prince of peace, iPod, doodle

+ in the experimental worship leading i've been doing at my old church, i led a song that they were all familiar with, but i didn't let them proceed with the usual rendering of the lyrics, which to me always smacked of self-congratulations and a sort of worship metonymy wherein the professed zeal of the lyric-writer is sung corporately and then assumed to be true among the singers. So instead of the lyric "I will" (as in "I will praise you" or "I will bow down before you" or "I will give my life for you" or "I will love you all of my days") I substituted "Will I ?" and reframed the lyric as a question, with the intention of provoking soul-searching. Of course I warned them to be expecting this before starting the song. As my friend Travis said, we do a lot of singing that sounds like "God is holy and I'm right up there with him". So: reframing and subtly shifting existing lyrics may be a great way to address Brian McLaren's Open Letter to Songwriters and the astute John Mortensen Unauthorized Postscript to Songwriters.  (in which John penned this memorable line: "can we agree to a ten-year ban on rhyming “adore you” with “before you”? ")

+ i was charging my son's iPod shuffle this morning when I happened to look over at the Playcount column in iTunes. It was a window into my son's listening habits. Before I thought twice about privacy, etc., I saw that his most-played songs -- the tunes he's hit 'repeat' for and not shuffled past -- mirrored my own tastes. Which made me initially happy -- although his playlist is esentially culled from my larger playlist anyway, the types of tunes he lingers over are they same ones I do: The Jayhawks, Coldplay, Josh Rouse, Something Like Silas, Moby, Innocence Mission, Tim Booth, Dar Williams, etc. Then it got me wondering: is this just a parroting or is this cultivated? Is this similar to a child echoing his parents' taste in music faith, for example? Will he venture out and find his own aural turf?

+ friday nite i art directed a :30 TV commercial for a local restaurant. my first broadcast attempt beyond directing and filming a music video for the fabled and now-extinct band love coma in the mid 1990s. i'll stick with print and web for now.

+ picked up the kids from camp on saturday. they had a good time; man i missed them.

+ my friend, illustrator Von Glitschka, has a new site you should visit if you doodle often: http:doodlearchive.com -- request a doodle card and get those doodles published!

Comments

[salguod]

Your doodle archive link is broken.

[Sean McMains]

Thanks for the reading. A bit of interesting food for thought.

[Scott Roche]

"Will he venture out and find his own aural turf?"

One can only hope (note this is NOT about your taste in music). Children of the musically oriented (or faith oriented) should branch out. It's hard as a parent to see that as a good thing. It's like that struggle that Spielberg beat us over the head with in WOTW. When do we let our kids go even though we know it could be dangerous or deadly? We just have to trust that God's grace IS sufficient.

[John Mortensen]

Hi, Paul.

I drop and in read your blog once in a blue moon because you have the best and most interesting design in the world.

So ya wanna play the whistle?
You'll find that the Feadogs, Clarks, Waltons etc are a little breathy in the upper range. If you want that pure buttery silky yummy clear butteriness, look at Michael Burke's work. I have five of his instruments and they are...buttery.

I think it's www.burkewhistles.com

Cheers,

John

[paul soupiset]

thanks for the link: wow: I wish i could afford a burke these days. i'm totally sure his prices are worth it, but i'm watching the pocketbook. maybe i'll ask for a low whistle for christmas.

grace & peace john.
keep up the thoughts & the tunes.

[barry]

barry writes:

yeah, i read the open letter and the response. there's much good in them, but much overstatement too, no? after all, how are we to view those "i will sing of your love forever" and "forever i'll love you, forever i'll stand" lyrics? as predictions? vows? methinks they could be read as outsized promises or self-congratulatory boasts, but in fact they're true. (at least those two are.) it's the truest truth we can speak: you and i will stand forever in god's presence, loving him and praising him -- not in some eternal sing-along, as some have pictured but in the glorious busytown of heavenly life. lyrics like that are a fact, not a boast; beyond the evaporating musical style, what's wrong with them?

and by the way, i note that one of the most popular songs in those much-maligned high-production-value boomer services is "blessed be your name," a song that richly answers, through the words of job, the author's call for songs that recognize lament and trial.

contrarily yours,

[Barry]

btw, i just posted a bit more on blessed be your name -- see what ya think. we contrarians pay too little attention to truly popular art.

[Barry]

speaking of ipods and finding your own way, i was just listening to act one of "siegfried," in the magnificent georg solti recording of the 1960s. i have all 16 and a half hours of the ring cycle ripped (it all fits onto one mp3 CD, by the way). anyway, it was truly thrilling to again hear the process unfold, and understand its spiritual truth: siegfried has inherited his father's sword, but as long as the dwarf mime keeps re-forging it, siegfried keeps breaking it. it's only when he shatters it, splinters it down and then melts and forges his own sword from the shards, that he winds up with the sword that will carry him out into the world of victory.

for those without an immediate set of references, look no further than the latest update of nordic mythology: that blond hero who spent some time in a forest mentored by a dwarf. the same thing happened to him. his father's light-saber brought defeat. his own sword which he forged himself brought victory.

and so with us, and our parents' faith, and our childrens'.

[paul soupiset]

thanks for both comments and the post on "Blessed Be Your Name" -- I hadn't given that song a fair shake until now but i also wonder if you've over-ascribed intentionality to Redman's composition process? versus intuition, and the unknowing knowing we all bring into the creative process, especially it seems into musical composition. it doesn't invalidate what you said, i just wonder how explicitly the songwriter 'thought' about those things.

[Barry]

Barry says:

ahhhh, the intentional fallacy! so easy to fall into. we all do it. but the redmans' intuition is part of their craft, no? the fact is that "we" don't "all" bring that unknowing knowing to the creative process. some do more than others. some have a greater gift, and some hone the gifts they have to a greater degree. with that in mind, i'd predict that they wouldn't at all be surprised by anything i pointed out about their song. they might not have set out to utilize those musical tools the way they did, but that's where they ended up. i guess what you're asking is whether they're in control of that process to some degree, and i'm answering that i'd be surprised if they weren't. they're both pretty slick. as opposed to, say, chris rice, who wrote "the candle song" and "come to jesus" and "my tree." his stuff is strangely affecting (those three in particular) in the manner of folk songs. but in all our conversations about it, he indicates that he doesn't give much thought to the musical art of it, and i think that shows in the manner of the final products of both these people. (not that the redmans are superior to rice; just more polished and knowledgeable craftsmen.)

on the other hand, that may all be hooey.