Samuel Parris takes on the job as minister to Salem Village, a marginalized farming community split by rivalry and controversy. Salem Village is overshadowed by the larger and much more prosperous Salem Town, one of the two largest towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The colony is ruled by the Puritans, who have broken away from the Church of England and colonized New England in hopes of creating a model Christian society, a "City on a Hill”. Crisis evolves as newer generations lack the religious enthusiasm of the founders. Hardship presses down on the colony on many fronts: war with Native tribes, disease epidemics, religious controversy, political and economic crisis. The entry of Parris into the powder keg that is Salem Village sets off a firestorm of persecution and retribution.
All music written by Brian O'Connell, except "Second Meter - Psalm 119", adapted from The Bay Psalm Book, 1698.
Episode 2 Parts:
Part I - The Parsonage - Parris, with his family and Tituba, come to Salem Village
Part II - The City on the Hill - the story of the Puritans and New England (Second Meter - Psalm 119)
Part III - The Great Migration (w/ some lyrics borrowed from Michael Wigglesworth’s poem: “God’s Controversy with New England”, 1662)
Part IV - Village vs. Town
Part V - The Parsonage Reprise (w/ text taken from the sermon book of Samuel Parris, 1690-1691)
The Great Migration
We have crossed the ocean of rebirth
Planted seeds in this God given earth
Behold the pleasures of the fruitful fields
Flowing full of all good things that they yield
Realize his will
Let the world see the city on the hill
His word shall be fulfilled, his kingdom we shall build
*
Search your soul and pray for holy grace
Confess your sins let the tears baptize your face
Only a very few are chosen to be saved
The Devil takes the rest for his own to be enslaved
By searching deep within
You might find a clue and then begin
To see the holy truth, to realize your sin
*
We brought ourselves to plant on the western shore
Where none but beasts and warriors did swarm
One wave another follow and one disease begins
Before another cease because we turn not from our sins
Our fruitful seasons cast in doubt
Through great pain and dry and parching drought
Defenders in a route, our hopes are all dashed out
*
The clouds gather as if we finally will see rain
But for our sinfulness are scattered round again
We pray and fast as if to take a turn
But we turn not and our fields and fruits will burn
Oh sinful land don’t think it strange
If judgement comes down on you unless you change
The Devil in a rage, affairs must rearrange
Brian O'Connell - voice, bass guitar, fretless bass, 8-string bass, piccolo bass (solo on The Great Migration), 6 and 12-string acoustic guitars, keyboards, moog synthesizers, bass drum
Mike Harmon - drums, cymbals, percussion
Recorded at Studio Vinniechops and Wachusett Recording
Sources
"A Storm of Witchcraft - The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience“
by Emerson W. Baker, Oxford University Press, 2015
"Salem Possessed - The Social Origins of Witchcraft“
by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Harvard University Press, 1974
"The Puritans in America - Narrative Anthology”
edited by Alan Heimert and Andrew Delbanco, Harvard University Press, 1985