Kalila and I had the pleasure of seeing Sufjan (pronounced “Sufyan”) Stevens last night at the Orpheum. We both went into the evening very tired and mentally preoccupied. However, we found that the performance captured our attention and succeeded in bringing us to into a different world for a couple hours; a welcome distraction. The show was stimulating for all of the five senses, including the opportunity to sing and dance along at a few points. We felt surrounded by thin 20-something hipsters with skinny jeans and the latest smart phones, but we expected as much. We were glad to have fun.

Here are some reviews:

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2010/11/12/a_symphony_of_sound_from_stevens/
http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/general/view/20101112the_age_of_sufjan_stevens_beckons/

As a Lauryn Hill fan, it was good to hear this kind of update.  Most people love her work with the Fugees and her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. As much as I liked that element of her career, I am way more interested in her MTV Unplugged work where she took on more of the Dylan-esque folk-prophet. I have found that far more interesting and influential to me personally.  As a matter of fact, I found myself listening to the Unplugged album last week.  It is raw, real, personal, and spiritual.  Good stuff.

June 28, 2010
by Zoe Chace

I interviewed a lot of people for my story about Lauryn Hill’s voice. I had to, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to speak to her myself. The singer and rapper last released a recording eight years ago. She rarely performs in the U.S., and she almost never gives interviews. But her fans haven’t forgotten her — they’re still pleading for her to come back. Hill is a fantastic singer, as well as one of the greatest MCs of all time, and the story of her voice is the story of a generation.

It doesn’t take much for a group of thirtysomethings to get nostalgic about Hill. Put her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, on at a bar, and it takes the crowd right back to college days or high-school summers. I met Daryl Lutz while he was hanging out with a group of friends on the deck of Marvin’s Bar in downtown Washington, D.C.

“We went to school in Hampton, Va., and she came to do a show,” he said. ”It was one of the best times in my life — I mean, she spoke to me! We snuck backstage and I got her to sign my meal card. She said, ‘This is your meal card, brother, you know?’ I said, ‘That’s all I got.’ She signed it, ‘Eat well — L. Boogie.’ That’s something I’ll never forget. I love her. I love her to death.”

I heard tons of stories like Lutz’s that night — mostly closed with this plea: “Come back, Lauryn. We need you. Come back!” People spoke directly into the microphone, as if it were a telephone line.

From New Ark To Israel

Hill became a star with the hip-hop trio The Fugees. Their second album, The Score, came out in 1996, and it was an instant classic. The group — Hill, Wyclef Jean and Prakazrel Michel — sounded like they were in perfect sync. On the first single, “Fu-gee-la,” Hill sang the hook, rhymed a verse, then sang again. She was the total package, more so than any other rapper, male or female, has been.

She’s one of slickest rappers ever: Her rhymes are dexterous, spiritual, hilarious, surprising. Without a doubt, she was the best-looking rapper the world had ever seen. And Hill was a soul singer with a real old-school, almost militant, politic. The second single was Hill’s cover of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly.” That recording has never really gone away, and its success built the expectations for Hill’s solo record to a fever pitch. Particularly to women and young girls who listened to her then, she was a revelation. There was steel in her voice when she rapped; she sang like she really cared about our hopeless crushes and our impotent rages, like she really loved us. We thought maybe we could grow up to be like her.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill came out in 1998. It was like LeBron James’ rookie year in the NBA. You knew he had the potential to be great after seeing him in high school — and then, right out of the gate, he’s one of the best ball players in the league.

Jayson Jackson, part of Hill’s management team, described the recording process this way: “The record was already inside her. She would go into the studio, and it would just pour out of her.”

Lenesha Randolph sang backing vocals on Miseducation, and she describes herself today as the backing vocals “to all your favorite artists.” She’s on tour with Lady Gaga right now, but a formative influence on her singing was her work in the studio singing backup for Hill.

“I don’t know if people are gonna like this album, because I’m just singing, and nobody wants to hear rappers sing,” Hill told Randolph at the time. Randolph says she couldn’t believe it. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” Randolph says. “I would just stare at her, like, look in her mouth! Because when you hear her sing, and then hear her speak — it had such power and volume and rasp. It was something to strive for.”

Everything Is Everything

In 1998, everyone was listening to her sing: mothers, daughters, college students and little kids. As the rapper Nas described his audience, “listeners, bluntheads, fine ladies and prisoners.” Miseducation crossed demographics and genres. It made people dance and cry and blast it from their speakers as they drove around with their best friends.

Jay Smooth, a longtime radio DJ, remembers there was a little sadness in the hip-hop community that there was less rhyming on the album than during Hill’s time with The Fugees. “We may have missed out on the best rap album of all time,” he says. Nevertheless, the album was a note that longtime fans of hip-hop had been craving for someone to hit. Smooth says that for people his age — the same age as Hill, the same age as people like Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls — “we saw our generation create something so powerful and innovative. They were speaking with a love and righteousness that we, perhaps naively, believed could change the world at that time.”

Smooth compares the idealism of the hip-hop generation to the hippies before it. But just as the optimism of the ’60s gave way to what he describes as “the malaise of the ’70s,” Smooth says that hip-hop had lost its way. The music grew more commercialized, and consequently more violent and self-involved, culminating in the deaths of Tupac in 1996, and then Biggie Smalls in 1997.

“It was right after that, in 1998, that Lauryn Hill’s album came out,” Smooth says. ”And it seemed that she was that voice inside our soul — coming out and asking all of us, ‘How could we have gone so wrong?’ and ‘Can we have some grown folks talking about loving ourselves, before it’s too late? If it’s not already too late?’ ”

‘Look At Your Career,’ They Said. ‘Lauryn, Baby, Use Your Head’

Hill raked in the Grammys, including Album of the Year. But that same year, some of her collaborators filed suit, saying they weren’t properly credited on the album. They settled out of court, and the stir over the suit prompted what seemed like a fall from grace for Lauryn Hill.

Shortly after the Grammys, in the winter of 1999, Hill disappeared from public life. For years afterward, her fans traded rumors — the prevailing theory was that she’d had some kind of breakdown. Smooth says he thinks the pressure put on her to save the hip-hop generation from itself might have broken her. She was also a busy mother: Over the past 10 years, she’s had five children. Her MTV Unplugged album, which came out in 2002, seemed to reveal a person worn thin.

After Unplugged, those of us who grew up listening to her missed her voice in the same way we missed our hopeful youth. That powerful sound that represented great potential being fulfilled was silent.

“No one ever stops missing her,” Smooth says. ”Every time you say her name — like, ‘Lauryn Hill walked into Home Depot’ — you’ll be hoping she starts tapping on a table and making a beat and singing.”

This could be the year.

After Winter Must Come Spring

Lauryn Hill took the stage at the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, Calif., just a few weeks ago. She’s barely performed at all in the U.S. in the past 10 years. The band was restless and loud behind her, almost drowning her out at times. She looked completely regal, even in a carnival balloon-style jumpsuit, with her hair blown out and dyed maroon to match. She pranced around the stage in huge heels, shouting directions to the band, as though they were in rehearsal. When she rapped, her words flew by so fast, it seemed she was barely breathing. But when the sound guy brought her mic up and the band would breathe for a moment, her voice soared over the crowd. It was the same voice I’d grown up with, just as raw and present and full of soul as I remembered.

The reputation that surrounds Hill is wild — it’s hard to know what to believe, because she does so few interviews. She’s got handlers on top of handlers, publicists and managers who you think will lead you to her, and then they turn out to be red herrings. My editor and I chased them all down during the weekend of the Harmony Festival. I was told by various people to not touch her, don’t look her in the eye; that instead of talking directly to you, she writes on a Post-It note and sticks it to your chest. I’ve also been told repeatedly not to call her “Lauryn” anything — she goes by Ms. Hill. This is the only rumor that turns out to be true, in my case. Because after her performance in Santa Rosa, when we ask Ms. Hill if we can ride with her back to the hotel and ask her some questions, she tells us to get in the car.

I ask her the question her fans have been asking each other for years: Why did you stop putting out music?

“There were a number of different reasons,” she says. ”But partly, the support system that I needed was not necessarily in place. There were things about myself, personal-growth things, that I had to go through in order to feel like it was worth it. In fact, as musicians and artists, it’s important we have an environment — and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the [music] industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society, or at least some aspect of society. And it’s important that people be given the time that they need to go through, to grow, so that the consciousness level of the general public is properly affected.  Oftentimes, I think people are forced to make decisions prematurely. And then that sound radiates.”

This would sound self-important coming from many other artists, especially popular artists. But to someone who grew up with Hill, it makes sense. She did have a hand in shaping how we were feeling, or it seemed that she did. And the disappointment of her disappearance is just one in a catalog of disappointments that we experienced as we grew up.

Her voice sounds just the same: low and raspy, full of intensity and soul. It’s no wonder. She tells me she grew up singing along with mostly male soul singers — “the Donny Hathaways, the Stevie Wonders, the Jackie Wilsons.” As for her rhyming skills, she says she used to have a rapping voice and a singing voice. But now the voices have to become one, in order for her to get the kind of music mix that she wants in a live performance. It’s a work in progress. It’s so funny to hear that Hill is still working on her extraordinary voice — holding it out in front of her, waving it like a sheet to see what more she can shake out of it.

“I’m trying to open up my range and really sing more,” she says. ”With The Fugees initially, and even with Miseducation, it was very hip-hop — always a singing over beats. I don’t think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.”

How You Gonna Win When You Ain’t Right Within?

I ask her what it feels like to sing, and she flips the question on me — “Well, what’s it like to hear me?” I tell her listening to her sing makes me feel both happy and sad. It feels like her voice comes from a higher place. I’m paraphrasing all the people I’ve interviewed about her.

“The feeling that you get,” she says, “I get first. I think you have a delayed experience with the feeling that I usually get. When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction — but, you know, the healthy kind.”

I ask her about having a voice that moves so many people, if there isn’t a certain amount of responsibility that comes along with that.

“I think about it, and yet I don’t think about it,” she says. We pull into the hotel parking lot and she’s about to continue, but we’re interrupted by one of the festival employees, who comes up to the car to ask if someone-or-other’s keys are in the Suburban we’re riding in.

“No,” Hill says with a laugh. “No one in here has those keys.” After all, it’s just Hill, me, the driver and my editor in the car. As the man walks away, Hill says, “He looks just like Matthew McConaughey. First, second cousin. He does! … What I was I saying? Oh, I think if I was created with such power or an ability, then what’s also been put in me is the blueprint for the responsibility part, as well. I have to take care of myself in order to take care of this gift, which has affected so many. I don’t treat it lightly. It’s important to me to be healthy and to be whole.”

And Hill seems healthy and whole, squished up next to me in the car, making cracks about ridiculous-looking actors, chin in her hand as she thinks through the answers to my questions. She doesn’t tell me to move back, or that she doesn’t want to answer something. Watching her perform earlier in the day made me uneasy. I felt like I was watching a captain who had spent a life at sea, then lived on land for 10 years, stumbling a bit her first time back on the deck of a boat. But hearing her steadiness now, I feel hopeful. It’s also a reality check: Why did we demand so much of this woman?

“I don’t know if you know this, but I have five children,” she says. ”The youngest is 2 now, so she’s old enough that I can leave her for a period of time and know she’s going to be okay. That’s one reason [Hill is starting to perform again]. And I think it’s just time. I’m starting to get excited again. Believe it or not, I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first. I think people might realize, you know, ‘We love the way she sounds, we love the music, but I think we just love how fearless she is. How boundless she is, when it comes to what she wants to do.’ And I think that can be infectious.”

This closes the interview. I thank her. She says, “You’re welcome,” and my editor and I leave the car. We sit on the stairs for a few minutes to catch our breath. We spent all weekend chasing Lauryn Hill, hoping to have this conversation about her voice. I compared it to a video game with infinite levels you didn’t even know existed, like when you beat a level and you think you won, but then you go through a door and there’s a whole other world you have to conquer. Getting to Lauryn Hill was like that.

Sara Sarasohn, my editor, compared the chase to the Israelites rising up and following the cloud over the Tent of Meeting. In the Torah, when the Israelites are wandering in the desert, there was a cloud over the Tent of Meeting, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. Moses would go to the Tent of Meeting to communicate with God. At night, the cloud looked like fire. When the cloud lifted and moved, the Israelites would see it and know that it was time for them to move as well in their journey through the desert. It was like the presence of Hill was this cloud that we could see in the distance, and we were trying to follow it, and finally, we got to the Tent of Meeting.

Sitting on the stairs together, Sara and I couldn’t help but cry, just a little. We talked to Lauryn Hill. And she’s doing fine.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128149135

‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein and we don’t want to stop.’ Bono has been talking to U2.Com about how the songs are shaping up for the new record and plans for 2009 to be their year.

‘This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again, ‘ explains Bono, calling in from a break in recording sessions in the south of France. ‘ We have what it takes, we have the songs, new rhythms and a guitar player who is not ready to re-enter earth’s atmosphere until he’s taken a slice of the moon!

‘It’s been fun, it’s been maddening… there have been injuries and recoveries, no babies born that I know of, but this one is nearly ready for the new year of 2009.’

The band have been writing and recording the follow-up to ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ since last year, and the feeling is that they’ve hit a creative groove so there are no plans to stop. Everyone, he says, is excited about where the recording is taking them.

‘When we set out on this record it was Larry who came up with the plan not to have a plan. He put up this idea that wouldn’t it be great just to make music for its own sake, not for the purpose of a live show or on album but just to see what we’re capable of…’

It’s an idea that’s paid off. Following sessions in Morocco, in Dublin and through the summer in France, the band have written ‘fifty or sixty’ tracks. And counting.

‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,’ he explains. ‘It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we’ve found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there’s more priceless stuff to be found?

For now, they’re keeping a promise they made to themselves when they started writing: ‘We said to each other that if we got to the great place then we wouldn’t stop…’

So the writing and recording continues and while they now know what shape most of the album will take, they’re not leaving the studio just yet.

‘We know we have to emerge soon but we also know that people don’t want another U2 album unless it is our best ever album. It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point ?’

They have no doubts that it will be as important a release for U2 as any. ‘It’s a brand new chapter for us, and everyone we’ve played the tracks to has said that musically it feels like another departure.

‘The last two records were very personal, with a kind of three piece at their heart, the primary colours of rock – bass, guitars and drum. But what we’re about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby.’

He also mentions that the recording in Morocco was the first time the band have worked in a studio open to the sky: ‘On that track you can hear the sound of a swallows nest close to the building – it’s beautiful.’

Longtime collaborators Danny Lanois and Brian Eno have joined the band at different times, and, more recently, Steve Lillywhite – usually a tell-tale sign that a record is nearly done. ‘Steve has that ear for a top line melody and a good hook.’

But while Bono is itching to get the music out he says it’s going to be early 2009 when we first get to hear the songs.

‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply ‘put out the songs now’, if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’

Everybody knows that they’re guilty
Everybody knows that they’ve lied
Everybody knows that they’re guilty
Resting on their conscience eating their inside
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
Time to get free, oh give yourselves up now
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time

Yo, there’s a war in the mind, over territory
For the dominion
Who will dominate the opinion
Skisms and isms, keepin’ us in forms of religion
Conformin’ our vision
To the world churches decision
Trapped in a section
Submitted to committee election
Moral infection
Epedemic lies and deception
Insurrection
Of the highest possible order
Destortin’ our tape recorders
From here and like under water
Beyond the borders
Fond of sin and disorder
Bound by the strategy
It’s systematic deprivaty
Heavy as gravity
Head first in the cavity
Without a bottom
A fate worse than Sodom
What’s got ‘em
Drunk of the spirits
Truth comes, we can’t hear it
When you’ve been, programmed to fear it
I had a vision
I was fallin’ in indescision
Apollin’, callin’ religion
Some program on television
How can dominant wisdom
Be recognized in the system
Of Anti-Christ, the majority rules
Intelligent fools
PhD’s in illusion
Masters of mass confusion
Bachelors in past illusion
Now who you choosin’
The head or the tail
The bloodshed of male
Or confidance in the veil
Conferences of Yale
Discussin’ doctrines of Baal
Causin’ people to fail
Keepin’ the third in jail
His word has nailed
Everything to the tree
Severing all of me from all that I used to be
Formless and void
Totally paranoid
Enjoy darkness as the Lord
Keepin’ me from the sword
Blocked from mercy
Bitter than cerasee
Hungry and thirsty
For good meat we would eat
And still, dined at the table of deceit
How incomplete
From confrontation to retreat
We prolong the true enemies defeat
Destitute a necessity
Causin’ desperation to get the best of me
Punishment ’til there was nothing left of me
Realizin’ the unescapable death of me
No options in the valley of decision
The only doctrine, supernatural circumcision
Inwardly only water can purge the heart
From words, the fiery darts
Thrown by the workers of the arts
Iniquity, shapen in
There’s no escapin’ when
You’re whole philosophy is paper thin
In vanity
The wide road is insanity
Could it be all of humanity?
Picture that
Scripture that
The origin of man’s heart is black
How can we show up for
An invisible war
Preoccupied with a shadow, makin’ love with a whore
Achin’ in sores
Babylon, the great mystery
Mother of human history
System of social sorcery
Our present condition
Needs serious recognition
Where there’s no repentance there can be no remission
And that sentence, more serious than Vietnam
The atom bomb, and Saddam, and Minister Farakkhan
What’s goin’ on, what’s the priority to you
by what authority do we do
the majority hasn’t a clue
We majored in curses
Search the chapters, check the verses
Recapture the land
Remove the mark from off of our hands
So we can stand
In agreement with his command
Everything else is damned
Let them with ears understand
Everything else is damned, let them with ears understand

It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
It’s freedom, I’ma be who I am
It’s freedom time, said it’s freedom time
Everybody knows that they’ve lied
Everybody knows that they’ve perpetrated inside
Everybody knows that they’re guilty, yes
Resting on their conscience eating their insides
Get free, be who you’re suppost to be
Freedom, said it’s freedom time now
Freedom, said it’s freedom time
Freedom, freedom time now

by Lauryn Hill

Sorry, I’m on a music kick lately. This song is from Lauryn Hill’s performance on MTV Unplugged from 2002 which is absolutely brilliant. Before I heard it, I only new her as the girl from The Fugees and that Nas video. However, I was blown away by her transformation from pop to folk, or more like gospel folk. She has gone from Hip Hop and flashy dancers to sitting on a stage by herself singing with just her guitar and letting the lyrics speak for themselves. I have never heard of a person of her caliber to call for repentance in their songs. In one of her interludes she comments, “I know a lot of the content of these songs is heavy…”, which is a severe understatement. It is quite obvious to anyone who has heard these songs that she has undergone a major spiritual adjustment of a divine nature. She is now a folk prophetess. Just take a look at the track listing of this double volume:

Disc One
1. Intro
2. Mr. Intentional
3. Adam Lives In Theory
4. Interlude 1
5. Oh Jerusalem
6. Interlude 2
7. Freedom Time
8. Interlude 3
9. I Find It Hard To Say (Rebel)
10. Just Like Water
11. Interlude 4
12. Just Want You Around
13. I Gotta Find Peace Of Mind
Disc Two
1. Interlude 5
2. Mystery Of Iniquity
3. Interlude 6
4. I Get Out
5. Interlude 7
6. I Remember
7. So Much Things To Say
8. The Conquering Lion
9. Outro

Anyhow, she has been virtually unnoticed recently, so I thought I would mention her because what she is saying should not be overlooked or ignored. Take a listen at Amazon or LegalSounds.

Set list:

01 There There
02 2+2=5
03 Lucky
04 15 Step
05 Arpeggi
06 Kid A
07 Dollars And Cents
08 The National Anthem
09 Nud
10 Videotape
11 Paranoid Android
12 Spooks
13 The Gloaming
14 House of Cards
15 Idioteque
16 Bangers ‘N Mash
17 How To Disappear Completely

Encore 1:

18 Airbag
19 Street Spirit
20 Bodysnatchers
21 Everything In Its Right Place

Encore 2

22. 4 Minute Warning
23. My Iron Lung
24. Karma Police

Here are a few good Radiohead sites:

radiohead.com (official)
radiohead.tv (official)
dead air space (official blog)
greenplastic.com (fan site)
radiohead at ease (fan site)

Look out for:

Thom Yorke’s new album, “The Eraser” see theeraser.net
The band’s new album

“If you go to church to get your needs met, then I would encourage you not to come to church.”

I took a listen to a talk Derek Web did at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in October 2003 entitled, “Music Style & the Sufficiency of Jesus“. He has some great insights through the lens of worship in the church that is transcultural. Good stuff.

Jesus, You’ve showered Your goodness on me
Given Your gifts so freely
But there’s one thing I’m longing for

Hear my heart’s cry
And my prayer for this life

Above all else
Above all else
Above all else
Give me Yourself

lyrics by Vicky Beeching
from UK Vineyard CD, Holy

On his latest album, Devils & Dust, rocker Bruce Springsteen strips down, musically and spiritually: The singer uses his lone voice against a spare acoustic backdrop to explore themes of spirituality, moral uncertainty and loss.

“At this point, a lot of [my music] traces back to gospel roots… I was drawn to music that addressed the spirit, probably because my own needed to be addressed,” Springsteen told Renee Montagne during a recent interview in Asbury Park, N.J.

Springsteen broke through with his 1975 album Born to Run, which established him as a writer of characters. “You’re always writing about yourself… you hide it in a variety of ways, and you meld your voice with other lives,” Springsteen said.

Among the characters on his latest release is a young soldier at a checkpoint in Iraq, whose story is explored in the title track. It begins: “I got my finger on the trigger, but I don’t know who to trust … I feel a dirty wind blowing devils and dust.”"What moved me the most was the idea of a young kid stationed at a checkpoint,” Springsteen said. “You’ve got a very, very short period of time where you have to decide about the car that’s driving toward you, whether it’s an innocent family, or whether it’s your death coming at you… And you have to decide right, right now. There’s so little room for error, and the error that you make is so very final.”

A mother prays, “Sleep tight, my child, sleep well
For I’ll be at your side
That no shadow, no darkness, no tolling bell,
Shall pierce your dreams this night.”

In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he’d never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips

Now there’s a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached,
A light you’ll never find in another’s face,
A sea whose distance cannot be breached

Well Jesus kissed his mother’s hands
Whispered, “Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared.”

This is a beautiful song by Bruce Springsteen, who is one of the most underrated songwriters of all time. Just purchased “Devils & Dust” from Legalsounds.com and am thoroughly enjoying it. Legalsounds reduced their prices recently from $.14 a song to $.9 a song, a true steal (even though it’s legal)! Other recent acquisitions:

Gwen Stefani
Enya
Best of Bob Dylan
Best of John Lenon
Best of Simon and Garfunkal
R.E.M.
Bjork
P.J. Harvey
Bush
The White Stripes
Arcade Fire

Some days it all adds up
And what you got is not enough
Some days are better than others

Some days are slippy, other days sloppy
Some days you can’t stand the sight of a puppy
Your skin is white but you think you’re a brother
Some days are better than others

Some days you wake up with her complaining
Some sunny days you wish it was raining
Some days are sulky, some days have a grin
And some days have bouncers and won’t let you in

Some days you hear a voice
Taking you to another place
Some days are better than others

Some days are honest, some days are not
Some days you’re thankful for what you’ve got
Some days you wake up in the army
And some days it’s the enemy

Some days are work, most days you’re lazy
Some days you feel like a bit of a baby
Lookin’ for Jesus and His mother
Some days are better than others

Some days you feel ahead
You’re making sense of what she said
Some days are better than others

Some days you hear a voice
Taking you to another place

Lyrics to song by U2

Bono: When I visited him at home one time, he said the most beautiful, poetic grace. He said, “Shall we bow our heads?” We all bowed our heads. Then, when he was done, he looked at me and Adam Clayton and said, “Sure miss the drugs, though.”

I busted out laughing pretty hard when I read that. I suppose I understand.

I am a sinner; I’ve thrown my lot into 3 fantasy football leagues: 1 with friends, 1 with work, and 1 public. My first draft is tomorrow for the public league. Next Sunday is my friend’s league, and the following Saturday, my birthday no less, is the work league’s draft in the morning.

Steve Stockman has updated his book Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 that he published in 2001. This is a welcome update since their newest ablum would be a significant contribution to that theme. He’s added about 5 new chapters and is definitely worth checking out. Stockman is a Presybterian chaplain at Queen’s University in Belfast. He has a pretty groovy sight worth checking, http://www.stocki.ni.org/. However, I still prefer Bono’s conversation book.

Just for the last time, I would kike to go back to our tour of the dark side of religion. Appalling things seem to happen when people become religous at too early an age or when their experience of life is nonexistent. Don’t you think?

Zealots often have no love for the world. They’re just getting through it to the next one. It’s a favorite topic. It’s the old cliche: “Eat shit now, pie in the sky when you die.” But I take Christ at his word: “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” As to the first part of your question, in my experience, the older you get, the less chance you have to transform your life, the less open you are to love in a challenging way. You tend towards love that’s more comforting and safe.

As I told you, I think I am beginning to understand religion because I started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Yes, I think that’s normal. It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

I haven’t heard you talk about that.

I really believe we’ve moved out the of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Well, that doesn’t make it clearer for me.

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics-in physical laws-every action is met by an equal or opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “As you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.

I’d be interested to hear that.

That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge, I’d be in deep shit. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiousity.

The son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

But I love the idea of the Sacrficial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to your actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out does not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled…It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.

That’s enough for now, more to come soon. Discuss…

She’s slippy
You’re sliding down
She’ll be there when you hit the ground

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways

Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can’t explain
To touch is to heal
To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky
Better learn how to kneel

(on your knees boy)

She’s the wave
She turns the tide
She sees the man inside the child

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
Lift my days, light up my nights

One day you will look…back
And you’ll see…where
You were held…how
By this love…while
You could stand…there
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright

We move through miracle days
Spirit moves in mysterious ways
She moves with it
She moves with it
Lift my days, light up my nights

So read the lyrics of “Mysterious Ways” by U2. I’ve been puzzled by this song for a while, trying to figure out who “she” was. Is it his wife, or women in general? I think I finally cracked this one. In listening to “Grace” on All You Can’t Leave Behind, Bono says, “Grace, it’s a name for a girl, it’s also a thought that changed the world”. I think this is undoubtedly referring to the grace of God, as would be consistent with christian orthodoxy. But it seems that just like wisdom in Proverbs 8 is personified as a woman, so Bono has taken grace and personified it as a woman (as Kalila would say, it is like the pagan personification of “Genius” and the like). This tipped me off to look for a more parabolic, illustrative alternative to understanding “Mysterious Ways”. Even in the first stanza, “You’ve been running from what you don’t understand…Love”. Thus, I think Love/Grace is what moves in mysterious ways, much like in William Cowper’s Hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”. I think this understanding beautifly illuminates the song and has fed me time and again since I’ve thought of it that way. I do believe this is what Bono intended. The worship theme is woven right in “…better learn how to kneel (on your knees boy)”.

Now for my interpretation of “Wanderer”. First of all, it was sung by Johnny Cash, who has been known to be spiritual, particularly in the past few years. I think the song is about wandering from Christ. Trying to find him in the emptiness of the world, but finding only emptiness. It really seems to be an indictment on the world (finally) as the world tries to mimic heaven without God, or maybe just a self indictment for seeking out the pleasures of sin. It is songs like this that make me have hope for Bono. “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” also seems very spiritual. Check the lyrical survey:

“Vertigo”: “a girl with crimson nails has Jesus round her neck,” “your love is teaching me how to kneel”

“Miracle Drug”: “I was a stranger you took me in” (straight from Matthew 25 even in Bono’s admission in the NY Times interview, it was one of many verses of Scripture he shared the George W. regarding money for AIDS)

“Love and Peace or Else”: “as you enter this life I pray you depart with a wrinkled face and a brand new heart,” “I’m not easy on my knees, here’s my heart and you can break it,” “…all your Daughters of Zion, all your Abraham’s sons”

“All Because of You”: “I was born a child of grace,” “an intellectual tortoise racing with your bullet train,” “I’m not broke but you can see the cracks, You can make me perfect again,” “all because of you I am”

“Yahweh”: give me a break, it’s a worship song

Other interesting tid-bits I’v gathered about Bono: he got nominated for two nobel-peace prizes in consecutive years, he was a fan of Philip Yancey when his book, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, hit the market (aparently Bono contacted Yancey to talk about the book and it is one of his favorites)

I went out walking
Through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking
Under an atomic sky
Where the ground won’t turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye
Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering
I went drifting
Through the capitals of tin
Where men can’t walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don’t want God in it
I went out riding
Down that old eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name
I went with nothing
But the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you
I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents
I went out searching
Looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father’s right hand
I went out walking
With a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don’t you wait up
Jesus, I’ll be home soon
Yeah I went out for the papers
Told her I’d be back by noon
Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you
Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

It doesn’t even sound like Bono on the CD. Very interesting.

And so it is just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
most of the time
And so it is the shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes…

And so it is just like you said it should be
We’ll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is the colder water
The Blower’s Daughter
The pupil in denial

I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes…

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can’t take my mind off of you
I can’t take my mind off you
I can’t take my mind off of you
I can’t take my mind off you
I can’t take my mind off you
I can’t take my mind…
my mind…my mind…
‘Til I find somebody new

It perfectly encapusates the movie. I just have the song on repeat all day. Crazy. I guess I want to rip off the chorus and apply it to Kalila. I miss her. Want her by my side.

Guess what I got on Friday. I got sick. Finally. I was waiting for it all week. Like clockwork, 6 AM up and in the WC ready see the three previously eaten meals from the day before. Just before I’m ready to give way, all my thoughts run to God. I couldn’t believe how immediately God-centered I became. I prayed with all of my soul and God pushed everything down again. I was so thankful and so humbled. Fortunately I had a buddy covering me at work already so I didn’t have to call in sick for Friday. But most waking moments I had alone that day, I was thinking about Him. Thinking about how flagrantly I’ve been opposing his will for me lately. I was bathing in grace and it was reaching crevices I’ve forgotten about. Even now, I’m listening to U2′s “Grace” from their last album on repeat. I’ve heard the song about 20 times the past day. If ever I’ve had reason to be upset it would be know; Kalila left for school yesterday and yesterday I dropped my car off because the head of my engine is most likely cracked. I have no girl and no transportation. But grace has been absorbing and improving me. As much as I love my girl and being with her, God has caused me to believe that she is in my heart and with me all the time. Nothing can seperate me from her love or my love from her. It’s bigger than phones and distances and blindness. With regard to my car God is loving me through my family and friends by stirring generosity in others to help me get to where I need to be. It’s really remarkable. All my problems just seem so temporary and thin.

“Grace” by U2

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It’s a name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she’s got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She’s got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

Had an interesting chat with the lady last night about humor and comedy. She is not at all inclined to stand-up comedy. I have always been a fan since I was little. Her sense of humor seems to be a little more subtle, a little more darker. It’s interesting because I laugh at most of what she laughs at, at least when we are together. She doesn’t like physical comedy, which can be brilliant if it is done the way it should be. So I’m hoping that she’ll appreciate Seinfeld, even though Kramer’s physical comedy can be the focus of many episodes. We’ll find out. She’s never seen a full episode. I do know couples that have different senses of humor, but they seem work out fine. I was conversing with my pastor this morning about this very thing, and he suggested that a lot has to do with family and culture. I think there is some definite truth to that, and I hope as me a Kalila form a family and create our own culture that humor together will develop in that context.

OK, more musical acquisitions:

Phish (A Live One, Hoist-used to own both, and PhishLive 06)
Pearl Jam (5-disc concert done at Madison Square Garden in 2001)
Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here-tied for my favorite, also used to own)

In the hopper, or mail via amazon:

Pink Floyd (A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Dark Side of the Moon, used to own)
Lenny Kravitz (Baptism-per recommendation of Jonathan Dodson, a close friend)

Looking forward.