rhettoric

dano45:

The list must include the following:

-Everyday sedan for commuting and taking the kids to soccer practice.

-SUV for off-roading or comfort or both.

-American Muscle Car

-Supercar 

-Reasonably Priced Car (under $18k new, or $15k used)

-Vintage (pre-1980)

The remaining 4 cars can be anything at all. I’ll have my list up in the next few days.

“If music is a mirror revealing the depths of my heart, then I will write the darkest song…”

Music is my favorite gift from God. The absolute coolest idea, in my opinion, that He ever had. It has gotten me through, into, and out of some of the best, worst, and most normal times of my life. It has summed up all my musings, questions, answers, problems, jests, observations, and feelings for the past 2 decades. And a lot of the things I listen to are older than I am.

But one particular line stands out to me. The words to a metalcore song “Within Destruction” by the Christian band As I Lay Dying, quoted above, have pushed me to think on this gift more than any other words. I started to think about music as a mirror. I often ask people “So, who do you listen to?” and know that I can gain insight to their life by their answers about their favorite bands.  And I know the favorite bands of all my friends. Because music, whether we realize it or not, is a mirror. A mirror which reflects our thoughts about life, death, love, hate, what we value, and equally what we deem stupid. (How easy is it to find a song bashing something? I have plenty — 3 different songs all railing against overbearing bosses, just for an example) But I do not wish to make the same point that the singer of “Within Destruction” makes, merely, as we all often do, to take an idea he has given me and to run with it.

“Memorize every word, scrutinize every line…”

I have songs written by men who were high when they wrote them. I have words of several atheists in my head. I own albums by groups that believe in God and love Him, and ones that hate Him. I have songs whose meanings I can never fully comprehend, about the perils of a black man in America, or a woman in the city, or a poor family in the Middle East. I have songs written in another language than English. Greek, Spanish, Portugese, even Swedish. I have no idea what they are saying sometimes, and when I do, I often disagree wholeheartedly.

But I listen.

I listen because they said it. Sometimes I listen because it has a good beat, and they said it, or it’s one of my favorite guitar licks of all time and Oh man that solo is so cool did you hear that he is AMAZING! But still, they wrote it, so I listen. Not often do I agree; the music in my iTunes which has an open or subtle Christian message does not make up more than 20% of my library, and I lament that often, because I love a lot of that music.

BUT!

The other 80%? It’s everything you could sing about. It is about the blood of Jesus (Johnny Cash), how much I want to get it on with you (Bob Marley), how painful your death will be (Slayer), how much better of a rapper I am than you are (Eminem), how cool I am (Outkast), how much I hate my job (David Allen Coe), how much I love you (Beyonce, Whitney Houston, Led Zeppelin, Regina Spektor, Stevie Ray Vaughan) how much fun it is to be high (Cypress Hill), how drunk I was last night (Ke$ha), how many guns I have (50 Cent), how much bigger my guns are than yours (50 Cent, again), how angry I am at social injustice (Cavalera Conspiracy, Flobots), or anything else (12 Stones, Amon Amarth, As Cities Burn, White Stripes, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Frank Sinatra, Iwrestledabearonce; it goes on)

These people have a message! I’ve always wondered why we can’t all listen to the same music! I listen to all of it, not to brag, but because I want to know what they have to say. I listen to country, and hear of the broken hearted, I hear love ballads and drinking songs. Which is also what I hear in in rock, the heavier side of which says a lot of the same things metal does (rocking out is awesome, war rocks, war sucks, you suck, I rock….Ok, i generalize) and metal and rap are often agreeable about some things as far as power and wealth are concerned. Now that’s not much less materialistic than the guns and drugs they sing about, but sometimes the songs are about Jesus and love. And women. Which you can definitely find in swing music. And reggae. Lots of love for women and Jah in reggae. And weed, which kind of permeates all the genres on some level.

Now look how long this is already. I haven’t even MENTIONED Blues. I’ve said nothing of rockabilly, of Britpop, or acapella. Which says to me that this magic mirror that music makes is massive and that we are all saying the same things. Sinful things, most of the time, but a common thread of humanity, if you just take time to gaze in the mirror.