Tag: lyrics

Logophilia

On By Daniel DavidsonIn LifeThoughts, personal1 Comment

Many things. that were magical and interesting to me as a child, now seem rather dull and merely two-dimensional. The magic box, which can make coins dissapear, turns out to be just a cardboard and glass trinket when the mirrors are exposed. It was full of surpise when I saw it as a child, but now it is common and predictable.

Over the last few days I’ve been considering one area that seems ever deeper, more mysterious, and more beautiful with each passing year.

Language.

I listened, some months ago, to a reading of Martin Luther King Jr.’s open letter from Birmingham Jail. King was a master of his words, and even with other voices reading his letter, you still hear his voice, and it is so intimate that I can begin to feel he was actually talking to me.

There is a deeper story told, a theme, one that weaves its way through every paragraph and each adjective of a well designed writing. Even a scientific journal article can be a work of art when it is elegant and uncompromising. A well written ballad, like came from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1964 in As Tears Go By, with it’s three short verses, tells a very long story indeed about the fleeting nature of our lives and the human experience.

Having the ability to speak, having the wonderful gift of literacy, and the incredible opportunity afforded me, in this very laptop and blog, to share my thoughts with the world is the real Promethean gift. James warned us in his timeless letter that “the tongue is a fire….”

So let us each carry this flame wisely. Neither consumed by it, nor burying it, but rather using it for the edification of many.

Story in Song

On By Daniel DavidsonIn LifeThoughts, Music, StoriesLeave a comment

Bob Dylan was able to tell an entire story in just a few lines of verse. It’s an absolutely beautiful thing. Take the first verse of The Times They Are a Changin.

A repetitious and technically basic guitar strumming carries the song. It is just fast enough to make you to cause some internal tension, but it never sounds rushed. He calls out far and wide “come gather ’round people wherever you roam” and asks them to reevaluate their position in society and in life “and admit that the waters around you have grown”.

He spends just a little extra time to draw out his question – “if your time to you is worth saving” and follows it rapidly with his own answer “then you better start swimmin or you’ll sink like a stone”, but this game of question and answer is just a lead up to what he really wants to say. “The times they are a changin”, which he accents with a blast from his harmonica. This is the centerpiece of all of the song.

That is a truly outstanding level of storytelling. Bob is compelling and leaves you with a chill, and the entire song is less barely over three minutes long.

However, today I also want to talk about another artist, and a specific song that has blessed me many times, and just yesterday I was singing it very loudly in the truck. It has such a well-crafted first verse, that can be written in two distinct, yet equally true and beautiful, ways.

Consider the first verse – “I am weary with the pain of Jacob’s wrestling, in the darkness with a fear” – describing the state of being and then referencing this very famous story immediately gives us an entire perspective on that state. Not just weary, but weary as one would be after years of self-seeking and deceiving family members, years of living in fear, working incredibly hard for a goal only to be conned out of it by his own uncle. And then the next line in the song is magnificently written – because it can be written in two distinct ways and either way is completely accurate.

Option 1. “But He met the mourning-wounded with a blessing, so in the night, my hope lives on”. I take this to mean that He (Christ) met the mourning and wounded man (Jacob) with a blessing. As you know in the story, Jacob wrestled all night long and would not let go of Christ, and his (Jacob’s) hip was thrown out of socket and he received a blessing, a new name, from Christ. Therefore the hope of the songwriter lives on because even though he may be wounded and mourning, Christ will bless him in due time.

Option 2. “But he met the morning, wounded, with a blessing, so in the night my hope lives on”. Reading it this way, I can see a focus on Jacob wrestling all night long, and not letting go. He (Jacob) made it all night long, and even though he was wounded, he received a blessing when the morning came. In this case the songwriter takes heart in remembering the suffering of Jacob, now and his hope will live through the night because he has the example of Jacob to remember.

I don’t know which way Andrew Peterson thinks of when he sings this song, but it blesses me as it is.