MUSIC CAN GET US THERE
Lyrics to songs can inspire or get you in contact with your emotions. Music can get us there. I think music is designed to do the latter, mostly-the emotional thing. I do think there is some music which, in my humble opinion, wouldn’t do well with lyrics. Helen Jane Long, for example. She’s an English pianist and wow, does her music illicit emotion. It soothes you and comforts you and causes you to think, no matter where you are. Putting someone’s words in that pond of musical notes and then finding someone to sing it, yeah, it just gums up the brain pan while you’re trying to deal with life. She tosses a warm blanket on you and her music causes you to find contentment in a world filled with whatever this dumpster fire of stuff is we are dealing with.
Then you have Andre Bocelli. He sings like the angels themselves. He hits notes and changes like the gearbox on a Lamborghini. If you knew Italian it would help. He sings everything in Italian. Its like they have a different word for everything! But with his lyrics its like Helen, only with words you don’t know the meaning of. They soothe you just in their sound, which is funny. They are meant to make a connection with people and I am sure they do if you knew what he was saying. But the particular sound of the word with the music, that connected to me. He’s singing in a language I can’t understand and it didn’t matter.
Let me give you some examples
I could go on with AC/DC or Pit Bull. But then we would have to get in to the lyrics and their meaning and blah blah blah. The music, if you can focus on that, makes you want to get up and dance. I might be extremely different than others, but I can’t remember ANY lyrics-none. I know a musician friend of mine who wrote his first book involving Bob Dylan. The guy remembers lyrics to his music as if he memorized a poem, which is what lyrics are. The music is the vehicle for transporting the words to our brain.
Funny how God does that.
Dad, uses all things for good. He can take a broken heart and not only mend it, but cause it to mend others. He can take us on a hike and we find a stream and there, we find peace. Peace, maybe we haven’t had in a while.
When my wife was in the hospital with cancer, I would come home and at night, crawl into the bath tub with the lights out and lay down with my ears covered with water and listen to two songs by Helen on a loop. I would play them twice each time. When the loop was done, I would get up and dry off. It did that for months. They soothed me in the middle of a crazy life. I would start the day with a bike ride to work (I have ridden my bike for decades to work) listening to the AC/DC, Rascal Flats, and Pit Bull group, but at night, I ended it with Long’s music. God did that.
When Jesus bought me, he knew what he was getting
When Jesus bought me, he knew what he was getting. He loved me that much. Jesus met me where I needed to be met. He walked with me where I needed Him to walk and make himself known when I needed that as well. For He was always there. But He waited on me. Over the decades we have had an infinite number of conversations. We are told Jesus is our friend. To me, that seems too small, to trite. I have friends. Not a lot, not close, but some. He is in me. He is a part of me. Over time, I have learned to trust Him for what He says He is and who God is. “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.’ Hmm. that seems, well, huge.
There is a Christian band, Mercyme. If you have not heard of them, you need to listen to them. I am not a real fan of churchy bands. But they have gotten better over the years, more relevant to who I am and where I am in my life. These guys, well, you can dance to some of their stuff, and I have. They have a song which I cannot listen to much. It causes me to cry like a Babylonian baker. Not with tears of sadness. I had to think about it for a while. I wasn’t sad. What was I? Then it hit.
They were tears of joy.
I know you are able….
“I know you are able, I know you can, save through the fire with your mighty hand, but even if you don’t, my hope is in you alone.’ Yeah, sometimes the lyrics and the music meet perfectly and go right to my brain. So much so, I cry with joy. Imagine having confidence in a God whom you have never met, or seen, and yet have faith even if he doesn’t act on your request, you can still be all in.
God does that. Enjoy.
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