We often hear song lyrics, but fail to heed the story being told. I remember working as a prep cook in the kitchen at Kappa Kappa Gamma in Manhattan KS, and my boss Liz loved to listen to Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, and Melissa Etheridge while we worked. One time we were listening to the song “Burn One Down” by Mr. Harper, and I made an observation about the narrative of this particular song – which elicited an aghast reaction from Liz. She insisted that Ben wouldn’t dare compose a song so cheeky as the kind I was describing. This happens all the time …we like the tune, we enjoy the rhythm, we fancy a few words, or a lyrical turn-of-phrase – but we fail to heed the whole story being told.
This happened to me earlier this week with the song “Rolling and Rolling” by Lowland Hum. I’ve listened to this song approx. 33 times, and until this week I had been heedless of the song’s emphasis and manifest aim. Here you have the LINK and LYRICS in case you want to hear and heed the song/story for yourself:
Riding my bike
Pushing as hard as I can
Blowing off steam
And energy I don’t understand
My friend Charles has an older brother
They live down the street
He slipped us a magazine
I felt big but I looked through squinted eyes
My mom found us on the trampolineGrowing up is like gravity
A steady erosion
I wasn’t ready
The waves in the ocean
They’re rolling and rolling
Rolling and rollingFive hundred miles
To the right of the Outer Banks
A volcano gave birth
To beaches of the softest sand
Perched in caves looking at water
The color of jewels
I held my breath and beauty too
Who would hold these things
As close as I do
A box full of fusesGrowing up is like gravity
A steady erosion
I wasn’t ready
The waves in the ocean
They’re rolling and rolling
Rolling and rollingI’m hitching a ride
On the back of a ferris wheel
Take me to my manhood
This heedlessness is so commonplace I discovered myself in the predicament again just this morning as I was driving 3 of my kids to their weekday academy and we were listening to an extremely familiar song (I’ve heard this particular song upwards of 50+ times) and certain nuances and depths of the song registered with me as I had never experienced before. Again, in case you’re interested – here you have the LINK and LYRICS:
A voice came and spoke to the silence
The words took on beauty and form
The form took its shape as a garden was born
Then man from the dust came reflecting
All goodness and beauty and life
But he lowered his gaze
As he listened to the face of low desires
This my soul you were born
You were born into
What this man has done
It all extends to you
Let the words shake on down along your spine
And ring out true that you might find new life
The voice came and swords blocked the garden
None could return with their lives
A curse there was placed upon every man to face
For all of time
No wisdom of man or rebellion
Could deliver new life out of death
But the voice with the curse
Spoke a promise that the word would take on flesh
This my soul you were born
You were born into
What this man has done It all extends to you
Let the words shake on down along your spine
And ring out true that you might find
Then the perfect son of man
Took the place the voice had planned
Since the garden and before
He took the swords and cursed the grave
There’s nothing more to separate us from the promise
The words of a living hope
And this my soul you were born
You were born into
What this man has done It all extends to you
Let the words shake on down along your spine
And ring out true that you might find
Of course there are very sober and practical reasons to heed (e.g. 1 Cor. 10:11-13), and then there is also the simple and profound fact that truth, goodness, and beauty are sitting right under our noses in all sorts of familiar, ordinary, and mundane fixtures and regularities.
There are any number of magnificent things that may quickly become monotonous and unremarkable to us; so let us resist the drift toward inattentiveness, utility, and entitlement – and instead heed the sundry songs, stories, and societies situated all around us everyday.
“Why do we marry, why take friends and lovers? Why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry or cooking? Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course; but out of more than that, too. Half earth’s gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become.” – Robert Farrar Capon
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