MetaCatholic

I really don’t know what to do with Lingamish’s meme on weird worship songs, despite being tagged. His meme has also resulted in a mix of responses. I shall widen the mix simply by rambling.

I have been scathing about songs on plenty of occasions before, but I should note that weirdness has been with us for a long time. I am not remotely sure why Peter Kirk thinks Psalm 150 is weird, but I quite agree with him that Psalm 137: 9 is weird. What an extraordinary way to climax a song.

May God get really riled,
And just bash your child (oh yeah)
Your babies bash
Their little heads dash
A great bloody splash
Against the rock
(Rock of ages, do-be-do-be-do)
Your children’s brains
Like autumn rains
Cover stones with stains
Yes! Their skulls are gored
As we rejoice in the Lord
As we praise his name,
As we praise his name.

Well, that’s not quite what it says, but it certainly brings out the weirdness. I’m not sure even the worst of modern songs can quite compete (Oh, yes they can), and I’m not sure I know enough to pick five. I may, in some people’s eyes be cheating by choosing some that have been around for 25 years or so (Peter Kirk will tell me that is so last century) but I am going to start with one of the older ones.

I have never understood why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to sing “Jesus, take me as I am, I can come no other way” Ooh, missus. How naïve do you have to be not to spot such an unfortunate double entendre a mile away? It sounds like Mills and Boon gone mad.

I have ranted before, and will take the opportunity to rant again about Filled with compassion. I really do not know (whatever the supposed allusions) how anyone can seriously sing:

From every nation we shall be gathered
Millions redeemed shall be Jesus’ reward
Then He will turn and say to His Father
Truly my suffering was worth it all.

The picture of Jesus waiting around to see if the church evangelized enough people before deciding Calvary might just have been worth it is truly bizarre.

Then there are songs which mangle their metaphors unfortunately. (Yes, I know that’s nearly all of them). One I find particularly unfortunate is Jesus, melt my cold heart. It piles one metaphor on another without regarding how they (don’t) work together. Linguistically, I find the ways in which songs use metaphors are often weird. 

Jesus, melt my cold heart,
Break my stony emotions,
Cos I’ve been playing with the waves
When I should be swimming in the ocean.
Take me deeper, show me more.
It’s all or nothing …

You sort of get where it’s coming from, but I’m afraid I find myself why emotions are stony? And do you really enjoy playing with waves if you’ve got a cold heart of stony emotions? Surely the image is one of carefree childhood. And if God doesn’t want me to be a carefree child, why does he want me to be a fish?

Finally, I wonder at the weirdness of treating worship as a human experience. So many songs are fixated with “my” feelings, creating a kind of emotional dissonance between what I sing I’m feeling, and what I’m feeling (which is often “this is crap”), but they mistake this “what am I feeling, what am I doing” expression of attitudes for worship. So, for example, Vargeson’s song, Almighty God:  “in my worship, I want to meet with you”. Huh? If you’re worshipping, you are meeting God. If you’re worshipping, you’re not fixated on what you want. “In my worship I want” is that extraordinarily weird thing: a liturgical oxymoron: eis-stacy rather than ecstasy.

Update: I was so weirded out, I forgot to tag anyone. I’ll take a rain check on that, since plenty of people are getting tagged already.