. The harmonious order of creation points to God as its source. Numbers and musical proportions derive from God’s unchanging eternal order. Creation itself sings a kind of divine song.
C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien, both devout Christians, featured music as the act of divine creation in their most famous fictional works. In The Silmarillion, the universe is sung into being by the “three mighty themes” of Ilúvatar, “the One” and his angelic choirs. In The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan, Lewis’s avatar of Jesus, sings Narnia into being.
On a more earthly level, Augustine praised the extraordinary power of music to evoke ineffable emotional responses. “How greatly did I weep in Your hymns and canticles,” he wrote in Confessions. “Deeply moved by the voices of Your sweet-speaking church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the truth was poured forth into my heart, whence the agitation of my piety overflowed, and my tears ran over, and blessed was I therein.”
When Augustine underwent his baptism, hymn-singing had recently been introduced by Bishop Ambrose, to sustain the spirits of the faithful in the face of the Arian persecution by the Empress Justina. As Augustine wrote, music conveyed the truth of God straight to his heart, stirring overwhelming devotion. The tears he says ran over were not tears of sorrow, but of joy. Song, he wrote, melted his previously “unmelted” heart.
The injunction to always look on the bright side of life, to maintain composure, even joy, in the face of despair, also reflects a surprising and largely forgotten episode of mediaeval syncresis between what might be thought two of the most unlikely religious traditions: Christianity and Daoism.
In his fascinating book, The Jesus Sutras, theologian Martin Palmer explores a remarkable episode of early Christian inculturation in Tang Dynasty China, in the seventh and eighth centuries.
In 635 AD, the Persian bishop Alopen (Aluoben) arrived in Chang’an (modern Xi’an). With imperial support from Emperor Taizong, the “Luminous Religion” (Jingjiao) established churches and monasteries, most notably the Da Qin monastery. The sutras adapt Christian teachings, originally rooted in Syriac sources, into Chinese philosophical and religious idiom.
Rather than impose wholesale the worldview of Western Christianity, Alopen chose to adapt those Christian texts that best addressed indigenous Chinese spiritual concerns: liberation from cycles of suffering, karma and rebirth. Alopen was supported by both Emperor Taizong and his successor, Gaozong, who appointed him bishop over a network of churches. The Christian community Alopen established thrived in China until the Huichang Persecution of 841–45, which suppressed “foreign” religions, primarily Buddhism, but also Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
This Christian Daoism presented Jesus as the Messiah who enables believers to “return to their original nature”, a distinctly Taoist concept of harmony with the Tao (the Way). The Tao was seen as analogous to the Christian concept of the Logos, the Word. Some Chinese Bible translations even render John 1:1 as “In the beginning was the Tao.”
“I am the Way” (John 14:6) resonates with the Tao as the path of natural harmony. Daoist principles of wu wei (effortless action or non-forcing) parallel Christian themes of surrender to God’s will. Philippians’ declaration that Jesus “made himself nothing” was a statement Daoists could readily understand. Both Christianity and Daoism value humility, simplicity, inner transformation and alignment with a greater order, whether the flow of the Tao or divine wisdom.
Both Christianity and Daoism praise the small, the yielding and the unpretentious. The Daoist water metaphor and the Christian call to meekness or childlike faith both suggest that gentleness and lowliness endure or prevail where force fails. Reducing ego-driven desires and striving brings peace.
And, like the Christians who Aristides was astounded to see happy in the face of anything, Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi emphasised that Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke it’s true. After his wife’s death, he drummed and sang rather that mourned conventionally. Death, he said, was but part of the natural cycle of change. Thus, he found a kind of joy or at least profound peace in recognising that life and death, gain and loss, are inseparable aspects of the same process. The goal was not to eliminate grief but to move through it without being crushed by attachment or resistance.
Of course, neither Christianity or Daoism promise a pitfall-free life. Instead, both teach that happiness or equanimity is cultivated internally. St Paul, under house arrest in Rome and facing imminent execution, wrote that he “learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content… through Him who strengthens me.” The Daoist sage achieved contentment by harmonising with the Tao. Both realised that circumstances (wealth, status, health) are secondary to one’s relationship with The Way.
Daoism views difficulties as part of yin-yang balance and natural transformation; Christianity places them within God’s redemptive story or providential care. In both cases, adopting this wider perspective diminishes despair and fosters acceptance or even paradoxical gratitude.
Zhuangzi finds a form of affirmation even in loss through acceptance of change. Christianity finds joy in trials and blessing in mourning or weakness. Both see potential for growth, depth, or liberation precisely through what challenges us.
So, When you’re chewing life’s gristle, don’t grumble, give a whistle, and this’ll help things turn out for the best.
And...
Always look on the bright side of life.
