Down the Lyrical Highway

(Reprise)

Words of Worship, Words of Truth

 

My grandmother, who lived with us when we were growing up, owned one record album. As it sometimes is today, she relied on the technological savvy of the younger generation, my brother and me, to listen to it. We would put the vinyl LP on the turntable, position the needle and turn up the sound on the old hi-fi phonograph so Grandma could hear it in the kitchen. The record was titled The Lennon Sisters Singing the Best-Loved Catholic Hymns. For those of you who did not grow up forced to watch The Lawrence Welk Show on Saturday nights, the Lennon Sisters were four girls from a devout Roman Catholic family of eleven children who sang, quite nicely, songs on the wholesome, family-oriented variety show that seemed to be broadcast everywhere in the middle of the last century. My grandmother loved playing that record, and as one of her enablers, I heard it a lot growing up. It was the first time I remember music usually reserved for church being played at home. In my late teens, after I entered into a serious relationship with God, I, myself, often gravitated toward music with a spiritual bent.

The Christian music industry rapidly expanded in the the 1970s and 80s, providing Christian parallels to almost every secular musical genre. When our kids came along, my husband and I purged some of our more raucous rock albums and acquired some Christian music replacements. When our kids started listening to music on their own, it was often a reflection of our parental tastes, a mixture of classic rock (Eric Clapton, the Beatles), what I would call “kid Christian” (Veggie Tales, The Donut Man), and contemporary Christian artists (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith...) Eventually, I came to a place that I am somewhat hesitant to confess, but I will anyway: I really don't like contemporary Christian music...

There, I said it.

Remember, music for me is all about the lyrics, and frankly, much (not all) of the contemporary Christian music of the past quarter century sounded a bit bland and lot alike to me. Rather than pick on the genre, however, I want to instead list those songs and musicians that really draw me into a spiritual place where God's presence is more than just a nice thing to aspire to.

1) Hymns. Those Lennon Sisters did have an impact on me. There was something about songs like “Faith Of Our Fathers”, “Jesus! My Lord, My God, My All!”, “Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest”, and “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” that made me want to connect with God. In later years, when I jumped ship for a more evangelical church experience, I listened to the Protestant hymns I had missed out on in my youth. Amusingly, my first exposure to some of those songs was a cassette tape by the Christian a capella group Glad. I still hear the lyrics of such classic hymns as “Blessed Assurance” and “Rock of Ages” with the “ba, ba, ba” beatboxing in my head. But beatboxing aside, the lyrics of so many of the hymns, Catholic or Protestant, are rich with both spiritual truth and the ability to draw one into the presence of God. Favorite hymns of mine: “Amazing Grace”, “How Great Thou Art” and “This is My Father's World”. “How Deep the Father's Love for Us” and “In Christ Alone” are another two favorites from contemporary hymn writer Stuart Townend. These hymns always leave me with a true sense of worship.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?

The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.

This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,

For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.

No place but is holy ground.

- From “This is My Father's World”

2) The Newsboys. I shouldn't really love the Newsboys as much as I do. They have two strikes against them, fitting into the genre of contemporary Christian artists and being a music group of the 1980s. (I am of the opinion – yes, I know, some will not agree – that nothing good musically came out of the 1980s...) But love them and their music I do. Definitely a lyric thing, most likely a Spirit thing. I never tire of their clever lyrics and musical stylings. Take Me to Your Leader is a brilliantly written song on a brilliantly written CD by the same title. Going Public, Thrive and Step Up to the Microphone are also wonderful collections. The Newsboys also have two worship collections, Devotion and Adoration, both aptly named. If I want to have a good quiet time, a devotion or adoration time, I listen to one of those CDs and let the lyrics draw me into God's presence.

He raises a wrinkled hand

Through the dust and the flies

Wrapped in rags like we are

And with barely open eyes

He takes my finger

And He won't let go

And He won't let go

It's nothing like I knew before

And it's all I need to know

Come, let us adore Him

He has come down to the world we live in

And all I have to give Him

Is adoration

- From “Adoration”

Justin is adustin' to

The odor from Theodore's Evergreen Incense

But aroma therapy don't make him any younger

Than Oliver's All Liver Supplements

His late mate Marrilee merrily said immortality

Can't be bought in a jar

This just in: Justin's had enough of cure-alls,

Gonna quiz the neighbor kid with the

Fish on his car

He says,

I don't know why you care

I don't know what's up there

I don't know how it's done

Just take me to your leader, son

- From “Take Me to Your Leader”

3) Sara Groves. Another thoughtful Christian lyricist, Sara Groves writes songs of truth, about being made for a world beyond this one, hearing God, the spiritual heredity one leaves behind, and even the frustrations dealing with toy packaging. My favorite collection, Conversations, contains song after song with lyrics that at some point grip my heart. (Well, maybe not “Tent in the Center of Town”...) Like the Newsboys, she's part of the genre I'm not wild about, but her lyrics transcend that genre and always send me in a good direction, spiritually.

I've been painting pictures of Egypt

Leaving out what it lacks

The future feels so hard

And I want to go back

But the places that used to fit me

Cannot hold the things I've learned

Those roads were closed off to me

While my back was turned

- From “Painting Picture of Egypt”

And we've had every conversation in the world

About what is right and what has all gone bad

But have I mentioned to you that this is all I am

This is all that I have

And I would like to share with you

What makes me complete

I don't claim to have found the truth

But I know it has found me

- From “Conversations”

Nothing makes me lose my cool like

Toy packaging

Kids, you really need to leave the room

Mom's opening toy packaging

I'm sorry you have to see this sight

You must be brave, no, please don't cry

I promise it will be alright

I hope to have it by tonight

Never mind this dynamite

Toy packaging

- From “Toy Packaging”

4) Seekers and Truth Tellers. No, not a duel-named group or a true genre, but all those songwriters out there who search for spiritual truth, some secular musicians who profess to be Christians, those who came from a religious background and now question it, those who intelligently comment on or question spiritual themes and those who just paint with words mankind's longing for something else. They've been around a long time (The 1960s and 70s were rich with seeker songs.) and their numbers would include a wide range of artists - Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, David Bazan, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco, Bob Dylan, U2, Billy Joel, Jason Isbell, Johnny Cash – the list could go on and on. Secular group Vampire Weekend in their song “Unbelievers” raises the question is there grace for those who reject grace :

If I’m born again I know that the world will disagree

Want a little grace but who’s gonna say a little grace for me?

We know the fire awaits unbelievers

All of the sinners the same

Girl, you and I will die unbelievers

Bound to the tracks of the train

I’m not excited, but should I be?

Is this the fate that half of the world has planned for me?

Jason Isbell in “24 Frames” writes:

You thought God was an architect, now you know,

He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow

And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames

In twenty- four frames

His lyrics remind me both of C. S. Lewis's comment that Aslan, his Narnian Christ figure, is not a “tame lion” and of the verse from 1 Corinthians that says:

...each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done... (1:13)

These Seeker/Truthteller lyrics won't always lead me into a place of worship, but they always lead me in some way toward God, sometimes to ponder a re-expression of truth, sometimes to re-examine a long held belief at God's feet, sometimes to pray for the artist himself. (Listen to Hozier's “Take Me to Church” and hear someone who scaringly understands all too well what modern day idolatry looks like...) Some of this “genre” is hard to hear, but some is pure joy, like listening to Bono praise God in Latin - Gloria, In te domine, Gloria, Exultate, Gloria, Oh, Lord, loosen my lips – and being reminded by the Doobie Brothers that Jesus is just alright with me...

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When Your Internal Musical Age is Nineteen...