For many fans of music that have grown weary of the auto-tuned tedium of the current pop scene, the unexpected rise of Mumford and Sons has come as a much-needed and welcome breath of fresh air. Bursting onto the scene in 2009, their debut album, Sigh No More, was a gritty, literate and yet oddly jubilant affair that quickly climbed the charts and earned the band a passionate and devoted following. All at once, Marcus Mumford and his neo-folk bandmates were different from everything else that was happening in popular music. And because of this, many saw fit to straddle them with the unenviable task of saving popular music from the likes of Lady Gaga and her image-first peers.
In that way, it is not terribly unfair to say that Mumford and Sons occupies a similar ground to that which was held by Nirvana in the early 1990s. For just as Nirvana rode the raw, underground success of Bleach to the studio-crafted heights of Nevermind, so too does it appear that Mumford will be following the unpolished Sigh No More with a more finely tuned, and carefully crafted Babel.
In my first post in this series , I attempted to unpack the lyrics of U2′s classic track, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” I began there because it was in the lyrics of that song that I found my way back to a faith in the atoning work of Jesus the Christ; and because it seems to me that we need to open this discussion of doubt amongst believers. Having said that, there is a genuine danger in allowing the reader to falsely conclude that all doubt, such as that expressed by U2, is a search on a long, heroic quest. While that may be true to the experience of some believers in some circumstances, there is another, darker side of that coin that I suspect is behind most of the doubts that overwhelm us. To help me illustrate my point, I want to introduce you to a song called “Get Me Right” by Dashboard Confessional. Might I suggest you play the video as you read through the lyrics that follow.
Click to enlarge the lyric sheet
Much like the opening verses of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” the narrator of this song is on a journey. Only here, he’s not looking for Jesus Himself, he’s looking for someone else that can point the way to Jesus. And this, of course, brings me to my first point. How often, in the midst of doubt, do we find ourselves unable to actually engage the one we doubt? How often do we go looking for all sorts of other places were we can talk about our doubt, but not actually deal with it in a one to one fashion. It’s as if a wife suspects her husband of marital infidelity, but instead of approaching him, she runs to all her friends asking them if they’ve seen anything? At the core of our being, we were designed for relationship; and at the core of any relationship lies the ability to effectively communicate. When we make the decision not to talk directly to the source of our doubts, we make a choice for ruptured communication, which almost inevitably leads towards a further fracturing of the relationship itself.
Now look towards the end of the song. Do you see how the writer has shifted away from describing the journey and talking to his friend? Do you see how he now begins to talk directly with Jesus? Look at the difference in the lyrics. In the first half of the song, the singer is building up the courage to talk, nervously commenting about the woods and the stairs leading up to the house and his friend’s recent hair cut. But when he actually engages in prayer, the lyrics ascend to new heights of transparency. Now, face-to-face with the one he doubts, he can unleash everything he is feeling.
What do you think? Do you think that doubt can be lessened by talking directly to the One that you doubt? Or is that asking too much of the individual who is struggling to believe?
Last week, we began our journey through the advent season by taking a look at an early Christian hymn, penned over 2000 years ago. If you haven’t read the post, you can find it here at: Advent 2011: The Slave Who Refused to Rape. Now, as we make our way through the second week of Advent of the Christ, I want to introduce to you another song called “I Believe in Father Christmas.” While many of you may be familiar with the original version of this tune, written by Greg Lake and Peter Sinifield in the 1970s, I want to acquaint you with a more recent version that was only released two years ago. I want you to take a listen to this updated version by U2 in the player below, and as you do so, I’d like for you to follow along with the lyrics. See if you can figure out what the song is about.
They said there’d be snow at Christmas
They said there’d be peace on Earth
But instead it just keeps on raining
A veil of tears for the virgin’s birth
I remember on Christmas morning
A winters light and a distant choir
And the peal of a bell, that Christmas tree smell
and eyes full of tinsel and fire
They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a Silent Night
And sold me a fairy story
But I believed in the Israelite
I believed in Father Christmas
I looked to the sky with excited eyes
‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise
I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
May all anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart, let your road be clear
They said there’dbe snow at Christmas
They said there’d be peace on Earth
Hallelujah, Noel be it Heaven or Hell
The Christmas we get we deserve.
If this is your first time hearing this tune, you might not realize how subversive the lead singer of U2 is being with the lyrics. Take a look again at the second verse. In the original version, the lyrics read as follows:
They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a Silent Night
And they told me a fairy story ‘Til I believed in the Israelite
And I believed in Father Christmas
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes
‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise
When Greg Lake and Peter Sinifield set out protest the commercialization of Christmas, they did so as two men who were grieving the loss of childhood innocence and belief. For them, the values of Christmas, which included forgiveness and acceptance, had been buried under a mountain of mythology that included everything from “Father Christmas” to “fairy stories” to “the Israelite,” Himself. But when it came time for U2 to cover this song, at the launch of the online subscription service, RedWire, Bono found that he could not sing these lyrics. For Bono, “the Israelite” is no myth. So instead of singing “Til I believed in the Israelite,” he subtly altered the lyric and sang: “But I believed in the Israelite.” Do you see the difference?
For Lake and Sinifield, the Christian story is just one more story in a series of lies that we tell our children. But for Bono, “the Israelite” is not in question. “The Israelite” is the very source of forgiveness, and it is His story that must stand out amidst all of the false claims that are made in a season of myths and half-truths.
Now go back to the 2:04 mark of the video above. Listen to how he elevates his voice into a falsetto, setting this segment of the song apart. In the original version by Lake, the vocalization is the same throughout the entirety of the piece. But Bono is trying something different here. The song is going to conclude with a choice between Heaven or Hell and the listener is going to “get what we deserve.” By rising into the falsetto immediately before this choice is to be made, Bono highlights a set of lyrics that call upon the rich imagery of Isaiah 40:3, a text used every year during the season of Advent.
“Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight road through the wasteland for our God!”
Quite remarkable, isn’t it? Here, in a song that is sick with despair over the false stories that govern our lives, Bono asks the listener to cut through the wasteland and a make “clear road” for the way Lord.
And so, in this season of consumption, in this season of falsehoods and “fairy stories,” I say to you:
I wish you a hopeful Christmas.
I wish you a brave New Year.
May all anguish, pain, and sadness
Leave your heart, and let your road be clear.
For many fans of music that have grown weary of the auto-tuned tedium of the current pop scene, the unexpected rise of Mumford and Sons has come as a much-needed and welcome breath of fresh air. Bursting onto the scene in 2009, their debut album, Sigh No More, was a gritty, literate and yet oddly jubilant affair that quickly climbed the charts and earned the band a passionate and devoted following. All at once, Marcus Mumford and his neo-folk bandmates were different from everything else that was happening in popular music. And because of this, many saw fit to straddle them with the unenviable task of saving popular music from the likes of Lady Gaga and her image-first peers.
