Parsing Popular Song Lyrics

So many catchy tunes, music, as always in history, a central experience for the vast majority of humans...

This week have you avoided humming a song, or its instrumentation and lyrics playing in the background of your mind as you worked or relaxed or tended to the family and other concerns,
long after the actual musical experience had passed?

Doubtful.

And, then there are multi-millions of us humans who wallow in music in a wondrously deep way, captivated to the wiles of countless songs.

Who live in music like fish in water;-)

Which brings me to step aside from the recent political, philosophical, and religious articles...let's take a close look at a few current song lyrics, the only form of poetry most people ever engage in, and memorize with gusto, and carry like pulsating gems in their inner pocket.

Here's one that's a keeper even though the lyrics themselves aren't original, or creative--just your basic true love song.
However, unlike many modern songs the focus isn't on the male singer's selfish wants, or the physical characteristics of his sweetheart,
but on how her love is helping him to be a better person!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBZWsIq0w24

BETTER TODAY
BY Coffey Anderson

[Verse:]
To see your face, to hear your voice
And oh, to touch you is a dream come true
So I'm standing here, with my hand held out
Knowing that your love will never fade, I stand amazed without a doubt

My Commentary:
1. Beauty of the consonance of "face" and "voice" and "hear" and "your" are powerful even though the verse is almost greeting-card simple.
2. Pledge of fidelity in the last line even if unrealistic given that almost half of all marriages in end in divorce.

[Chorus:]
And I wanna hear your voice, in the morning when I rise
I think I know I'm just a normal man, only made of sand except when you're by my side
Will you love me, teach me, don't leave me I pray
And when I, and I'm thinking of the times
Your hands in mine, together we will stay
You made me better today
Better than I was before
And now my heart can rest and I will search no more
You made me better today, today, today

1. "Sand" plays sound-wise with "made" and "man," (consonance, again, and near rhyme), but what does it mean?
Rather intriguing. Maybe a take off from man of clay or earth?

So maybe Anderson is alluding to a spiritual/ethical element, about how his finance brings out the best in him?

[Verse 2:]
My heart has wings
Oh you take me away
And every prayer I've ever prayed was answered today
So I'm standing here, with my hand held out
Knowing that my love will never leave
My hearts on my sleeve and now I believe

1. "Heart has wings" is rather a common and traditional metaphor, but seems to work.
2. The repeated emphasis of his "hand" and her "hands" seems to emphasize the equality and commitment and permanence of their relationship.
3. Nice repeat/change of "heart." And the focus of "on my sleeve"--his honesty, transparency, and openness.
4. The repetition of religious terms including "prayer" and "I believe" gets a bit tiring,
though such language is often associated with romantic love in music tradition. What comes to mind is "I'm a Believer," by the Monkees, or "You Still Believe in Me" by the Beach Boys.

[Chorus:]
And I wanna hear your voice in the morning when I rise
I think I know I'm just a normal man, only made of sand except when you're by my side
Will you love me, teach me, don't leave me I pray
And when I, and I'm thinking of the times
Your hands in mine, together we will stay
You made me better today
Better than I was before
And now my heart can rest and I will search no more
You made me better today

[Verse 3:]
I stand proclaimed, true love is here to stay
I stand proclaimed, forever starts today
Today...
You made me better today
Than I was before
And now my heart can rest and I will search no more
Cuz you made me better today, than I was before
And now my heart can rest
And I will search no more
You made me better today
Today...
Made me better today.

--Written by Coffey Anderson, Mike Mani, Jordan Omley
--


In the Light of beautiful music,

Daniel Wilcox

Heaven and Hell

The Beginning and the End, the Ancient of Days, the Satan, the Height and the Depth, Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Sheep versus the Goats, the Third and Seventh Heavens, the Heavens of the Heavens, the New Jerusalem, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, the Alpha and Omega--what do all these eschatological words mean?

I've got the theological tomes The Flame that Consumes, The Dogma of Hell, The Sovereignty of God, Heaven, on and on, but here I am at 62 full of endless head notions theorized by countless theologians who've never been to either Heaven or Hell, so I am not going to regurgitate their speculations, at least not yet.

Instead, let's dive into Jesus' vivid imaged words. And remember, Jesus speaks in symbols, metaphors, and hyperbole. He is mainly concerned with our motives and actions of goodness, not how theologically, doctrinally correct we might be. After all the Scribes, knew the Bible better than any living humans yet they failed to live loving lives.

Also, let's try to forget everything we've heard or read about the End of Things. Too often people take Jesus literally and thus miss his message altogether. Too often the Good News Jesus came to declare and give to all has become bad news of the worst sort, even downright evil.

Matthew 5:29-30: "And if your right eye causes you to sin," Jesus says, "gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna."

One extreme statement of Jesus' many extremist statements. But what does it mean? The first point to see, based on an understanding of Jewish imagery is that Jesus is not talking literally. Beside, no disciple in the New Testament is ever spoken of having actually gouged out his eye or cut off his hand.

If Jesus is not speaking in prose, not in legal terms, then what is the message?

And what is Gehenna?

What ever Jesus is saying, it can't be what a lot of religious people (Christians and Muslims) mean when they speak of God hating sinners and destining them to Hell. Many Christian and Muslim leaders even claim that God preordained most humans to eternal damnation before the beginning of Time!

But in the same section of Scripture as Jesus' Gehenna statement, Jesus says we are to love our enemies like God loves all humans, that indeed to love others is the way toward perfection:
"I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteoous...Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect."

Yes, God loves us deeply, limitlessly and is not willing that any individual should perish (11 Peter 3:9).

But what of Hell then? What is Gehenna for if not for humans as the Catholics and Reformers, and Muslims, and other claim?

First, Jesus' words in Matthew 25:41 say "the eternal fire" was prepared for the eternal destruction of evil (the devil and his messengers). And later in the New Testament, it says"the Lake of Fire" was prepared for the destruction of Death!

So why then does Jesus speak of individuals who don't help the poor and the hungry and the persecuted as being told to "depart" into the eternal fire?

Because when humans refuse goodness, even embrace evil, they identify with evil. And evil is bound for destruction if there is any justice in the Cosmos.

Another way of perceiving this is the outlook of Eastern Orthodox theology which emphasizes that God (like Scripture says) is a "consuming fire." The Orthodox church says God is the fire of eternal love which purifies and redeems all who willingly live in love.

In contrast humans who focus on, live in, selfishness, greed, lust, hate, and revenge--are consumed by those evil actions and cannot experience God's love as purifying because they refuse to love the truth.

Also, keep in mind none of this is literal! How could Death be thrown into Hell? That doesn't make any rational sense; it's not a factual statement of prose, of science. We are speaking here of spiritual truth in the language of metaphor and imagery.

But even beyond this, some followers of Jesus (such as Origen, C. S. Lewis, William Barclay, Keith Ward, etc.) have deep hope that since God is perfect love, that God will never give up on even the most evil-choosing humans, the ones utterly given to the seven deadly acts of depravity. Hopefully, at some distant point in eternity, even the most rebellious and reprehensible will come finally to the truth and be saved.


Let us look briefly into this term Gehenna.

To be continued

In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox