Lifeboat Business II
"The lifeboat system of redemption seems so ugly in comparison to the love of God. We can trust our fate to a jury of peers in the lifeboat, we can work to accumulate wealth, buy beauty under a surgeon's knife, panic for our identities under the fickle friendship of culture, and still die in separation from the one voice we really needed to hear."
- Don Miller
posted by Jeanne @ 10:00 AM
5 Comments:
Jeanne, I just realized you commented on my blog a few weeks ago (or sometime ago). Thanks. I hope things are going good for you. Any more Beatles? I always pick on Thais that she doesn't listen to them enough. She says that because your parents played it for you guys since you were kids, she's been listening to them longer than me. But I contest that a noticable knowledge of their historicity and impact has far more reaching of an impact than just legnth listened to. Any thoughts? :)
Jeff Watkins.
Noticeable knowledge of their historicity and of their impact has, i am very sorry to inform you, very little effect when it comes to truly knowing them.
You see, I could read books and books and more books about how lovely the Beatles were, but if I was unable to recognise a song by them on the radio, then all my accumulated information would amount to nada muchos. I would be missing the point entirely. This would be a typical case of armchair fandom.
Their nothing-short-of-exquisite musicality is their very essence. Tis a matter of the heart. And if you can recognise its beauty, play air left-handed guitar and sing along, then you KNOW them. If you know ABOUT them but cannot recognise one of their tunes, what good, I ask.
Having been lulled by songs written under heavy drug influence has really benefited our childhood indeed, in a plethora of ways.
Also, never forget that "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up".
How did you manage to bring Scripture into this conversation (although I do agree with it)?
However, I do not agree you. Simplying "knowning" them cannot be characterized by being able to recite songs and hum melodies. This is armchair fandom. Knowing why they are significant, among other things, is what truly sets the informed listener apart from the casual "daytripper," as it were.
You see, for knowing both song and song meaning, one advances his or her truer understanding of rhyme and reason. I will agree that one without the other is simply just error.
Also, I play killer air guitar. I just want to put that out there Yet, that talent places no significant hold upon any of my claims. Nor does it help me to appreciate the Beatles or anyone else.
P.S. Since we mentioned knowing: There is a great deal of understanding that comes from knowing contexts of songs. I imagine much of the "drug songs" were simple coincidences or avid attempts to be witty and wry. It is true, however, many of the boys' tunes were about narcotics. Although, as the Beatles themselves have claimed, not nearly as many as everyone would like to have believed.
P.S.S. They enhanced my childhood, too.
I bow down to your all-exhaustive, all-embracing, thorough, supreme, meticulous, sweeping, intensive, conscientious and utterly impeccable knowledge of The Beatles :)
I shall now go hide my face in shame.
Oh, I never said I was all that now. You don't have to hide...
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