Posts filed under ‘Music’
Now playing… 19 May 2012
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Sometime in the last couple years, some of my cool Facebook friends* started talking about this new artist – Bon Iver. And I (wishing to be cool, as well) went over to YouTube to listen hear the group’s music**. I wasn’t impressed. End of story for the next year or so…
* I use ‘cool’ in a sort of “liberal, college town” sense – which therefore might mean exactly the opposite of how one would generally define ‘cool’. There is an entire era of my life that I could unpack… How have my six years in Ann Arbor shaped who I am today? We’ll leave that for another time.
** As far as I can tell, it turns out that although Bon Iver is officially a band, it gets creative and artistic direction from one person – Justin Vernon.
It wasn’t until earlier this year, just before the Grammys in February, that I listened again. Occasionally, I like to see which musicians (current or past) have received positive reviews from critics. (This is why I have Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” and Neko Case’s “Middle Cyclone“.) I noticed that Bon Iver, who was nominated for Best New Artist, was receiving a lot of praise.
So one night when I was working late at the synchrotron, I returned to YouTube and found that you could listen to the entire self-titled album online. That night, I was completely pulled into the music. I think I must have heard the album six or seven times.
IMHO, this is a great album, but it’s also complex. There are a couple of songs that might stand on their own, but it’s really an album that should be enjoyed as a whole.
And it turns out that ‘enjoy’ may not be the proper word to use. The music creates an emotional atmosphere that’s hard to describe. It is certainly not upbeat, but it’s not exactly sad, either. It’s mellow; introspective, perhaps; and perfect for a late night at the synchrotron. To me, the music is an honest evaluation of our place in this world: humble and grand at the same time.
I find the lyrics to be a bit of a conundrum. For a long time, I couldn’t understand anything that Justin was singing. Eventually, I read the lyrics, and I still can’t understand them. Now I just allow them to interact with the rest of music to create the complete sound.
The music video below is for the song “Holocene” – one of the songs that could stand on its own. And it contains one of those lines that I do understand:
At once I knew I was not magnificent…
This is an example of the “honest evaluation” I mentioned above. And yet when I listen to the music and watch the video, I get the sense that even though I’m not “magnificent”, I’m part of something that is very magnificent.
Men with long hair
Today, Ordinary Spouse overheard a conversation among our girls. They were debating whether men could have long hair…
Youngest Daughter: Doesn’t YouTube have long hair?
Her sisters (puzzled): What do you mean?
YD (with emphasis): I mean the guy who goes…
OH-OH OH-OH EXCAVATION!
Ah, yes. That guy does have long hair…
Like this:
Mamma Mia!
Ordinary Spouse has an Abba album that she likes. The girls are starting to pick up some of the songs. Tonight, Youngest Daughter was singing Mamma Mia:
Mamma Mia!
Here I go again!
My, my!
How can I have a sister?
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, y’all.
(Turn your volume up a bit for this one.)
(Freely downloadable on Carrie’s website)
Longing
Have you ever had a feeling that you wished you could express to someone – anyone at all – but you were worried that you’d fail miserably? It happens to me from time to time. This past week, it was when I was driving home from church on an empty expressway at night. The sodium vapor lights were speeding past, and a part of me just wanted to keep driving forever…
Another hour deeper in the night
Another mile farther down the road
A man can drive as hard as he can drive
And never get as far as his heart was meant to go
Sometimes when you look up in the sky
You think we might be closer than you know“The River” by Rich Mullins
Five for Friday… Secular songs that relate to faith
So here’s the deal… I used to listen to CCM music* all the time. Between my first and second years in college, I had a pretty profound, faith-changing experience. As a result, I became more passionate about Jesus, and also more conservative. I got rid of much of my “worldly” music, and listened almost exclusively to CCM: Petra, Steven Curtis Chapman, Rich Mullins**, Susan Ashton… you get the idea. Over time, I’ve remained passionate about Jesus, but I began to find much of the “acceptable” Christian music to be theologically shallow and musically thin. I stopped listening to Christian radio, because of the hit and miss quality of the songs. And I started noticing when the so-called “secular” music world produced songs that related to my faith.
* “CCM”, if you don’t know the acronym, is Contemporary Christian Music. So technically, I should say “CCM” and not “CCM music”. Glad we got that out of the way.
** I still like Rich Mullins, but he’s the exception rather than the rule. And unfortunately, the world lost a good person a few years ago when he died.
And that brings us to today’s “Five for Friday”. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to something that Bono wrote and said to Ordinary Spouse, “Why can’t the ‘Christian musicians’ write songs like this?” So today, I’ve chosen five secular songs that reflect or challenge my faith.
There’s a catch. I could choose music by U2 or Carrie Newcomer – musicians that clearly don’t draw distinctions between faith and life – but that would be too easy. So these five come from others. Enjoy!
1) The Heart of the Matter by Don Henley
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I’d figured out
I have to learn again—
I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter
But everything changes and my friends seem to scatter
But I think it’s about… forgiveness…
Yep – forgiveness. Reconciliation. That’s basically what Jesus came to teach us: how to be reconciled to God and to each other.
2) Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie
Song lyrics don’t get any more powerful or challenging than this:
Love’s such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night…
3) Jubilee by Mary Chapin Carpenter
A song about receiving grace (in the language of the Old Testament).
4) Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins
Every time I hear this, I think Matthew 25.
5) One of Us by Joan Osborne
The scandal of the incarnation:
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus
trying to make his way home.
Here we are all in one place…
I got to go to a Carrie Newcomer concert last night! It was awesome.
The trip was really a spur-of-the-moment decision (almost). I was on-call for work, but the concert was free and was as close as Carrie would be performing for a long time. So I decided to go, even though I had to go alone.
Here are a few photos from the evening:
Today, I was thinking about writing a few blog entries reflecting on the intersection of music and theology in my life. Such a series would necessarily include a number of Carrie’s songs. I don’t know if I’ll get around to adding more songs, but I thought I could at least throw out a short reflection on the song that she did as an encore last night. This is at the very core of what I believe.
Betty’s Diner by Carrie Newcomer
This song is about the mish-mash of souls that pass through a joint known as Betty’s Diner. It reminds me of one of the places I might have seen when I lived on Long Island. Miranda is the waitress at the diner, and she knows how to feed the body and soul at the same time. She sees people dreaming of the future, mourning the death of a spouse, fighting addiction, falling in love… basically, the stuff of life.
Here we are all in one place
The wants and wounds of the human race
Despair and hope sit face to face
When you come in from the cold
Let her fill your cup with something kind
Eggs and toast like bread and wine
She’s heard it all so she don’t mind
Every time I hear this song, I think that it might be a picture of what Church should look like. There is so much wrapped up in those words: love, community, and becoming the body of Christ to one another. I think that I like it, because it reminds me of my creed:
I believe in love, lived in the context of community.
Maybe it really is just that simple: could I pour you another cup of coffee?
Singing volume
(Warning: this is an inside joke. I apologize…)
My Ordinary, yet Hilarious Spouse likes to laugh – sometimes at herself. Yesterday, she was thinking about the singing at our church and at Laurelville’s Association Weekends, and she came up with this bar chart:
(Click to see larger version.)
