Does Your Song Matter?

Songs have changed the world. Seriously. How many times have you taken a ’jingle’ quiz online and know every single one? I can still hear all the commercials and the songs of my childhood and moreover, replicate the experiences surrounding them. I smell the warm invitation of the mornings as I hear the Folger’s commercial and associate the coffee smell with the joy of a new day. While I don’t drink cold glass bottle Coca Cola anymore, I still relive the epic magnificence of the feeling of world peace hearing “I can teach the world to sing!”

Songs are everywhere, music, even without words, has a huge impact on our thoughts, emotions, and moods. Music can motivate and arrest an entire generation. ”We are the World” was a waking request at my surgery in the 80s providing a sense of peace and focus in recovery. My mother obliged by bringing my Magnavox boom box into the hospital. That song alone moved an entire generation, for a season, to confront starvation in Ethiopia. MJ and Lionel along with 46 other artists stood together shaping nations with music and words. It was powerful.

I remember the old church hymns of childhood and can hear my Aunt Mable singing loudly and off key. I can remember the smells and how the light peered through the windows of the old chapel in 1981 magnifying the dust afloat in the hot summer heat. I recall how much learning took place just by hearing and knowing these songs and how some of them never made sense. “Onward Christian Soldiers” was a favorite of my younger brother who would march in place while he sang this song. In addition, while I didn’t understand the totality of these lyrics, I did learn that God would not lose and no nation would stand against Him, even the devil!

Music doesn’t just shape us, it also reveals our shape. We express ourselves often in song either by singing, remembering, and listening. The music we reach for is often directly related to our mood. So, by implication what we hear will either partner with our current state of mind or seek to change it. How often have you been down and just wanted to hear melancholy songs? At times we feel empowered or happy we love to seek continued fuel through song. And, when we are holding on the edges of despair, a well tuned song of encouragement can break us into the song of overcoming the battle!

Imagine a world without music. Imagine watching Jaws without that low key piano minor second. What if instead the approaching doom was paired with Mozart’s ”A Musical Joke” ? It would have had a completely different feel, or yet, would this parody of the composer be the sound of terror? Imagine your mind without music. Our thinking would be different. I think of cultures that don’t have direction spacial words but use true N, S, E and W to describe which hand they need to raise. Imagine saying, ”OK kids, raise your SW hand.” By the way, it would be your NE hand if you turned around. I believe a world without music would be as odd and intimidating as that for most of us.

Now let’s consider a metaphor. We know that music is defined loosley as a combination of sounds and pauses over time. Don’t kill me, that’s a loose definition. But, in a sense, it doesn’t have to have pitch or harmony to be music. It just has to go forth. I often like to listen to poets who perform in public. Sometimes their poetry is rhythmic and sometimes it is broken and provoking. It doesn’t make it any less poetry. So, in a sense, everything we say or communicate can be like music; it makes an impact for either good or bad in those who hear it. In the age of YouTube, many talented creators have taken soundbites and created humorous songs out of popular sayings and memes. Some of these have become chart toppers and created generational wealth for those artists.

Consider what song you are singing with our lives? What song are we reflecting? What message, what purpose, what focus? I will tell you that every word we speak will be held to account in some way or another. What we do and say matters in this life because it affects the lives or real people. Now, what song do you wish you could sing? What is the composition of your life that you hope is played on the charts of time for generations after you? I think this is a profitable exercise. Later, I will talk about the types of songs we sing and how to sing for truth and change.