Desert Watch

U2: No Line on the Horizon

I bought this on  iTunes last week while I was on the road and listened to it a couple of times on my iPod while riding - but you kind of miss the subtleties with in-ear phones on a motorcycle... Now that I'm home I did a trip out in my car and played it twice; much more satisfying. Since then I've been playing it over and over while I've been working.

With all music the values and attitudes of the writer and/or performer comes through. I think the thing that makes U2 so enduring and endearing is that they infuse a combination of down-to-earth realism; and yet through it all an unwavering certainty of faith and hope. 

To me the most poignant tracks are White as Snow and Cedars of Lebanon. Here we connect through the music with the reality of life and pain and loss; firstly from the point of view of a soldier in a hostile land and secondly a war correspondent avoiding the pain in his relationships yet longing for home. Both are deeply touching yet leave a note of hope - there is a way to be innocent again; there is a path to reconciliation.

Moment of Surrender soon became my favourite. As with most of Bono's songs there are layers of meaning, but with the reference to his wife and the biblical references it seems to me to written around the relentlessness of love and the call to surrender all to that love. It has a wonderful guitar break too!

Then Unknown Caller snuck up on me. This one is true poetry! Lyrical stabs create wonderful pictures left to the hearers to interpret as they wish. To me it's an invitation to freedom from a complex and irreconcilable world. This is the song that gets stuck in my head on replay.

Lots of great songs, great lyrics. I've yet to come to terms with the title track or Get on your Boots . They're both good songs but the lyrics don't connect with me yet. 

Overall - a great album. These guys hit the essence for me of connecting God to culture - maybe not in as direct a way as some would like - but our world has been so indoctrinated and inoculated against who God really is that the best medicine it can take is the message U2 transmits so well: there is a God who shares your pain and there is hope.

Cat Stevens

I bought The Very Best of Cat Stevens on iTunes yesterday. His 70's albums (Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, Catch Bull at Four) were quite formational in my early teen years. I still think this is some of the best music ever recorded.

The thing that touched me then and still does now is the cry I hear for something beyond the superficial world. Cat Stevens and other artists around that time (late 60's early 70's) began asking questions that previous generations generally took for granted - a move (among other things) from a rationalistic modernistic view to a post-modern view where the values of 'science and progress have all the answers', and 'the world is getting better' were questioned. We had the threat of nuclear war, pollution, the assassination of Martin Luther King and JFK and Vietnam as evidence that science and progress did not answer the inner need of humankind.

The post-modern view rejected the meta-narrative handed down from previous generations, some rejecting in the process that there could even be a big picture that gave meaning to life. Others found an alternative story they could relate to. The questions Cat Stevens was asking lead me into a search for spiritual reality and a meta-narrative which I found in the story of Jesus. Stevens (real name Steven Georgiou) sought through Buddhism, Zen, and I Ching, Numerology, tarot cards and Astrology, finally to settle into Islam; changing his name to Yusef Islam and leaving music for 25 years.

He has found his Peace Train in Islam, speaking out against those who practice terror and killing in the name of Allah. I have a great deal of respect for his humanitarian work and efforts to bring peace.

Islam as a religion / philosophy at its core seeks to submit fully to God (that is what the word means). It is based on the same law given to the Jews and seen by Christians in what we call the Old Testament. Like Judaism and Christianity Islam is monotheistic, believing in one true creator God. Islam believes that both Judaism and Christianity are perversions of the true way. The follower of Islam seeks to please God through keeping the law, which has been codified into five pillars. 

Just as in Judaism in Jesus day (and to a degree today) there are those in Islam who believe submission to God is a matter of personal peity and treating others justly and those who seek submission to God through violence and military might imposed on those who do not obey their laws. Christians have also fallen into these camps over history. 

The key difference between Islam and Christianity is the place of Jesus. Islam regards him as a human prophet of God as were Abraham, Moses and Muhammad. Christianity regards Jesus as the unique Messiah, God in the flesh who came to reveal God to humankind and make a way for humankind to be reconciled and reconnected back to God through his death and resurrection on behalf of fallen humans. The New Testament teaches that submission to God is not actually possible by human effort - we stuff it up! It's only possible by the work of the Holy Spirit within us restoring us to relationship with God.  

End of lesson - more another time.

 

Hope (part 8)

I love this song by David Crowder Band from their Remedy album (who are playing at Parachute Festival this weekend). 

It speaks of... well listen and find out. The video is okay too but done by someone else for YouTube (not David Crowder Band):

It reminds me of what it must have felt like for those sent into exile... and for us when we don't understand why things are going bad. One of my favourite insights is God is the big person looking out for me even when I don't understand.

Love (BT: Good Morning Kaia)

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I love this piece of music... BT (Brian Transeau) is a DJ, songwriter and music producer. 

This song is from his 2006 album This Binary Universe. Wikipedia says:  

The album features a mix of many genres, including jazz, breakbeats, and classical music. Three songs feature a full 110-piece orchestra. BT has said that the album has a lullaby-like quality, inspired by his daughter, Kaia, who sat on his lap throughout most of the song writing process. Animated videos were created to accompany each song. The videos are included in a DVD packaged along with the CD.

Keyboard Magazine declared of the album, “In a hundred years, it could well be studied as the first major electronic work of the new millennium.”

Unlike his last two albums, which featured vocals on almost every track, this album contains none. The tracks also change genres constantly throughout. A good example is "The Antikythera Mechanism", which starts off almost lullaby-like, complete with a piano, acoustic guitars and reversed beats. Halfway through the track, the song explodes with a 110-piece orchestra, followed by a section of breakbeats and ending with the de-construction of the orchestra.

The thing that touches me each time I watch this is the depth of emotion in human love - especially for our children; the preciousness of every moment of life - and that God who created humanity is the ultimate Father. 

Get the album and watch this song on a big screen in 5.1 (the other videos aren't that great but the music is awesome)! 

August Rush / Kaki King

After thinking about August Rush yesterday I did some research on the music behind it. The guitarist is who was the 'hands' of August Rush was Kaki King. She's an incredible talent. I bought one of her albums online - pretty cool stuff. This is a clip from the movie; the first time August has ever seen a guitar (he's a child prodigy who has grown up in an orphanage):