What Would Dumbledore Do?
There’s a pretty good chance that Harry and the Potters wouldn’t exist without Albus Dumbledore. I don’t want downplay the importance of our hero–the indomitable, the immortal, the only slightly imitable Harry Potter–but I’m just being honest here. I first read Harry Potter when I was 21 years-old and, as an aspiring adult, I was less interested in the self-confidence-lacking 11-year-old than in the wise old wizard who seemed to hold all the secrets to this wonderland teeming with mystery and magic. From the outset, Dumbledore commands both our respect and the respect of the entire wizarding community– supervillains included. Dumbledore was the reason I kept reading the HP books. Who was this dude and where did he come from? I’m sure I wasn’t the only HP fan who wished for entire books to be written about Dumbledore. Just yesterday in fact, I overheard a semi-prominent young adult author refer to him as “the greatest literary character in modern fiction.” High praise indeed, yet if there’s anyone who can handle it, it’s Dumbledore. I expect he’d shrug the compliment off and make some joke mentioning that Gandalf was a better bowler or that Holden Caulfield could drink him under the table. Dumbledore wasn’t only the smartest wizard you ever met, he had a sense of humor too, making him just about the coolest guy you could run into at the Hogshead.
As a band, we always try to toe that line between reverence and irreverence, and in many ways we’ve looked toward Dumbledore for guidance. By all accounts, he should be the most unapproachable guy you’ve ever met– Headmaster of the Wizard School, Order of Merlin: First Class, Head Mugwump, the Only-One-He-Ever-Freakin’-Feared– and yet check out his Chocolate Frog card: Dumbledore enjoys 10-pin bowling and chamber music. Later on, we learn that he LOVES candy, and I’m not talking about casual affection. I’m talking about the deep, hardcore love of candy that you’d expect from a 7-year-old who has been deprived of sugar for his entire childhood. It’s the password to his office and to his Gmail. When Dumbledore enters the room, no tray of sweets is safe from his bespectacled gaze. Rowling gives him one of the most serious roles in the series and, at the same time, one of the most whimsical and hilarious. It was reassuring to us as a band because even when HP’s prospects in the book become terrifically dark and depressing, Dumbledore was still around to crack jokes and enjoy the finer things in life like bowling and candy. It seemed like we were implicitly being given permission to do the same.
Absurdity has always been a central tenant of what we do in Harry and the Potters. The simple construct of our band– two Harry Potters from different points in time playing punk rock together– is pretty far outside of what would be considered normal, even in a fictitious wizarding world. Beyond that, Joe and I have always seemed to naturally favor “getting weird” over doing things that were perfectly normal, thank you very much. We’ve written multiple songs about Harry Potter’s love of bacon1 and even a song about eating the Enchanted Ceiling2! Although weirdness is very much a part of our personalities, I feel like Joe and I have almost been egged on by Dumbledore over the course of these books. He throws down the gauntlet early. His “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” speech on HP’s first day of school stands as testament to his willingness to embrace the joyful absurdity of life at a time when most other headmaster-types would have aimed for something far more pedantic. Dumbledore never seemed afraid of venturing into that unknown void of weirdness and confusion. He worked with an almost complete disregard for people’s opinions of him and, as a performer, that’s probably the best approach you can have. It’s the only path that will lead towards creating something completely original.
On the day Dumbledore died, we were driving from Minneapolis to the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. We read the book to each other in the car as we drove and when Snape finally cast his killing curse it must have stung us harder than it did Dumbledore. There was silence for miles as we absorbed what had happened. When we finally got to the National Park, we put in Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and listened to the song “Badlands” on repeat until we had our campsite set up. More than any other song, this one speaks straight to the heart of Harry Potter. Even in the face of tremendous adversity and hardship, we’re told that we can still find redemption in faith, in hope, and in love. If we invest ourselves wholeheartedly in these endeavors, we can rise up and overcome the demons that pull us down. In the song’s coda, Springsteen rails “that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.” It’s a lesson that we can learn, not just from the Boss, but from the Headmaster too. For Dumbledore, it wasn’t enough to survive, he preferred to LIVE..
Once the tent was set up and we had eaten some dinner, we pulled the acoustic guitar out of the van and sat down at the picnic table. I think we both felt like we needed to have some sort of eulogy for our dearly departed headmaster. I mean, it wasn’t like he was simply Headmaster of Hogwarts. He was basically Headmaster of Earth. Headmaster of the Freakin’ Universe.3 And yet, despite the sadness of the moment, hope came to us in the courageous words of young Harry Potter: Dumbledore will only be gone when none are loyal to him. Inspired by Harry and bellied by Springsteen, we bashed out a good chunk of what would eventually become our “Dumbledore” song. On this night we made our pledge of allegiance to the ideals of Albus Dumbledore, and hoped that in some small way we could represent the triumph of his life. Three months later, we helped launched the Harry Potter Alliance with a benefit concert back in Massachusetts.
Paul T. DeGeorge
Harry and the Potters
July 6, 2009
1. OK, so this hasn’t yet been confirmed by Rowling, but bacon appears in nearly all of the HP books. Harry seems to be the primary consumer of bacon and there are multiple instances where it seems to cheer him up. Just sayin’.
2. The song hypothesizes that the Enchanted Ceiling can actually take on the appearance of anything, not simply just starry skies and normal dining hall ceilings. So if at some point a very hungry HP were to enter the Great Hall and the ceiling was enchanted to look like treacle tart or bacon, then our hero may very well find himself salivating for a bite of this magical ceiling.
3. In fact, all future headmasters will likely be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being that douchebag principal from Ferris Bueller and 10 being Albus Dumbledore.
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