Sometimes there is nothing more I love than listening to classical music.
Perhaps that’s strange, but sometimes there’s nothing else that quite fits.
Category: <span>Music</span>
A short interlude to point you to some music that I like while I have breakfast, clean my room, prepare to make good headway on assignments and so come to writing that ‘half decent blog post’ that I’ve been at least thinking about.
My immense apologies for the severe lack of decent content lately.
Do check out Lior – discovered through my housemate and apparently Triple J’s best album of the year (some year or other). This is fantastic home alone with a lamp on as the only source of light, relaxing, drinking coffee music. The album itself is titled Autumn Rain which is quite apt considering the weather the past few days and this infamous season.
There has been some lively discussion over on Geoff’s (and Paul’s) blogs about the Third Day song, “You Are So Good to Me”. Before I get going, might I add that after a short background check this is actually a Third Day cover of a Waterdeep song. There! So now you know who to blame if you’re going to proceed down that avenue.
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
And I will sing againYou are so good to me
You heal my broken heart
You are my Father in HeavenYou are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet songYou ride upon the clouds
You lead me to the truth
You are the Spirit inside meYou are my strong melody, yeah
You are my dancing rhythm
You are my perfect rhyme
And I will sing of You foreverYou poured out all Your blood
You died upon the cross
You are my Jesus who loves meYou are my Father in Heaven
You are the Spirit inside me
You are my Jesus who loves me
To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the song. Predominantly and perhaps foolishly they are mostly personal reasons, some of them quite silly:
- As a general rule, I have no idea of how music works – I just like it (mostly), hence the lyrics about ‘song’ don’t have any deep undercurrent of meaning for me. I like extrapolating on definitions or tangents of words – this happens in my head and there’s not much explaining it, it’s just weird. The songs that really click are those that convey something very real to me, something that I can relate with, relate something to or have experienced in some way shape or form.
- I don’t like the use of the word ‘sweet’ in almost any context.
- I don’t like repetitive things – it begins to remind me of the hair-dryer sound I often wake up to in the morning (alas having a room opposite the bathroom!)
- I hate the inclusion of ‘I will sing again’ or any phrase remotely close, it’s sloppy song writing – it makes little sense. Why not demonstrate it instead of weaving the instruction into the song? I look at phrases like this and am amused because I start thinking of being stuck in a never ending loop reminiscent to, ‘This is the Song that Does Not End’ – must I explain my utter loathing!
- I don’t dance and have no rhythm
- Rhymes make bad poetry
Bar the first one where I a few people might join me in severe lack of musical skill, they are pathetic reasons.
Of course the discussion happening across where more serious and deep theological discussions ususally occur has a lot more merit.
Striding on from some thoughts that I’ve thunk (sic) since, what is with theology and song?
Music is an almost constant in my life and for those who have grown up in Christian homes, you do get your musical kick-start in toe-tapping tunes (cringe), gloomy ballads, uplifting hymns, weird 80’s stuff that you can still appreciate ten years on, tedious Hillsong, baaaaad pop and the odd-but-rare musically brilliant song, this is where much of your understanding about God develops.
Music has clearly surpassed read poetry in this day and age – so this is what we emotionally connect to, this is what’s easy to remember, more respectable in social situations (than you know, discussing great slabs of scripture). It certainly doesn’t take precedence over what the Bible has to say but it’s the glistening reality.
Being in a post modernist society – like it or not – that emotional response, the feelings thing is somewhat important.
Is it all about evoking some emotional response toward God? Or is it about declaring his character? Do we sing from a gut full of joy, or do we sing because it’s the time for it and oh yeah, it sort of sounds cool?
I struggle most at church during the “worship”. After a year, possibly more of being forced to take a critical look at theology in all contexts of life this already cynical mind of mine is plagued by the first 30 minutes of my Sunday mornings at church. It’s not always bad, and I am in a church now where I can be quite comfortable with the majority of the songs, but it is an issue. It takes work and quite a lot of it to not let my mind, a) be generally distracted, b) not go ape over song lyrics. This is something I both appreciate and something I hate. It is hard to worship God in this way. The emotional high of past from getting caught up in inspiring music would sometimes be nice. I want to be able to sing it and mean it and feel it and know it to be true.
We can complain all we like about ‘bad worship songs’ and we’re good at it. We often have quite a just reason to, but what are we doing about it? We can of course eliminate the poor choices to satisfy the cynic but more importantly perhaps we can seek to stress the importance for people to think about what they’re singing, ground them in Biblical theology and explain that it extends beyond the sermon.
Who is God after all? Who are we in relation to Him?
What scares me is that our metaphors fall oh-so-short. I’ve had youth girls explaining that we are, ‘like a freckle’ on God’s face and awkwardly stumble with that understanding to attempt to explain what they thought about suffering. It all seems a little absurd.
Some things I read before posting this:
Top 5 Worst Worship Songs
Worship Leader: Trinity
Sources of Theology
Sources of Theology Continued
Words and Theology
To further the word on the street, there is a new Australian Vineyard Worship Website.
There a few minor little technical issues, but design is nice and the idea and content looks great!
Di’s blog Shared Worship will be moving across there some time in the next little while.
Another 1am’er but what the ho, it’s Saturday tomorrow.
While you’re out clicking links. Try Free Music Friday yes it’s Christian music and it’s mostly Christmas stuff at the moment, I’ll be keeping an eye on it – I’ve always been a sucker for freebies.
Had a grand ol’ day, very laid back. I overslept (so not so good), had breakfast (oh yes, lets give the step by step), did week 2 of the Advent thing my sister puts together each year and was having a good read of The Pleasures of God when Jess came to drop something off – she stayed for a good hour so we hung out and got organised for various young adults thing (go look, we made a blog the other day).
After she left I cranked some Tracey Chapman and made Falafel for lunch, whereby the packet lied to me and I ended up quite ingeniously having to strain excess liquid out of the mix. They were exceptional when I finally got them cooked. I love falafel and tabbouleh, not that I had any of that. Sam called me mid-afternoon and ended up coming down to bring me a Christmas card from Sammy (the other one) and we watched (LET ME CONFESS) Gilmore Girls all afternoon, ate chocolate and generally had girlish fun.
On Gilmore Girls: I used to be quite anti that kind of thing after realising my little sisters were minorly obsessed. One afternoon this week I was exceptionally bored and home alone so I succumbed and put it on… now I’m hooked. Geoff and Dad (and Mum actually) all think it’s ridiculous. As I pointed out, I don’t go so far to pick a character to be… and couldn’t ever do that, unlike some I know. NB. I don’t and haven’t ever watched any soapies… this is borderline and I promise never to stoop that low again (at least not until after I get through the rest of the series).
This evening held an amusing car trip and a productive Christmas shopping expedition with Geoff which wound up back at my place fighting it out with Dad, Mum and Laura in a game of Boggle. Wow I found a boy who likes word games!!!! Just a pity he’s so good at them. I held the lead briefly (Mum doesn’t count ever – she’s pure genius) but lost it in the end. It’s interesting really, Dad and Geoff both run with the ‘find the biggest word possible’ strategy and Mum and I run with getting lots and lots of smaller ones and only big ones if they jump out or there is excess time. Really, Mum’s just plain good.
I stupidly (maybe just silly’ly but that’s more awkward to say) told Geoff that I’d work out something fun to do tomorrow late-afternoon/night (or is that tonight now). So please – let your suggestions (not too costly) pour in. I need some ideas. None of that ‘go out for dinner then go to the movies’ clichedness. I’m good at thinking up that kind of stuff already.