8.31.2006

Song 'o the Season

My iPod Nano has revo - lution - ized my music listening habits (thanks kids!). It gets me up close and personal, and I can take it to work, where my job affords me lots of listening time. As a result, I'm listening to all kindsa stuff -- old and new.

If life is measured in seasons, seasons are measured in songs. At various stages of our lives, songs drift in and out, nudging their way into our mental archives, joining other tunes in a mystical / emotional repository. (This is why I can rarely listen to Here I am to Worship, by Tim Hughes, without bawling.)

Anyway, I recently purchased The Flaming Lips' new album, At War With the Mystics. I've been wanting to give The Lips a listen and have so enjoyed the album that I bought an earlier one, The Soft Bulletin. The sound is quite novel -- orchestral, sixties psychedelia, a kind of poppy Pink Floyd. The lyrics are idiosyncratic, unconvential and anything but run-of-the-mill.

So the first song on their new album has been embedded in my brain for the last month. It's a quirky, breezy, hilarous, and utterly addictive diddy entitled, The Yeah Yeah Song. The first stanza goes like this:

If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everybody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?

And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do
With all your power...
What would you do?

You can listen to the song at the Lips' website, and I recommend you do. I'm not sure how this song fits with, Here I Am to Worship, but it's in my brainpan now. Perhaps this is my Yeah, Yeah season...

4 comments:

Ame said...

I like those lyrics ... they kinda slap you in the face ... "so you say you would ... but would you really?" They sum up what we think we would do if we were god ... but would we really do it?

Then ... the real deal ... what the Real God did and does ... The God who stepped down into the darkness of my life and opened my eyes so I could see His beauty which causes me to fall on my face in worship with gratitude of a life privaleged to spend with the Creator of the universe, the Exalted One who became poor in humility born out of love ... for us ... for me.

The selfishness juxtaposed with the sacrifice.

We might think we know ... but we never will ... the cost far beyond any realm we can fathom ... for us ... for me.

lindaruth said...

I understand about the iPod -- I listen to mine on the long van-ride to work, when I'm writing, just whenever. I've been discovering new music, too, partly thanks to my kids (but that's always been the case).

I've never listened to The Flaming Lips (though I've always loved the name) -- I may need to check them out now.

michael snyder said...

This really is a good CD. Don't know if I've mentioned it to you before or not, but check out Margot & The Nuclear So And So's. And don't let the silly name fool you (or the fact that they use the F-bomb in the chorus of one song).

Mike

Heather Smith said...

That does sound like a song that would stick in your head. As a matter of fact I think I'm gonna be going, "ya, ya, ya, ya, ya" for the rest of the day!