Everyday Encounter...
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POV: You're one of Jesus' female followers, and you've managed to get your hands on our current androcentric Bible... Frustratingly, and in contradiction to your experience of Jesus, here's how you read your story told by a patriarchal society:
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POV: You're a donkey with dreams of grandeur at having been picked to carry "the king" down unknown roads and into the fanfare... Here's what you imagine: I don't listen to the radio in the car at the moment. It's normally audio books. Sometimes I get in the car and the radio is on though. I have no idea how my car radio picks stations, but somehow it's been "Capital" recently. Anyway, I jumped in the car and this version of this song was playing: As I listened to it I imagined it was blending the story of Jesus with someone absorbed in a "night out" culture.
When I got home I decided to look up the lyrics and see if there was an acoustic version I might appreciate more musically. Here's what I found: I sang this song live and acoustic for a lunch time recital last week. I won't subject you to a version of me singing it.
Having spent hours listening to it, trying to find a key where I could sing the whole range, and practising it endlessly, I think I still like it. But what's it about!? It seems it's a fairly mixed, messed up and damaging journey, including trying and failing, but ultimately somehow still singing, albeit with eyes open. I wonder if we get to the point where we're wrecked we can still sing? This one was another "I know that voice..." moment.
It just goes to show that when algorithms work they'll point you to voices that you know and appreciate! I am looking forward to this album. The two tracks I've heard so far I have really liked. This one speaks to where I am right now, and where the future might lead... I can't work out whether this song ends with the outcome I want it to or not though! At the very least I feel like there's a commitment to making it work. What do you think? Ever have one of those moments where you start listening to a song and you kind of recognise the voice but it just doesn't quite fit with the music you're hearing?
My friend Sarah introduced me to the Arctic Monkeys way back when she got their first album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" before they properly made it big. And then I kept up with them into the second album, but after that they drifted off my radar. Coming back into listening in 2022 with "The Car" I realised I'd missed a lot. There was a whole musical journey that had gone on in the four albums in between! The voice was the same, but the rest of it left me thinking that I ain't quite where I think I am! Anti-heroes are complicated and misunderstood... And I find them fascinating!
Are they heroes? Don't they kind of look a lot like the villain? Do the ends really justify the means? A while ago I did a podcast with a friend of mine thinking about the "Black Adam" film and theology, and I talked a bit about anti-heroes there. But what about me? "You're always trying to see yourself through the eyes of someone else" There's a degree of pressure on us when we do that.
To “hold a mirror up to" is a phrase meaning “to take a look at oneself objectively to examine or reflect on things (issues) stemming from the reality of reflection; to reveal to someone about the way they look (differently) to the rest of the world (so that they can reflect upon themselves); expose, show up, bring to light (some (unpleasant) aspects to oneself)”. Community done badly holds up images of the ideal alongside the mirror and tells us all the ways we don't measure up. Sometimes songs just get an "AMEN!" This is one of those. And I think it speaks for itself as a song... I'm not sure what I can add! Anyone else feel it? They say that ignorance is bliss.
Sometimes we'd rather close our eyes and have everything go away. Perhaps if we sleep things will be better when we wake. Someone will have magically fixed the problem. I guess this song just draws together the thoughts that I've already had with "Bridge over troubled water" and "Eyes of a child". |
Every-Day EncounterIf you'd rather listen and come to your own conclusions about the eclectic mix of songs I worked through in Lent 2023, here's the Spotify Playlist! Archives
September 2023
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