Lyrical La-La Land

At the risk of belaboring a point, I’ve decided to continue with some thoughts from my last post. In my last post I was expressing my frustration with the seeming lack of attention to diction that is so prevalent in Christian music, particularly in the Christian rock style. I suppose I should be upfront and candidly admit that I’ve never been a fan of intense electric-guitar/drum driven music. It seems that a switch just simply flips in my brain that causes me to zone out after about the first minute – in other words, it all starts sounding the same. I realize that is probably not entirely a fair thing to say – I get the same comments from students in my Music Appreciation class here at Gateway. Largely made up of students who have never heard a symphony, much less sat through a two-hour concert of purely instrumental music, I can sympathize with their glazed expressions that appear after about five minutes of a twenty-five minute piece!

But, back to my not being a fan of Christian rock. The illustrious creator of this fine website has asked me to do a few reviews lately of new albums by some new and some established artists. I’ll admit that I have enjoyed a few, but more often that not, I’ve found that I had to force myself to listen, and not just because I had to concentrate to understand the words. When I listen to a song I want to know exactly what it had to say and to hear a specific message. I need rise and fall, tension, climax and resolution. And this doesn’t just apply to classical music. (One of my favorite writers/artists is Michael O’Brien. I especially enjoy his music for that very reason – I know what he’s had to say and feel as though I’ve been taken on a journey through emotion and thought.) Further, if the album is labeled “Christian,” I expect to hear a Christian message.

The point is…..

So here’s the point: if I have to read the label, the lyrics, the credits, the “thank-you’s,” or the label name in order to decide if it is, in fact, a Christian album, then something is wrong. If the entire CD never mentions God, Jesus or any other Christian principle, it makes me question the intent and the goal of the album. The reason this concerns me is simple. If I were someone searching for God and I picked up a CD like this, would I realize that what I was searching for was God? Or would I just hear a positive message and continue to seek answers and resolution from every source except God? Yes, I agree we need positive, “yes, you can do it” messages, but I fear that we are often leaving out the source from which the strength “to do it” comes.