Monday, September 04, 2006

music

St Luke's made good use of music yesterday in their Soul Space service, last stop on the COTC summer tour. I can't say I recognised anything, but songs were well chosen, either for atmosphere or lyrics.
I'm a big fan of mainstream music in services. (and not just because a lot of Christian music is naff!) A familiar song can put a whole new perspective on what you're doing, and it changes the song too. Next time you hear it on the radio, it has a whole new set of connotations. Coldplay's 'Fix You' worked well at Christmas last year, and Mark has put Doves and Aqualung to good use recently too.
I'm sure we can think of loads, but for inspiration, have a look at the alternative hymnal. It's not updated as much as it used to be, but there's still a useful little index by artist or theme.

4 comments:

Mark Fletcher said...

We had Sigur Ros last night at church. Love that track 'HoppĂ­polla' which means splashing in puddles.
The interesting thing for me was that the lyrics were in Icelandic and most of us don't speak icelandic.
Music doesn't need to be comprehensible to move us.

Jeremy said...

Strangely, I saw a programme last night with a savant who learnt to speak Icelandic from scratch in a single week...
Sigur Ros are a fine example of music's ability to move people without understanding the lyrics. Their last album was called (), which I guess is whatever you want it to be, and the lyrics were in 'hopelandic', a language of their own invention.

I wonder why english doesn't have a word that means 'hopping in puddles'?

Mark Fletcher said...

Maybe we could invent one. How about hopsplashing.

I guess Bach is quite good too. It is probably a dumb comment but music really isn't about the words...

Jeremy said...

Ah, you're not alone in hearing something in Bach. I read this the other day from Rowan Williams:

"Each one of us is a unique kind of echo of God...we are, by the very nature of our humanity, naturally attuned to the reality of God. Our task in growing up in the life of the spirit is to try to recover that attunement. I think of that, for example, when I listen to Bach, who somehow does a great deal more theology in a few bars of music than most do in many words."