Songs I Can’t Sing Anymore – Part 5

I grew up listening to rock and roll from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I have always maintained that there is no era of music that I prefer to listen to more, and I listened to a lot of it in college and during the years before my wife and I had children. I amassed over two-hundred albums on vinyl over the years, before compact discs took over. I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years transferring this music to my iPod. As I’ve recently begun listening to this music again, I have been struck by the lyrics of many of the songs – seen anew from a refreshed Christian perspective. I believe that I listened only to the music back in my younger days, but today I actually pay attention to the lyrics. This is the first in a series of articles discussing the possible hidden (or overt) meaning in many songs I used to sing out loud -- without actually listening to what the words were saying.

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This one might be tougher to accept than some of the articles I’ve written about other rock-and-roll groups. So, before any of you Beatles fans give up reading, let me just say that there is still a great deal of their music to which I love to listen. But, in the next few paragraphs, let me point out a very poignant cultural analogy….one that might not seem so obvious until you read it.

The Beatles started out as a seemingly innocent pop group. Their music was different enough and good enough to become a worldwide phenomenon. I remember sitting at a friend’s house around 1970, watching the famous Apple record label spin around on his turntable. I didn’t really understand at the time how enormously popular these four had become, nor what an influence they would have on millions of lives (of course, I was only six at the time!).

The band moved through many phases. From the clean-cut innocence of their first popularity around 1964, they became darker and more politically involved. The media touts this as their “growing social awareness”. By 1969, they looked like the photograph at the left. They had begun experimenting with various drugs such as marijuana and LSD. And they began to profess beliefs in line with Eastern religions, culminating in a prolonged visit to India to learn from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and experiment with his brand of transcendental meditation. Many of their songs on The White Album were written during this period (and you can tell).

The Beatles produced an incredible volume of music over a very short ten-year period. Their schedule was intense, their lives were made public, and expectations were always high for their millions of followers. But along the way, a not-so-subtle change was happening to the group and to their music.

From 1964 to 1970, it’s important to observe the cultural shift in their style, and most importantly, in their lyrics. The best way to put it was summed up by Kevin Swanson, the executive director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado, who recently said, “During their career, The Beatles took us from ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ to ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’” Kevin’s made the point that The Beatles have some responsibility for the societal shift that has occurred in our culture –one where sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll rule the airwaves and the media. The drift from innocence to pornography that is demonstrated in these two song titles – written just six years apart – is analogous to what happened to society during that same period. And it happened very quickly.

Is their music just harmless entertainment? One could make the case that it has made a lot of people happy over the years. Or does it embody something else – something that is exactly parallel to the cultural decline we have seen around us over the last forty years? The Beatles certainly aren’t the only thing to blame for the decline in morality around us. But it is precisely through such seemingly innocent entertainment that Satan gains a foothold. He brought about the fall of Man through a simple apple all those years ago. It just occurred to me that he might still be accomplishing some of his work through that same symbol.

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Back to the first entry in the "Songs I Can't Sing Anymore" series...

Songs I Can’t Sing Anymore – Part 4

I grew up listening to rock and roll from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I have always maintained that there is no era of music that I prefer to listen to more, and I listened to a lot of it in college and during the years before my wife and I had children. I amassed over two-hundred albums on vinyl over the years, before compact discs took over. I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years transferring this music to my iPod. As I’ve recently begun listening to this music again, I have been struck by the lyrics of many of the songs – seen anew from a refreshed Christian perspective. I believe that I listened only to the music back in my younger days, but today I actually pay attention to the lyrics. This is a continuation of a series of articles discussing the possible hidden (or overt) meaning in many songs I used to sing out loud -- without actually listening to what the words were saying.

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It might surprise those of you who know me well that I like listening to the music of The Doors. As I have explained before, when I listen only to the music, I really like this band. But when I sort out the meaning of the words that they wrote, I fear that I am no longer a fan.

Like so many bands of this era, The Doors quite often wrote lyrics that make no sense. Oh, they want you to believe that they make sense, and books have been written purporting the genius of the lyrics – but the fact is that most of these words likely came out of a drunken haze, written by someone who was very likely demon-possessed. One look at lead singer Jim Morrison’s life is enough to convince me that his tirades, depression, drug use, and bitterness were the result of much more than a heavy tour schedule. Morrison was known for his extremely heavy alcohol abuse, and he eventually died of a likely heroin overdose in Paris. If you read the history of this man, there is a sense of lurking evil about him.

A good example of nonsense lyrics is from the song Stoned Immaculate. Here you go:

I'll tell you this...

No eternal reward will forgive us now

For wasting the dawn.

Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the pierI ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called Freedom
The dark one, Enterprise

We talked and they told me this story

Now listen to this...

I'll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat

Soft driven, slow and mad

Like some new language

Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger

Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god

Wandering, wandering in hopeless night

Out here in the perimeter there are no stars

Out here we is stoned

Immaculate.

Okay – can you tell me what it means? I mean what it really means – not just trying to fit your ideas to lyrics that are almost forty years old. Even the very title of the song is just two words smashed together that don’t belong. On reflection, these words echo as if from a soul bound for eternity in hell. “Heartache and the loss of god” is a perfect description of how I picture hell to be – a never-ending state for those who find their way there.

My wife and I had the good fortune to visit Paris on vacation twice in the last ten years. On one of those trips, we visited Père Lachaise Cemetery, where Morrison is buried. Many famous people are buried in this 118-acre cemetery, including Oscar Wilde and Frederic Chopin. The place is absolutely packed with tombs and graves and is really a wonder to behold. While I was there, I was determined to find the burial place of Jim Morrison.

It was not easy to find – walking this cemetery with the goal of finding a particular name is a lot like walking through the world’s largest junkyard in search of a specific radio knob – it’s that imposing. After a couple of hours, we finally found the spot. Imagine my surprise to find that it was a simple, unattractive plot crammed behind a much larger tomb. There was nothing special about it. See our photo of Morrison’s burial place at the right.

My greater surprise was to find so many others – mostly young people – gathered around the gravesite, mourning their loss. Most of them were not even alive at the time of Morrison’s death. And most of them were consuming alcohol. Jars of various alcoholic beverages had been left at his tomb as a sort of token or gift. My wife and I looked at each other in confusion – was this the legacy that Jim Morrison intended to leave? If he could look over the site today, would he be pleased, or would he beg these people to see something greater in life?

Like many of the lyrics of The Doors, this scene left me confused. These young people were worshiping a dead, drunken rock star. And these words fill my head - “wandering, wandering in hopeless night”.

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Next in the series - The Beatles

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Songs I Can’t Sing Anymore – Part 3

I grew up listening to rock and roll from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I have always maintained that there is no era of music that I prefer to listen to more, and I listened to a lot of it in college and during the years before my wife and I had children. I amassed over two-hundred albums on vinyl over the years, before compact discs took over. I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years transferring this music to my iPod. As I’ve recently begun listening to this music again, I have been struck by the lyrics of many of the songs – seen anew from a refreshed Christian perspective. I believe that I listened only to the music back in my younger days, but today I actually pay attention to the lyrics. This is the first in a series of articles discussing the possible hidden (or overt) meaning in many songs I used to sing out loud -- without actually listening to what the words were saying.

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Nearly everyone loves Fleetwood Mac. For many of the people in my generation, they were more than just a pop band with several number one hits. During their popular period, they had a following that approached cult status. And watching their occasional concerts on PBS, it seems to me that the people in the audience look far older than I do – but that might just be denial on my part…

The reason for Fleetwood Mac’s popularity goes beyond the singability and beauty of the music. The members of the band are surrounded by mystery and personal stories that would easily make tabloid headlines. Drug addiction, broken personal relationships within the band, on-stage abuse, and rumors of involvement with the Wicca religion swirl around this talented group of musicians, and these items have almost certainly added to their popularity. The on-again, off-again relationship between guitar-player/singer Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks has dominated much of the intrigue that makes up their image.

Stevie Nicks has furthered Fleetwood Mac’s air of mystery more than any other member of the band, capitalizing on her own “style” of clothing and lyrics. Early in her career with the band, she adopted billowing skirts, boots and jewelry designed to give her a hint of witchcraft. She played on this further by writing the song Rhiannon, and opening the song when performed live by saying, “This is a song about a Welsh witch”. She did little to dispel the rumor that she herself might be the witch in question until many years later. Without a doubt, this only increased the band’s popularity. Many people are drawn to mysterious religions – anything that might be a slap to the Christian religion, that is.

I love listening to the opening electric guitar licks to Rhiannon. They aren’t too hard to play, and they sound great once you learn them. The sound that Buckingham chose for the guitar is memorable. When the bass walk starts, and the drums begin, it’s an almost perfect song intro – at least in my mind. And that’s what I remember when I was growing up. The song would play over the tinny schoolbus speakers, and would still sound…..great. I purchased the album (vinyl back then) in college, and probably played it well over a hundred times. As I’ve stated before, I listened very little to the lyrics of songs back then, and focused mostly on trying to duplicate the music only. But if one listens to the song hard enough, you’ll hear:

She is like a cat in the dark

And then she is the darknesss

She rules her life like a fine skylark

And when the sky is starless

All your life you've never seen a woman

Taken by the wind

Would you stay if she promised you Heaven?

Will you ever win? Will you ever win?

I’m honestly not sure I can describe what the song is trying to get across. It’s enough to note that the lyrics leave a mysterious feeling that adds to the rumors that Stevie Nicks propagated. Is she a witch? Did she and the band practice secret Wiccan rituals after they finished a concert? Do the lyrics contain some hidden meaning that we should be concerned about?

Well, in this case, the answer might be “No”. Nicks has gone on record as saying that she is not a witch, and has never practiced witchcraft. In a 1998 interview, when asked about the Wiccan connection, she said, "I have no idea what precipitated those rumors...I am not a witch. Get a life!" She credits “a God looking out” for her to get her through her earlier drug addiction. And when Lindsay Lohan mentioned that she would like to play Nicks in a movie about her life, Nicks responded by saying, “She needs to stop doing drugs and get a grip. Then maybe we'll talk.” Maybe Stevie Nicks is not at all the big, bad witch that we’ve been led to believe.

But I have a point to make about the music of this genre. What do Christians raised on rock music (like me) fill our minds with? Do we continue to live in two worlds – one where we proclaim Christlikeness on Sunday, and one where we listen to New Age lyrics on weekdays? Does this have an effect on the quality of our service to God? Does it honor God to mimic these lyrics in the car while driving to work? As I grow older (and hopefully a little wiser), it seems to me that I need to focus every waking moment on glorifying God – not just because it is the right thing to do, but because any other act starts to seem cheap and selfish. Is this radical? Yes. Am I capable of spending every waking moment honoring God? Right now, the answer is “No”. Do I want to do better in the future, and concentrate only on things that glorify Him? Absolutely.

This is a hard lesson for me. Music is beautiful, and words are powerful. This music seems to lift me up to a different place. But the lyrics are often empty. Does anyone else experience this struggle?

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Go back to the beginning of this series…

Songs I Can’t Sing Anymore – Part 2

I grew up listening to rock and roll from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I have always maintained that there is no era of music that I prefer to listen to more, and I listened to a lot of it in college and during the years before my wife and I had children. I amassed over two-hundred albums on vinyl over the years, before compact discs took over. I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years transferring this music to my iPod. As I’ve recently begun listening to this music again, I have been struck by the lyrics of many of the songs – seen anew from a refreshed Christian perspective. I believe that I listened only to the music back in my younger days, but today I actually pay attention to the lyrics. This is the second in a series of articles discussing the possible hidden (or overt) meaning in many songs I used to sing out loud -- without actually listening to what the words were saying.

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As a guitar player, I have always admired the music of Dan Fogelberg. He was a multi-talented musician, reportedly able to pick up almost any new instrument and immediately begin playing it as if he had invested years of practice. His voice was unique, and he often recorded all of the vocal and instrumental tracks on his records by himself (though he usually liked to turn over the drums to someone more accomplished). His words had an appeal to many, because they often had a searching and philosophical overtone that satisfied people’s need for more than just pop lyrics. I’ve sung many of his songs, either at talent shows or while wooing my wife-to-be during my college years. Those songs include the one I mention here – a fact which I now find almost unbelievable, given that I’ve been a Christian since the age of twelve.

Part of the Plan was released by Fogelberg in 1975, as the opening song on the Souvenirs album. It’s catchy, singable, and pretty easy to play on the guitar. The lyrics start out in a searching fashion, making you wonder if there’s more to life than what we’re experiencing:

I have these moments
All steady and strong
I'm feeling so holy and humble
The next thing I know
I'm all worried and weak
And I feel myself starting to crumble.

The meanings get lost
And the teachings get tossed
And you don't know what you're
Going to do next.
You wait for the sun
But it never quite comes
Some kind of message comes
Through to you.
Some kind of message comes through.

This is a good start, seen from a Christian perspective. There is certainly a longing in life for more than what this world has to offer, if we choose to grasp only the things of this world. So what is the message that “came through” to Fogelberg? The chorus of the song tells us:

And it says to you...
Love when you can
Cry when you have to...
Be who you must
That's a part of the plan
Await your arrival
With simple survival
And one day we'll all understand...

Oops…problem. From a biblical perspective, “being who I must” is a recipe for disaster. The New Age worldview tells us to do this very thing – by following what our heart tells us. Even Christians make this slip quite often, saying “I followed my heart’s leading…” about some matter or another. But Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” We are called to follow God’s example, left to us in the Holy Scriptures and the example of His Son, Jesus Christ. That is not necessarily “what I am” – in fact, it rarely is. Being like Christ takes a determination and perseverance that is not easy for me. The very thing that requires the least effort for me is to lapse into what I believe to be my true nature.

If this was not enough to ruin the song for me, the third verse clinches it:

There is no Eden or Heavenly gates
That you're gonna make it to one day
But all of the answers you seek can be found
In the dreams that you dream
On the way.

This verse saddens me. I’ve written before about Dan’s life, death, and his belief in between. His philosophy that “dreams” can take the place of a loving Father waiting for us in eternity leaves me cold and empty. While it sounds pretty to follow your dreams or to dream of a better world, the simple truth is that God offers an eternal, precious existence in His kingdom of heaven. But we must embrace and accept His offering as the free gift of grace that it is. Only He can save us, and this can be achieved only through His wondrous plan. This is more than the “simple survival” offered up by Fogelberg. It’s a lasting gift of eternity, as we live humbly before Him.

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Next in the series... or

Go back to the beginning of this series…

Songs I Can’t Sing Anymore – Part 1

I grew up listening to rock and roll from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I have always maintained that there is no era of music that I prefer to listen to more, and I listened to a lot of it in college and during the years before my wife and I had children. I amassed over two-hundred albums on vinyl over the years, before compact discs took over. I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years transferring this music to my iPod. As I’ve recently begun listening to this music again, I have been struck by the lyrics of many of the songs – seen anew from a refreshed Christian perspective. I believe that I listened only to the music back in my younger days, but today I actually pay attention to the lyrics. This is the first in a series of articles discussing the possible hidden (or overt) meaning in many songs I used to sing out loud -- without actually listening to what the words were saying.

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The 1960’s were dominated by bands with an underlying New Age philosophy. Peace, free love, and rock and roll were all blended together in words that welcomed the dawning of the “the age of Aquarius”. One of my very favorite bands from this time frame is Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young). I enjoy their music, if a bit rough and unpolished, and am mostly attracted to their incredible harmonies. I still try to mirror some of the high notes sung by Graham Nash in my own backup singing. Some of their vocal blending still gives me chills.

Recently, I was playing the So Far album from 1974, and came across the song Woodstock. Written by Joni Mitchell in 1969, it details elements of the famed Woodstock concert in a farmer’s field in Bethel, New York. While I used to mouth the words to the opening lines, it struck me for the very first time what the lyrics were actually saying. Give a listen:

Well, I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road

And I asked him, Tell me, where are you going?

This he told me

Said, I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm,

Gonna join in a rock and roll band.

Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.

We are stardust, we are golden,

We are billion year old carbon,

And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Huh? Did I really used to sing “We are billion year old carbon” without blinking an eye? Sadly, the answer is “Yes”. Did I think about what I was singing at the time? Sadly, the answer is “No”.

These lyrics display a clear New Age influence. The 1969 idea of setting your soul free and getting back to the land sounds a lot like bumper stickers that we see on cars forty years later (“The Earth Is Your Mother”). These are not new New Age ideas. The desire for a return to something more than we are may be an inherent feeling in all of us. What it is, and how it got there is the topic for debate.

Carl Sagan is famous for his Cosmos television series, where he stated the words, “We are all star stuff”. This also is not a new concept, as Joni Mitchell penned similar words many years before Sagan reintroduced the idea. I have always found Sagan’s words somewhat ridiculous. Is it a scientific statement? What hard evidence does he have? Does anyone really believe that “star-stuff” or stardust can somehow “evolve” into a sentient race of people? It is not a factual conclusion, but rather a philosophical musing, rooted in nothing more than flawed humanist thinking. I don’t want to think of myself, or my lovely wife, or my precious children as “billion-year-old carbon”. The idea takes away from the wonder and miracle of life, which is far better explained by God’s hand.

I am beginning to see many examples such as these lyrics which attempt to combine the humanist way of thinking with religious expressions. Given that the author assumes we are simply a collection of carbon molecules, what place do the phrases “child of God” and “back to the garden” have in their argument? They don’t – they are merely an attempt to add to the mysticism of their lyrics in order to appear “artsy” or “enlightened”. This song -- one I used to sing out loud -- now takes on an anti-God aspect that I never saw before. It’s ruined for me.

One final point – has anyone taken note that the “billion-year-old carbon” line was replaced with a different line in the last chorus – a line that is much more true? Write me back with a comment if you discover what it is.

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