Spirit In The Sky

When I die and I lay me to rest, I’m going to go to the place that’s best

What a great song! Originally written and released by Norman Greenbaum in 1969, this has become a rock standard, with other cover versions by Doctor and the Medics and Gareth Gates . Greenbaum (who was raised Jewish) apparently wrote the song in about fifteen minutes, blending some generic gospel sentiments from music he had heard on TV with wording that he had spotted on a greetings card about native American beliefs. Greenbaum had been a working musician in the folk style for years, playing with Dr. West’s Medicine Show & Junk Band, who released the novelty song ‘The Eggplant That Ate Chicago’. It looks fair to say that the religious message of the Spirit In The Sky did not draw on the composer’s deep personal convictions. And yet …

Something about it captured a popular sentiment – a lingering hope for life in the hereafter based on half-remembered Christian beliefs; Greenbaum says Spirit In The Sky is still one of the most requested songs for use at funerals. Now, over fifty years after the original release, the song is used as a clap along crowd pleaser as in this performance by Evol Walks.

There is a complicated interaction between the composer’s original, conscious intent and the influences received during the writing and created by the performance. Then, much later. the song is performed by someone else in a different situation and the song gains a new meaning for that time, place, performer and audience. When Greenbaum wrote the song in late 60’s America, there was ongoing racial tensions and other civil rights campaigns, the background nuclear terror of the Cold War, the triumph of the moon landing, the Woodstock festival and the grinding horror of the ongoing Vietnam war.

So maybe the song is a real prayer, if you make it a real prayer for you. I hope you do.

Your kindness and love will always be with me each day of my life, and I will live for ever in your house, LORD. Psalm 23.

If The World Was Ending

We interrupt your programming – this is a national emergency …

I’ve been pondering this song for a while, first hearing it on the radio as I headed to work. What would I do if the world was ending? Where would I go? Who would I contact? Who would be first in my mind? The singer seems to be filled with insecurity, “you would come over, right?” He seems prepared to throw all caution to the wind, but he’s not quite sure she feels the same way.

This Covid 19 Lockdown has caused many of us to reflect on life and how we spend our days. I have certainly gone from being on the road meeting and speaking to new people daily, to staying at home and talking to a very limited number of people. We know that the world isn’t ending, but there is a sense that life has changed and so have priorities. When disaster strikes, in times of crisis, will someone be there for me and with me? How will I choose to prioritise things that want my attention?

If the world was ending….what? There is a common phrase “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” which crops up a few times in the Bible. The one story comes to mind of a rich landowner who stored up immense riches intending to just sit back and enjoy himself having more than enough for years to come. That night he died…it was the end and he would never enjoy all the wealth he had gathered. (Luke 12 v 19)

If the world was ending…what? Would I just eat, drink and be merry? In Covid-19 am I just eating, drinking and being merry or is there another response?

No Roots

Ask me where i come from, I’ll say a different land

‘Roots’ has so many meanings – family history, the place where you grew up, the community you are in now, or the culture you were once part of – which might not be the same as your current beliefs and lifestyle.

Can you ever really go back to your roots? Your childhood friends have moved on, your parents will pass away, your home town looks small, and your own ideas about life develop while the whole the world keeps changing. Even if you had some roots once, you can’t ever really find them again.

We are all lost in the universe and the universe doesn’t care. That’s existential angst for you. Alice Moreton is singing about the way we all want those roots, and our sadness at not having them. But I think she has the answer too.

There are many stories in the Bible of people who left home, migrated, sometimes as refugees or captives. The collective yearnings (spread over centuries) are summarised in this passage, Hebrews 11.13-16 where the writer says people “agreed that they were only strangers and foreigners on this earth … but they were looking forward to a better home in heaven”.

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground

Dancing

When I go out, I want to go out dancing

Well, what a star – literally glittering! Kylie Minogue OBE – singer, songwriter and actress also known as ‘the Princess of Pop’ has won every music award there is. She started her career acting in the Australian soap opera Neighbours and since the 1980s has performed around the globe and sold over 70 million records worldwide, becoming the highest-selling Australian artist of all time.

Over the years she has kept audiences excited as she developed her image from girl-next-door through Japanese geisha and disco diva to an all round performer whose elaborate stage shows incorporate vivid burlesque fashion styles. The joyous escapism and camp humour has also attracted an appreciative gay following.

In terms of artistic and commercial success she had it all. Then a personal tragedy struck. In 2005 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have surgery and chemotherapy. She survived and went on to work again after a break, although she is reported to have described the treatment as “like experiencing a nuclear bomb.”

This is why this song means so much to me. My dear late wife went through similar trauma. She had breast cancer, the full treatment, recovered and lived normally for years, but then there was a final recurrence. The illness made us both realise that we are all living on borrowed time and how we need to make the most of life while we can.

Everybody’s got a story

Let it be your blaze of glory

Burning bright, never fade away

And when the final curtain falls, we could say we did it all

The never ending of a perfect day

The lyrics of the hook line can be read in two ways. “When I go out, I want to go out dancing” can just mean “when I leave the house for entertainment, I like to go dancing”. But I think there is a much more poignant way to understand it. “When I die, I want to know that I have lived my life as fully as I could, until the very end.”

But what does it really mean, to have lived life to the full? Is it to get rich and to have been a successful consumer of life’s pleasures? Perhaps these words will help us find an answer.

God Control

this is your wake-up call

Who are the prophets of today? How does God talk to us all?

Here is Madonna as Madame X, but with both her eyes open (hmm) in a work of art that I’ve categorised as ‘experimental’, as it blends the forms of song and film and the character as observer and participant, victim and survivor. The specific subject of mass shootings and inadequate gun control is particular to the USA and Madame X speaks into that situation as loudly as anyone could. I think she is fulfilling her duty as an artist, which is to help people see something they can’t or won’t see.

I’m fascinated by the title of the song and the personal theology that might lie behind it. Is she saying “we don’t need to control guns, we need to control bad people who use them, and God must do this for us all, because we can’t?” – in other words a kind of prayer. It’s certainly a lament “We lost God control”. Surely she’s not saying that God used to generally keep things in pretty good shape, but then s/he has ‘let go’ of us all lately? Or is it just a reference to the way formal religion has historically been a means of social control?

So who will take any our sins and save us from ourselves?

Shockwave

“Everything will be OK in the end
and if it ain’t OK, then it ain’t the end

This is what swagger sounds like! The lyrics read suspiciously like a replay of the well publicized antagonism between the Gallagher brothers. The video certainly seems to be a message of accusation, retribution and finality – burning things down.

Here is Liam – on a journey, striding through the rust belt, the ghost towns and the civil unrest. Is this how he sees his inner life, or is it a message for society at large, or for us all as individuals? The words seem to warn of old-style Catholic purgatory:

You’re gonna burn until you behave

Maybe the shame will open your eyes

Perhaps he is being prophetic and warning of the inevitable consequences of the betrayal of relationships and of truth, whether personal or in society. Here’s a positive message in the Bible:

It is truly wonderful
when relatives live together
in peace

Psalm 133

Price Tag

Jessie J on top form here, showing how you can create a great performance with just a song, a voice and a guitar – inspiration for solo players everywhere.

I think this song is a manifesto anthem for everyone who feels that their music is some kind of calling or vocation. Here are the lyrics.

It’s not about the money, money, money
We don’t need your money, money, money
We just wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the price tag

Here’s some wisdom about money from the Bible in 1 Timothy.

look for the magic money tree!

How I Got Over

“I’m gonna thank Jesus for all he’s done for me”

A white man sings a black woman’s song – written and first made famous by Clara Ward in 1951 then later recorded by Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

Musically, this is a departure for the band which normally plays in a rock / blues style a bit like early Rolling Stones, though this song clearly uses the strength of Gary Stringer’s vocal delivery. I wonder what it means to them – is is just a rousing tune, or does it touch their soul? Is it worship or just performance? Listening carefully it seems that the name of Jesus in the original lyrics has been deliberately left out in this rendering, although the religious clues are still there – ‘soul’, ‘man who made me free, who bled and suffered’, ‘hallelujah’.

As originally written, the song is pure black American gospel where the ideas of religious salvation – being converted or ‘saved’ – is mixed up with the black civil rights struggle which itself looked back to the emancipation of the American slaves. So the song is built around thanks for liberation and a bright future hope ultimately in heaven, or symbolically the New Jerusalem – described in the Bible in the book of Revelation 21:1-7.

Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself

learn to forgive, learn to let go | everyone trips, everyone falls
don’t be so hard on yourself, no

In this competitive world of performance appraisals, credit ratings and social media ‘likes’ we need a better way to maintain our human dignity. It is too easy to internalise the message that we must be better, must do more – essentially that we are not good enough. Hence the message of this song which I think is from God and which I need to hear too.

The Bible tends to look at the world through a lens of morality rather than self-esteem and mental health. There is a story of Jesus healing a man of his blindness, after the disciples had helpfully enquired “whose fault is it that he’s blind – his own or his parents?” Perhaps the poor man had been asking himself the same question all his life.

Here’s mud in your eye!

Yaar-e Bamyani

Well every day is a school day here at Hotlips House so it’s time to introduce Afghanistan’s number one female singer, Aryana Sayeed. If you like Led Zeppelin (think Kashmir) you’ll love the beats in this.

The video is an encapsulation of the spirit of modernity and independent womanhood (remember Malala Yousafzai). It opens in a classic southern USA style with the sound of banjo (possibly) and handclaps and Aryana wearing boots, blue jeans and shades jumping out of the back of a pickup truck. It’s also a travelogue for what is clearly a beautiful and historic country. Very interestingly, there is a sequence starting at about 1:05 where she is singing at the site of the Buddhas of Bamyan which were dynamited by the Taliban in 2001 – I think she is making a statement.

She’s singing in Persian, and I had to do some digging to find the lyrics: Mr Google’s automatic translation didn’t seem to capture the full nuance. You can read them here but it’s basically a love song by someone who adores her loved one, but is missing him and doesn’t know when he will return.

Cut to the sauciest book in the Bible, the Song of Songs which is a poetic drama sung between two lovers who frankly can’t get enough of each other. It’s quite short – just over five pages in my printed copy and worth a read from one end to the other. It’s got love and longing, kissing and fruity innuendo. Enjoy!

“Hurry to me, my darling! Run faster than a deer to the mountain of spices.”