music
- “Awesome God” - AP
- “Calling Out Your Name” - AP
- “Boy Like Me/Man Like You” - AP
- “Hard to Get” - Andy Gullahorn
- “Cry The Name” - Jill Phillips
- “What Susan Said” - Andrew Osenga
- “The Howling” - Jeremy Casella
- “Screen Door” (complete w/ cups) - Brandon Heath & Mitch McVicker
- “You Did Not Have A Home” - Finnegan Bell
- “Elijah” - Matt Giraud
- “Buenos Noches from Nacogdoches” - Leigh Nash
- “Bound to Come Some Trouble” - Mitch McVicker
- “If I Stand” - AP
- “Here In America” - AP
- “Isaiah 52:10” - Jill Phillips
- “The Color Green” - AP
- “Hold Me Jesus” - Brandon Heath
- “Creed” - AP, Andy Gullahorn, and Jill Phillips
- “Peace” - Andy Gullahorn
- “78 Eatonwood Green” - Gabe Scott on the hammered dulcimer
- “Hard” - Finnegan Bell
- “I’ll Carry On” - Jeremy Casella
- “You Gotta Get Up” - Leigh Nash
- “How To Grow Up Big and Strong” - Andrew Osenga
- “Land of My Sojourn” - AP
Land of My Sojourn
A Rich Mullins song as timely today as it was when it came out back in 1993.
And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
And I’ll sing my song and I’ll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn
And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom but still it eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
Some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn
Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me
And down the brown brick spine
Of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out
The last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks were belching back
This city’s best answer
And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of these
Rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I’ll sing His song, and I’ll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn
Andrew Peterson and Friends: The Ragamuffin Album, Live at the Ryman
Last Sunday night I had the privilege of attending an Andrew Peterson-organized and -led concert honoring the legacy of Rich Mullins at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Peterson and his cadre are roughly my age, and we share a deep debt to Mullins, who in his all-too-short musical career penned songs that showed that Christian music could be artistic, poetic, and honest in ways we hadn’t before seen. (Andrew wrote an essay for the concert booklet telling his Rich Mullins story that’s well worth a read. It’s posted on The Rabbit Room.)
This year is the 20th anniversary of Mullins' death in a car accident, and served as an opportunity for Peterson to round up his friends and prepare the music. The Ryman was packed to capacity with an audience that clearly loves Rich’s music just as much as the musicians themselves do; the concert was punctuated with opportunities for the audience to sing along, starting from an impromptu acapella chorus of “Awesome God”, which Peterson led “just to get it out of the way”. (While it’s perhaps Mullins' best known song to the general public, it’s certainly not his favorite among his more devoted fans.)
Peterson and friends followed a concert format that he has perfected over years of touring his Behold The Lamb of God Christmas tour. The first half of the concert rotated in each of the guest artists to sing a Mullins song of their choice, with AP sneaking a few of his own choices in along the way.
When we hit intermission I told my wife that I couldn’t think of another Rich song that I was disappointed that they hadn’t played in the first half. The set list:
The second half of the concert brought each of those artists back out in turn to perform note-for-note versions of each song from Rich’s masterpiece A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. A string section played the original string charts as provided by Rich’s producer Reed Arvin (who himself was present and played the piano on “Creed” midway through the second half).
To my critical ear they were indeed almost exactly note-for-note and lick-for-lick. Gabe Scott had his hammered dulcimer skills tested and found awesome. My specific criteria for this evaluation was the little turn from the second verse into the pre-chorus of “Peace” - there’s a drum fill, a bass slide, and a little guitar riff that come together in a sublime little moment that I’m probably the only person in the world who cares about. They nailed it. The only place they diverged was I think they gave Andy Osenga an extra couple choruses to play a smoking guitar solo on the end of “How To Grow Up Big and Strong”… but ain’t nobody gonna complain about that.
The second half setlist:
Even they they weren’t quite done. Peterson brought the full cast of musicians out and led the (now standing) audience in “Step By Step” (with guest vocals by Peterson’s daughter Skye) and the call-and-response of “I See You”, which itself leads back in to one final chorus of “Step By Step”. After some final applause, Peterson did his trademark exit, singing the first line of the Doxology, and then exiting the stage as the audience finished singing it. (1200 people singing the Doxology in the old Ryman auditorium: chills.)
Hearing so many of Rich’s songs in one sitting highlighted both the artistry and prophetic nature of his lyrics. For instance, the last few lines from “Hard”:
I am a good midwestern boy
I give an honest day’s work when I can get it
I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my girl
I’ve got values that would make the White House jealous
Peterson wondered aloud (perhaps just as much as he dared) whether Rich had any idea those words would still resonate so loudly 25 years after he wrote them. But the lines that stood out even more loudly to me were from “Land of My Sojourn”:
And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
Some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn
The list of concerts I’ve attended isn’t as long as I’d like - and shorter thanks to the U2 concert in St. Louis getting cancelled last weekend - but Sunday night at the Ryman has to be right up there at the top of the list. Peterson posted on Facebook the next day that it might have been his favorite concert ever. I’d be inclined to agree with him.
A little random follow-up
Nearly a year ago I wrote a post dismayed about a church looking for a part-time Director of Music with almost unbelievable qualifications. Just to recap, they were looking for:
Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production. Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, and other instruments into contemporary-band driven arrangements Ability to work with and train vocalists in singing of parts Ability to incorporate backing tracks and loops into regular Sunday and special services Minimum of bachelor’s degree in music and/or 5 years’ related church or industry experience. Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology is ideal.
All that in a part-time, pay commensurate with experience position.
I ran across my old post at random this morning and decided to revisit that church’s website to see if they had ever found such a Director of Music.
So far as I can tell, the position remains empty; the job posting is still there, with only one small edit from last year: the “Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology”, while ideal, was perhaps a lot to ask, so it has been removed.
I wonder how long they’ll have to keep looking?
On Watching the Tonys for the First Time
Last Sunday night I sat down with my family and watched the Tony Awards ceremony. (The Tonys are given out yearly to award the best in musical and stage theater, similar to the Oscars for film or the Grammys for music.)
I’d never watched the Tonys before. I’m usually an Oscars guy, and every once in a while I’ll watch the Grammys (or at least that year when Arcade Fire was up for a bunch of awards), but the Tonys? Nope.
Then Hamilton came along, and we had an excuse. It’s been a bit of an obsession in our house, so an opportunity to see a performance from the show, and to see if it would win all the awards? Gotta watch it. (How much of an obsession, you ask? In our house, now, if the girls want to know the time, they will precisely ask “what is the time?”, because they know if they ask “what time is it?”, at least one member of the household will reply “showtime!”, which is invariably followed by “like I said…”. Every time.)
In retrospect I’m not sure why I follow the Oscars every year. I follow film (via podcast far more than I watch it. I guess I get a kick out of seeing the celebrities off the big screen, hearing the speeches, being able to discuss the ceremony the next day, whatever. But the Oscars ceremony has a history of being pretty awful. It runs long. The hosts are lame, or wooden, or both. The patter between presenters is forced. Depending on the year you might get a good musical number or two - the song from Selma brought down the house last year - but otherwise… it’s more an event than a great show.
Enter the Tonys. What a fantastic awards show! Host James Corden was funny (and very talented!) without dragging any jokes out too long or being obnoxious. The show moved along at a good clip, full of musical numbers from the nominated musicals. Leading up to commercial breaks, a cast from one of the nominated shows would move to a little outside stage on the street to perform a quick bit from some other classic Broadway show. (This led, charmingly enough, to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber playing the tambourine to accompany Steve Martin on the banjo for one song. Not bad, Sir Andrew. Not bad.)
And the performances. Wow, the performances. Carmen Cusack belting it out in a number from Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s musical Bright Star. Audra McDonald singing and dancing (while 4 or 5 months pregnant!) in Shuffle Along. The big wedding dance number from the revival of Fiddler on the Roof. And The Color Purple. Goodness me, The Color Purple.
Having tuned in to see Hamilton, what I found along with it was a theater full of incredibly talented people who, to all appearances, really love the music and dance, and who even between show casts share a great camaraderie. In contrast to the cool, cynical detachment often seen at the Oscars, the Tonys were enthusiastic, joyous, and intense.
And then there were moments of brilliance like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acceptance speech, which he provided in the form of a sonnet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAG_7qeiOZA
On the night after the horrific mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub, the Tony Awards show both acknowledged the loss and provided, if not some healing, at least a respite from the pain - an embrace saying we are in this together and we will get through it.
And when the Hamilton cast came back on stage for the closing number, and a good chunk of the audience stood up and sang along with them, the joy in their voices, faces, and dancing bodies shouted out that Miranda’s lyrics hold a timeless truth.
“Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”
5/4 day
Today is May 4th, which has gained an online buzz as “Star Wars Day” - “May the Fourth be with you” and all that. (My friend Geof isn’t a fan, but we all knew he’d become a curmudgeon sooner or later.)
A better idea, though, came through on Twitter this morning:
(Thanks, Bethany, for RTing that into my timeline!)
So, in honor of 5/4 day, my favorite 5/4 song that isn’t Take Five:
Hapyp 5/4 day, everybody!
Bono and Eugene Peterson discuss the Psalms
A million people have undoubtedly posted this already, but… wow. So good. Bono and Eugene Peterson sit down at Peterson’s kitchen table to discuss the Psalms. This is worth 20 minutes of your time.
Aigner: Reframing Worship Arguments
I really appreciated this piece from Jonathan Aigner on Ponder Anew yesterday, wherein he suggests reframing so many of the discussions we have around music in the church.
For instance:
Bad Argument #1: Old songs are better. This argument usually descends into warm, fuzzy reminiscences of singing in church with Grandma. That’s all fine and good, but it’s not enough… Some beloved old hymns feature terrible, vapid poetry paired with disjunct, noodly tunes, yet continue to find acceptance because their emotional appeal is so strong. Reframing this discussion: -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) keeps us grounded in the history of our faith and connects us to those who have come before, reminding us that we’re not alone. -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) protecting us from the sins of narcissism and chronological snobbery. -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) expands our worship vocabulary, and steeps us in the language of our faith.
This is a beneficial approach; rather than focusing on arguments of preference we can discuss more significant issues that lie below the surface.
Aigner addresses these questions, too:
Bad Argument #2: The band is too loud. Bad Argument #3: I don’t like it.
It’s worth reading the whole thing.
Music that evokes an emotional response
From a Facebook group post today:
Name a specific musical artist, for whatever reason, that is always able to draw a visceral emotional response from you. And if you’re comfortable, share the reason why!
Rather than respond just on that Facebook group, I thought I’d post here, both because a few more people would read it, and because it’s just the sort of music nerd thing that I will want to answer with my own spin. In this particular case I’m going to give at least three answers, just because I can.
First I’m going to go back to high school and pick the first piece of classical music I really fell head-over-heels in love with: Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. It really clicked in order for me - first the lovely first movement (especially the slow theme in Eb major), then the slow middle movement, then the big theme of the third movement which is first introduced as a slow piano solo in Bb major, and is then driven home as the big finale. Such fantastic stuff. Grabs me every time. I bought a score of the concerto and learned all the easy piano parts, but never managed to work up all the fast nasty parts.
I have several recordings of Rach 2, but my favorite is one I just came upon a few years ago: Stephen Hough with the Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Hough plays it fast and rowdy. I think Sergei himself might approve. Here’s a couple minutes of a live recording that gives you an idea of the quick tempo:
If I move on to my adult years, there are a few artists whose music has resonated with me like no other.
My nostalgia pick is Rich Mullins; I became a fan in high school, played and sang his music repeatedly, spent a couple days in shock when he died, and continue to count him as a huge influence on my own musical instincts. The song of his that gets a reaction now is one that I didn’t necessarily love as much as a kid, but that resonates hugely now as an adult.
My folks, they were always the first family to arrive with seven people jammed into a car that seated five there was one bathroom to bathe and shave in six of us stood in line Hot water for only three, but we all did just fine Talk about your miracles, talk about your faith My dad, he could make things grow out of Indiana clay Mom could make a gourmet meal out of just cornbread and beans And they learned to give faith hands and feet And somehow gave it wings
My dad was a piano tuner from Nebraska, not a farmer from Indiana, but outside of that… this is pretty easily the story of my family. I almost never get through it with dry eyes.
Later on I’d point to the music of Andrew Osenga (“Early in the Morning” and “Swing Wide the Glimmering Gates”) and Andrew Peterson (whose Behold the Lamb of God is, in my book, one of the few perfect Christian albums ever).
The first song that comes to mind from lately, though, is “Wait for It” from Hamilton. (Yeah, I’m talking about Hamilton again. Deal with it.)
In a recent interview with the Hamilton cast, Leslie Odom Jr. (who plays Aaron Burr) as his favorite - the moment of tension and focus in the production that ropes the audience in. It’s tough to perform, but when it’s right, it’s amazing. It’s a beautiful song, and the lyrics of the chorus elicit a response from me every time. In it, Aaron Burr reflects on the challenges and losses in his own life:
Life doesn’t discriminate Between the sinners and the saints It takes, and it takes, and it takes And we keep living anyway We rise, and we fall, and we break, And we make our mistakes And if there’s a reason I’m still alive When so many around me have died I’m willing to wait for it
There’s a desperation and intensity to Burr’s cry in this song that grabs me hard - the desire for real meaning, the joy and the pain of life… man oh man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTP6x_sDiM
So there you go, songs that provoke a visceral reaction from me. Do you have any of your own?
Richard Causton, George Szirtes - The Flight
For the past hour or so on this Christmas Eve morning we’ve been listening to the Nine Lessons and Carols service live on the BBC from Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Beautiful stuff as you would expect - lovely choir, big organ, lots of scripture readings.
In addition to the traditional carols, though, there was a new carol, commissioned for this service. The text is from poet George Szirtes, with music by Richard Causton. It’s called The Flight.
The child on the dirt path finds the highway blocked The dogs at the entrance snarl that doors are locked The great god of kindness has his kindness mocked May those who travel light Find shelter on the flight May Bethlehem Give rest to them. The sea is a graveyard the beach is dry bones the child at the station is pelted with stones the cop stands impassive the ambulance drones We sleep then awaken we rest on the way our sleep might be troubled but hope is our day we move on for ever like children astray We move on for ever our feet leave no mark you won’t hear our voices once we’re in the dark but here is our fire this child is our spark.
Powerful stuff this Christmas.
Hamilton
It’s been a while since I’ve had a record catch my attention and get stuck in my head like Hamilton has over the past couple of weeks. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’re already probably tired of hearing about it. But in the spirit of it’s-still-stuck-in-my-head-and-I-want-to-talk-about-it, I’m writing a blog post in the hopes of reaching a few folks who wouldn’t likely otherwise familiarize themselves with it.
On the face of it, the summary of this new Broadway musical sounds, frankly, bizarre: a rap/hip-hop musical, featuring nearly all non-white actors, about the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
To Hamilton’s writer/composer, though, it makes perfect sense. Lin-Manuel Miranda, a thirty-something New Yorker and son of Puerto Rican immigrants, sees Hamilton’s story as a classic immigrant story. Born in the Caribbean, no father around, mother died when he was young. Immigrated to America, and with great ambition and drive played a significant hand in the founding of the USA, only to die in a duel at the hand of Vice President and long-time rival Aaron Burr. So why wouldn’t you tell this story?
Miranda gave an early performance of what would become the opening song of the musical at a White House evening of poetry, music, and spoken word back in 2009. (He was invited after penning his first musical, the Tony Award-winning In The Heights.) You can see the range of reactions in this video: at first, everybody chuckles at the idea of a hip-hop album about Alexander Hamilton. But 4 minutes in, he’s really good, and they’re hooked.
After hearing friends rave about Hamilton for a few days I went ahead and bought the cast recording. It’s clear at once that Hamilton is serious story telling. It’s not played for laughs or trying to highlight the incongruity of a Hispanic man in the lead and African Americans playing Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. After 10 minutes you’ll buy into the idea, and by the end of the musical you’ll have a new perspective on immigrants shaping our country in its infancy.
What grabbed me first about Hamilton was the lyrics. I’ve always been a fan of smart wordplay, whether it be in silly family pun battles, Mel Brooks lyrics, Andrew Peterson songs, or Danny Kaye movies. And in Hamilton they’re smart, and they’re incessant. In the Alexander Hamilton character’s introductory song “My Shot”, he raps without hardly taking a breath, about his plight as a new immigrant:
I’m ‘a get a scholarship to King’s College. I prob’ly shouldn’t brag, but dag, I amaze and astonish. The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish. I gotta holler just to be heard. With every word, I drop knowledge! I’m a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal tryin’ to reach my goal. My power of speech:unimpeachable. Only nineteen but my mind is older. These New York City streets get colder, I shoulder ev’ry burden, ev’ry disadvantage I have learned to manage, I don’t have a gun to brandish, I walk these streets famished.
The musical traces Hamilton’s life through his move to America, his marriage to Eliza Schuyler, his involvement in the revolution and the founding of the country, his writing of many of the Federalist Papers, the affair that most likely cost him a shot at the presidency, the untimely death of his son, and his final showdown with Burr.
This bit from CBS Sunday Morning back in March is a nice brief overview of Hamilton the man, Hamilton the show, and the magnetic and clearly brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda.
If you’re mildly interested by this point, I’d recommend checking out the cast album. (It’s up on YouTube to stream if you’re not ready to commit to a purchase.) It’s possible it won’t be your thing - Hamilton is currently sold out for goodness knows how long at the Richard Rodgers Theater on Broadway, but your standard Rodgers & Hammerstein musical it ain’t - but if you can immerse yourself in it for an hour or two I don’t think you’ll regret it.
As a footnote: my friend Bethany pointed me toward the #ParksAndHam mashup on Twitter, wherein folks are combining Hamilton quotes with pictures from Parks and Recreation. If you’re a fan of Parks and Rec, there are some pretty great ones out there.
The Worship Industry is "Killing Worship"?
Self-described post-evangelical (and Methodist worship pastor) Jonathan Aigner wrote on Patheos recently on “8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Killing Worship”. I both resonated and disagreed with enough of his post that I figure it’s worth a short response.
Aigner’s eight points, with my thoughts interspersed:
1. It’s [sic] sole purpose is to make us feel something.
Aigner says that the worship industry “must engage us on a purely sensory level to find widespread appeal…”
I’ll agree with Aigner here on the overall concept and disagree with him on the breadth of his statements. Does the worship industry rely too heavily on the sensory level to get us engaged? Probably, yeah. But is it affecting us “purely on an emotional level”, as he claims? I won’t go that far.
2. The industry hijacks worship.
“When the mind is disengaged and worship is reduced to an emotional experience,”, says Aigner, “worship descends into narcissistic and self-referential meaninglessness.” This point relies on your accepting his point #1, so given that I’ve only partially granted it, I’m on the fence here, too. When worship music completely disengages the brain and works solely on emotion, I’d agree that it becomes fairly meaningless. But I don’t think that’s happening quite as broadly as he asserts.
3. It says that music IS worship.
Now we’re finding common ground. In our current evangelical mindset, “worship” is too often just the music part of the service, to be joined up with “announcements”, “preaching”, etc. Our thoughtful members would probably nuance the definition if asked, but it’s very easy for anyone, including myself, when leading worship music in the service (see how I just slipped into it there?), to lazily allow just the music to be referred to as “worship”.
4. It’s a derivative of mainstream commercial music.
Yes… but.
As my wife can attest, I have gone off on many a rant about how Christian music so obviously follows mainstream music, just 5 years behind.
Say, for example, when I saw Chris Tomlin’s video of his song “God’s Great Dance Floor” (a concept that I don’t even really want to explore from a theological standpoint, but that’s beside the point), where he matches Coldplay’s Chris Martin in musical style, jacket, and even awkward white-guy dancing.
Or when I realized circa 2012 that DC*Talk’s “Jesus Freak” copied Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” down to the same chord sequence for the intro. (Points to the late Kurt Cobain for at least not adding a rap about a belly jiggling and ‘a typical tattoo green’.)
But on the other hand… all music is derivative. Commercial music just like church music. For every truly groundbreaking artist you will find a dozen knock-offs popping up a few years later. History has a way of preserving the good ones and weeding out the bad ones. So while some music is so derivative of better mainstream versions that you just have to avoid it, being derivative, by itself, isn’t killing us.
5. It perpetuates an awkward contemporary Christian media subculture.
“[Christian worship music] can’t possibly find itself in Bernstein’s five percent because it’s too busy talking about how “Christian” it is, instead of telling the story.
That’ll preach.
6. It spreads bad theology.
I’m sympathetic here, too, but this is not a factor unique to modern church music. Again, history has a way of weeding out the really atrocious stuff, but you will find theological nightmares in classic hymnody, and you will find beautiful pieces of good theology in modern songs.
7. It creates worship superstars
Aigner clarifies that he’s really complaining about the rock star persona many worship artists take on and the fandom that grows from it. And he’s got a decent point. “We the church become an audience. Groupies. Screaming teenagers for Jesus.” Yep.
That being said, when I hear “worship superstars”, my first thoughts run along the lines of Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts, J.S. Bach… We all have our superstars. The modern ones just have to deal with the modern trappings of celebrity that go along with fandom in this culture.
8. It’s made music into a substitute Eucharist.
Here’s where I think Aigner has a point that’s well worth considering - not necessarily as much for how it critiques our value of the music as it does our value of the Eucharist. I’ll quote him at length:
Most evangelicals, along with the mainline Protestants who are looking to commercial Christian music as an institutional life preserver, use music as if it were a sacrament. Through their music, they allow themselves to be carried away on an emotional level into a perceived sensory connection with the divine. Music is their bread and wine. Don’t believe me? Try telling your church, your pastor even, that we should make a switch. Let’s have Communion ever week, and music once a month (or where I come from, once a quarter). It probably won’t go over well.
That point hits home in my third-Sunday-of-odd-numbered-months-practicing church.
Overall, I appreciate Aigner and people in his camp pushing us toward theological excellence, away from the celebrity worship culture, and toward the Eucharist. On the whole, though, his discussion points might still need some work.
A little early-morning band action
I play with a band called Standing Before Giants off and on. (I don’t show up on the official band info, but they pull me in for gigs on a semi-regular basis. It works.) On Sunday we’re playing at Praise on the River - a fundraiser for the local free medical clinic.
To publicize things this morning we played a 30-minute acoustic set on the stage at the local Farmer’s Market. Nothing like having to be tuned up and ready to sing at 7:30 am!
If you’re around Cedar Rapids tomorrow (Sunday June 21), come down to the amphitheater and listen to the music! Full band mode will be engaged for that one (i.e. I’ll have my keyboard with me!).
Photo credit to the estimable John Walton.
That old, old impulse to tweak and re-write
As a worship leader I confess I grumble from time to time about the current propensity of our songwriters to appropriate and revise classic hymns in ways that just drive me crazy.
For example, my worship pastor has heard me rant on more than one occasion about Chris Tomlin’s modification of the last verse of Crown Him With Many Crowns. The original lines directly address Jesus:
All hail, Redeemer, hail, for Thou hast died for me, Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity…
But Tomlin, for some reason that doesn’t entail the rhyming scheme, revises the words to talk about Jesus rather than to Him:
All hail, Redeemer, hail, for He has died for me, His praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity…
Why, Chris, why? You could’ve modernized the language without screwing around with the perspective of the song. Argh.
Oh, and don’t even get me started about the multiple Christian-ese re-writes of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Yikes.
OK, I’ll get off my soapbox.
This past weekend we had a garage sale, and among 3 big boxes of sheet music my Mom brought to the sale, I found a book that lets me know that this isn’t a new problem.
“World Famous Christmas Songs, containing the best and most popular Songs of the Nativity”. Compiled and Edited by the Reverend George Rittenhouse. Published in 1929, it’s an eclectic assortment of both secular and sacred songs.
What stuck out to me as I paged through was that when it says “edited” by Rev. Rittenhouse, they weren’t kidding. His fingerprints are all over this thing.
For instance, he rather ambitiously chooses to re-harmonize Angels We Have Heard on High with some extra movement:
Another place he appropriates Bizet’s L’Arlessienne and some old lyrics to create a rather bombastic tune subtitled “The March of the Kings”.
Then there’s this gem, wherein he re-writes the lyrics of “O Tannenbaum!” to give them a Christian angle:
O Christmas Tree! Fair Christmas Tree! A type of Life Eternal! O Christmas Tree! Fair Christmas Tree! Your boughs are ever vernal. So fresh and green in Summer heat, and bright when snows lie round your feet O Christmas Tree! Fair Christmas Tree! A type of Life Eternal!
A classic waiting to happen, right there. There are two more verses if you’re really interested.
The more things change…
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that these impulses have been around a long time. (Picture a musician in the court of King Hezekiah - “gah, why can’t we just sing that psalm the way King David wrote it?") But it was comforting to see that confirmation, and to be reminded that history has a way of weeding out the material of lesser quality and holding on to the good stuff.
I guess I can be patient.
Matt Maher: Glory Bound
I’m not a big listener of CCM and Praise & Worship music, but Matt Maher’s stuff has been growing on me lately. He has a new record out this week called Saints and Sinners, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit.
Here he goes full Springsteen on “Glory Bound”, which is a heckuva lot of fun:
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Songwriting
Yesterday my worship pastor sent out a lead sheet and MP3 for a new song we’re going to learn and sing this coming weekend at church, and it’s causing me some odd internal conflicts. Not because I hate the song, or because I think the content of the song is bad or anything like that. No, it’s because I opened up the lead sheet and had a strong reaction to the name of one of the songwriters. In this case, the song is called “Only King Forever” by Elevation Worship, and the songwriter in question is the pastor of Elevation Church, Steven Furtick.
This is not about my pastor’s choice of this song or about Furtick specifically. I don’t want to get into those arguments. What it is about is this question that’s nagging me. How much should my opinion of a songwriter affect my reaction to their songs?
Don’t go dissing on my fun music
First off, let’s agree that this is specifically about songs used for worship in church services. Because when it comes to music I listen to for fun, I really don’t care. I’ve honestly got very little idea what Sergei Rachmaninov’s theology, morality, or politics were, but he’s still my favorite classical composer because his music is awesome. Heck, I’ve got a pretty good idea that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had fairly lousy theology and morality, but that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying a good Beatles song.
But when we get to “Christian” music, and more specifically worship music, the dynamic changes somewhat, though the Christian/church music industry’s application of standards seems to be uneven. For example, Jennifer Knapp’s excellent record Kansas fell out of Christian music favor when she came out as a lesbian. On the other hand, Phillips, Craig, and Dean don’t believe in the Trinity and still get played ad nauseum on Christian radio.
Did you just forget to take your cynical pills today, Hubbs?
So then we come to this song, and Steven Furtick. What’s the issue with Furtick? Well, maybe it’s me as much as anything. He’s a megachurch pastor from Charlotte, NC, in the Southern Baptist denomination. Good enough so far. However, there have been some significant concerns raised in the past couple years when his church had “plants” in the congregation to “spontaneously” come up for baptism and when he built an 8500-square-foot mansion on a 19-acre lot in a gated development from an undisclosed church salary and book deal. And if I’m honest, I’ve watched some of his sermon videos, and there’s something about the guy and his approach that just feels wrong, that gives me the creeps. It’s not humble teaching and servant leadership to make disciples; rather, it’s manipulative performance art for the sake of inspiring giving and driving attendance/membership numbers.
(Again, I’m not claiming that I’m completely right here about Furtick - only describing why I have the reaction I have to him when his name comes up.)
I don’t really have any issues with the content of the song itself; it seems theologically sound, certainly more Jesus-proclaiming and less mushy than some other stuff we sing. But I’m still struggling to get past the authorship.
Am I holding a double-standard here? Probably. I mean, sure, we’ve all heard about Horatio Spafford writing “It Is Well With My Soul” after a great personal tragedy, and stories about Fanny Crosby’s saintly approach to her blindness, and I’ve heard good things about that Charles Wesley guy who wrote a bunch of solid hymns. But I know very little about the personal lives or theologies of most of the other songwriters whose songs we sing on Sundays. And in general that’s OK with me. As long as the song is good, let’s sing it.
And yet…
But, Chris, you sing songs written by Pentecostals and Catholics and others of every theological stripe and enjoy them. Why is this different?
It does seem different somehow. I think it’s because in those cases, while I don’t personally agree with those folks' theology, I can understand how someone could, I find it reasonable, and I wouldn’t shy away from recommending someone attend one of those churches if it otherwise made sense for them. Furtick’s case is different. It’s not necessarily his theology, but his personality and apparent views toward leadership and money and pastoring. I can’t imagine I’d ever recommend that somebody go attend his church.
Isn’t your attitude then just basically ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ with regard to songwriters' beliefs and personalities?
Yeah, I guess maybe it is. But hey, don’t ask, don’t tell has some Biblical basis, after all. Isn’t that what Paul basically advised Corinthian Christians with regard to eating meat sacrificed to idols?
Hey, couldn’t we just solve this by singing nothing but Psalms in church?
Well I dunno, King David wrote most of those and he wasn’t always an upstanding moral example, either… wait, you’re just trying to confuse me now, aren’t you?
Well, maybe…
Anyway, we’ll be singing the song on Sunday, and if it seems like a good fit, likely many Sundays after that. I suppose I’ll learn to live with the internal conflict. Maybe my friend Jason summed it up best:
A little piano music for the season
A couple years ago I recorded a little album of solo piano Christmas music. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from it:
You can download the whole thing from the original post if you want. Merry Christmas!
Deliver Us
I’ve felt a need for Advent far more keenly this year than I recall from previous years. Perhaps it’s the tumult of the times - with religious violence abroad and racial tension at home, it is so clear that we need the peace, deliverance, and salvation that Jesus brings now more than ever.
That brings me to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God. It’s long been my favorite Christmas record; in my estimation it’s one of only two or three perfect Christian records to have been made. Early in the record as Andrew tells the story of Christ, the song “Deliver Us” introduces the longing cry of God’s people for God’s salvation. And the lyrics seem as appropriate today as ever:
Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we’re bound Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land
Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight
Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give So Yahweh, break your silence if you can
Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight
[Response:] ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem How often I have longed To gather you beneath my gentle wings’
Come, Lord Jesus.
I'm not really an opera guy but this is still amazing:
Amazing control, making the ridiculously high notes seem really easy, and putting such personality into the role… brilliant stuff.
My musical find for the week: Ólafur Arnalds
I started an Arvo Pärt station on Pandora earlier this week and one of the artists that kept coming up was someone by the name of Ólafur Arnalds. Having never heard of Arnalds, I set off to learn more, and to listen. And I liked what I found.
Arnalds is a young (still in his 20s!) Icelandic composer/musician whose sweet spot musically is sort of minimalist ambient instrumentals. Think Sigur Rós without all of Jónsi’s vocals and turned down a couple notches on the intensity meter. Or think happier Phillip Glass, or what you’d get if you crossed Brian Eno’s ambient stuff with Jim Brickman’s piano and harmonies. However you get there, his music pretty well hits a sweet spot for me, especially as these grey fall days start to fade to winter.
Side note: if you’re pedantic like me, writing about ambient European musicians will also make you learn to find all the accented letter character key codes. You have been warned.