Popular song that speaks to you about your faith?

Faith & Science Conversation
1

Care to share?

I can’t imagine I’m the only one here with too much time on his hands. (You be careful out there @Randy and @jpm.) So this song on a play list came on while I was playing cards with the wife just now and I was looking for an excuse to share it with you all here. So I thought, maybe you also have a popular song that says something important to you about what you believe. I actually like a lot of Christian music but mostly they don’t really fit me without a lot of reinterpreting. This one fits as is.

2 Likes
2

How about Bluegrass*? :grin:

Not the best video in the world, but the words are the clearest I could find (tag me, anyone, if you know of a better one!), and the extended fermata (not a Bluegrass term) seems a little affected (a trademark of D&V, maybe):
 

One Less Day to Go

I’ve enjoyed being here with you
And we’ve had a high old time
But there’s something better coming
I can’t get it off my mind

I’ve got one more day behind me
How many are left I don’t know
But I’m getting closer to Jesus
I’ve got one less day to go

I’ll be sorry when I leave you
But it will only be for a while
I won’t be back but honey you’ll be coming
I’ll love you again heaven style

Yes I’m getting closer to Jesus
I’ve got one less day to go
I’ve got one less day to go

(Written by Don Reid and Harold Reid
Originally recorded by the Statler Brothers)


 

*A fairly recently acquired taste, Baroque and Classical having had to make some room for it.

3

A little out of mainstream, but this sacred harp or shaped-note song touches me. It was from the movie Cold Mountain, and sung by a choir from near my father’s birthplace in north Alabama:

2 Likes
4

I already like bluegrass and the words are easy to understand in the song. Pretty good follow up to the one I posted with a similar theme but a different opinion. Getting pretty dramatic with that ending though. :wink:

I think most of the Christian music I listen to is country, bluegrass, folk or classic. Haven’t gotten into anything in a rock direction. Not bluegrass but of the openly Christian songs I listen to this country tune by the Avett brothers is still my favorite.

5

Wow, as an aficionado of a cappella I am immediately interested and as I listen I like it more and more. Wonderful texture and the words are discernible without being insistent. Nice. Thanks for sharing that.

At first I thought this version of Amazing Grace by the Stanley brothers might be in the same style but I don’t think so. I’ll bet this style has a name too but I don’t know it.

1 Like
6

Since I was just watching a live performance of the Opry show to an empty auditorium on the fairly new OTA network ‘Circle’, I just now watched your video. I really liked the music and it was well done, but of course I cannot concur with the refrain.

The new verse to Go Rest High on that Mountain that Vince Gill recently added is an ending I can endorse, along with the song’s refrain. He performed it as the second to last song in the show mentioned above, and they are rebroadcasting it right now, and you can catch it if you’re interested and have access to it.

7

I love Sacred Harp! Thank you for posting that! Anyone that gets the idea that heaven will be boring doesn’t have a clue.

8

I’m pretty sure I heard this on the Ken Burns documentary that aired on PBS recently. Very moving. Lots of great music on that documentary, I’ve always liked a bunch of country.

1 Like
9

It was that series that whetted my appetite for country and bluegrass. I always have liked Sacred Harp since I learned about it. Some of the words are powerful. It is not unrelated to earlier American music in New England – Boston Camerata is a group that I like.

Another Christian whose music I like a lot is Jimmy Fortune. He was a member of the Statler Brothers for years until they retired, and then continued on his own. The lyrics to this song have a a little problem, because I don’t think “I will be the first one that you see” rings quite true with a Christian’s expectations :slightly_smiling_face::

2 Likes
10

Actually I just thought of another popular song I like that I don’t think is overtly Christian. But I think it sort of fits and the lyrics always move me. That’s Bette Midler’s The Rose. Too corny? (Not for me.) But you can skip almost a minute of banter to get to the actual music.

1 Like
11

This Goshen College rendition of “My Soul Cries Out” (or the ‘Canticle of the Turning’) has a bit of spunk to it, and now I’m spoiled for the fast version. Lyrics below. Sorry if I’ve already shared this somewhere here before - but if so, it wasn’t recently.

My soul cries out with a joyful shout
that the God of my heart is great,
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things
that you bring to the one who waits.
You fixed your sight on the servant’s plight,
and my weakness you did not spurn,
So from east to west shall my name be blest.
Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain:

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
For the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.

Though I am small, my God, my all,
you work great things in me.
And your mercy will last from the depths of the past
to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
and those who would for you yearn,
You will show your might, put the strong to flight,
for the world is about to turn. (Refrain)

From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
every tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more,
for the food they can never earn;
These are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed,
for the world is about to turn. (Refrain)

Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forbears heard
is the promise that holds us bound,
'Til the spear and rod be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around. (Refrain)

Paraphrase of Luke 1:46-58 (Magnificat)

3 Likes
12

I wouldn’t say it was corny – I might call it inspirational, but only in a very qualified sense. It promotes an empty hope, and one line that I hope is the opposite of the experience of most Christians here: “And [it is] the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.” I get the impression that unbelievers frequently think that the reason Christians believe the things they do is because they are afraid of dying or, on the other hand, don’t know how to live.

It did remind me of a quote that I came across recently,

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought. E.Y. Harburg

Just as thoughts can be in error, a song that makes you ‘feel that (erroneous) thought’ is not really a good song, even if it strongly invokes a feeling.

13

Very nice!
 

It has definitely changed, and recently!

14

Thanks for sharing that … and quite the catchy tune it is! Some might see in the group a kind of “dogma of indifference” … and might that rise to the level of a “holy indifference”? The words of the song actually reveal that they are not indifferent to how things turn out. She didn’t like the sound of purgatory, at one point. How much more might our attentions be riveted by a fear of a refiners fire! -driving all indifference from us!

Still … without knowing these people at all, but just watching their entering into this song, it seems a positive thing to me that they are in a place of love and trust so that they need not concern themselves with matters beyond them at the moment. I think that is often a sign of profoundly advanced faith - that has climbed beyond the need to scrabble about for certainty and sight which are always beyond our reach anyway. We would also do well to remember that there are those who want a reassuring and convicting voice of certainty to help them climb up a little ways toward a faith and trust-based assurance. Jesus, it would seem goes all the way to our ground - even when the seeds of our faith may still be dormant and waiting for water; and he meets us there too, not afraid to use even fear, if that’s all we can see at the moment - until our faith blossoms, grows, and its fruit supplants all such fear.

3 Likes
15

Yeah – maybe the magnificat isn’t a “looked for” song of comfort by some of us who already were enjoying our comforts … but it is telling that it is a song of hope for those who have never lived their lives in comfort. It is hope for the afflicted and oppressed which have always been with us all through the ages. That we may taste of it ourselves - even just a bit or a lot, may end up being our blessing in disguise.

1 Like
16

I love to find pop songs with a spiritual/Christian message. Here’s one of my faves from The Dirty Projectors that seemed appropriate these days, “That’s a Lifestyle.” The video has lyrics, but here are the verses just in case:

Who will stop wasting the lives of the brave
Based on a lie?
Who will stop wasting the forest and seas?
We know what will survive
Who will stop wasting the time?
Who will stop putting quarters upon on our eyes?
Who will not place himself higher than we
For a senator’s prize?

Who could look up from the numbers and say
“Something ain’t right”?
Who could disrupt the abundance and pray
Not for weight but for light?
How could we risk the empire
As the apprentice descends into seasons of idol
When our old white Lincoln encrypted and high
Sputters down from the sky
Red-eyed in July, weeping glycol?

When the predator dips out from the haze
Who knows the prize?
When the words mercy and justice are raised
Members only apply
When will we count all the signs?
When will we finally not let fear weaponize?
When will the courage to breathe and let breathe
Assure the land will survive?

'Cause the monster eats its young
Till they’re gone, gone, gone
And the rules are there to hurt
And that’s the way it’s done
Yeah, the monster eats its young
Till they’re gone, gone, gone
Till it’s satisfied and done
It wants blood, blood, blood

That’s a (product), that’s a (brand), that’s a (lifestyle)

17

I recently read how Johnny Cash considered his song “I Walk the Line” a stealth gospel song. It can certainly be seen that way, especially when you considered that when popular, Cash was notoriously unfaithful, just as we tend to be to Christ despite our songs.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day is through
Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
You’ve got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can’t hide
For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
Oh, because you’re mine, I walk the line
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
Because you’re mine, I walk the line

3 Likes
18

Neat… I recognize that tune from “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (I like the Michael Card version from his Celtic album)… I didn’t realize it was based on an earlier song.

1 Like
19

I’m hearing that monster as the left-brain rational mind’s exploitation of the right-brain intuitive mind’s creations, converting potent metaphors into tidy facts and then putting them on the mantle to be admired. We are too eager to control the source and tame it. (I’ve been reading The Master and His Emissary, in case you couldn’t tell.)

1 Like
20
2 Likes