"Native Tongue"

As soon as I heard "Native Tongue" come on the radio, I knew it had to be a hit. Catchy and assertive from the first note, I was instantly engaged and as I listened to the lyrics, I had to double-check that I was on a Christian station (sadly, that's what I do when I hear good music that doesn't immediately reference God or Jesus).

Check it out before you read on:

Honestly I wasn't huge into Switchfoot in the early 2000s, when my sister and all my youth group peers were listening to them, but that might've been because songs like "Dare You to Move," "Meant to Live" and "This is your life" were overplayed on mainstream radio before I could really appreciate their music (come to think of it, The Beautiful Letdown was actually a pretty stellar album). I was also surprised to learn Switchfoot has been making music (read: putting out albums) pretty consistently for almost 25 years, which is pretty impressive for any artist, let alone a Christian band. I think the mark of a good one, in my book, is when they can cross over into secular stations without selling out (bands like Relient K and singers like Lauren Daigle and even Stephen Curtis Chapman come to mind).

I listen to a lot of different music, and a lot of music period, so I feel like I have kind of high standards when it comes to evaluating artists and songs -- it has to have strong vocals and lyrics as well as skilled instrumentation for me to mark it as a favorite, and I think "Native Tongue" pretty much nails it in those categories (not to mention I'm a total linguistics and language nerd so I love the word play in this song). It's also interesting because it's kind of in-your-face in an almost Foo Fighters way (though dialing it back toward Goo Goo Dolls), but it's about love. That's pretty creative/original if you ask me.

In any case, here are the lyrics (from AZ), for your convenience, as you listen to the song again ;)

Sing to me, baby, in your native tongue
Sing the words of the wise and the young
Show me the place where your words come from
Love is the language, love is your native tongue

Feel your heartbeat bang the drum
Open up your eyes and fill your lungs
The same word from where the stars are flung
Love is the language, love is your native tongue

My heart is a beating drum
My head in oblivion
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

My friend, where did we go wrong?
My Lord, we forgot our sound
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)
(My native tongue)
(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)
(My native tongue)

Sing it to me, whisper into my ear
Accuser's voices start to disappear
In the wind, in the tongues of the flame
In my soul, in my one true name, oh

Back before we learned the words to start a fight
Back before they told us that the haters were right
He spoke the truth, "let there be" and there was
Love is the language, love is your native tongue

My heart is a beating drum
My head in oblivion
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

My friend, where did we go wrong?
My Lord, we forgot our sound
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

So sing it loud, get loud, get
Louder than the voices in the crowd, yeah
Even when they tried to drown you out, eh
Your lips, your lungs, your native tongue

So sing it out, get loud, get
Louder than the darkness and the doubts, eh
Louder than the curses and the shouts, yeah
Your lips, your lungs, your native tongue

(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)
(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)

My heart is a beating drum
My head in oblivion
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

My friend, where did we go wrong?
My Lord, we forgot our sound
My soul, such a long way from
My lips, my lungs, my native tongue

(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)
(My native tongue)
(Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh)

I want the world to sing in her native tongue
To sing it like when we were young
Back before the pendulum had swung to the shadows

I want the world to sing in her native tongue
Maybe we could learn to sing along
To find a way to use our lungs for love and not the shadows

I want the world to sing in her native tongue
To sing it like when we were young
Back before the pendulum had swung to the shadows

I want the world to sing in her native tongue
Maybe we could learn to sing along
To find a way to use our lungs for love and not the shadows

"I Don't Know How to Pray"

When I first heard X Ambassadors' single "BOOM," I was immediately hooked. It was my "new favorite song" and I had to have the album (for my birthday!).  The bass line and that pre-chorus riff just ROCK. But the single's release was still at least a month ahead of the planned album release, so I had to wait to have it in my hands. During that wait I heard "Hey Child," and I thought, 'wow, this album is gonna be SO good.'

So June comes around, and my sister sends me Orion. I stuck the disc in my car's CD player as soon as I exited the post office, and I've probably run through the whole album at least three times by now, a couple weeks later.

Honestly, it's taken that many listens for the album to grow on me. I don't love the featured artist on "Confidence," and I'm still on the fence about "Rule," "History," "Wasteland" and "Shadows." On their own, I don't think they're anything special. But I think, together, they probably bring the album together.

Then there's "I Don't Know How to Pray."

Whoa. Talk about an unassuming little "filler" track that packs a punch.

This is a song that I think, at first listen, is likely to make Christians shake their heads in disappointment and atheists pump their fists in triumph — but they're both wrong.

First, listen. Then, read the lyrics below.




Pause:: If you tried to play back that last part at the end with the volume up, I feel you. But we'll tackle that in a minute, so let's focus on the song lyrics:

I don't know how to pray
But here I am in this bathroom, hopin' you'll come back soon
Knees on the floor, prayin' to a Lord I don't know
I don't know how to pray
'Cause if I did, I'd be worthless, all I know is curses
You let me down, still I'm feelin' guilty somehow
So here I go: "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, what do I do?
Oh, God, oh, God, I ask a favor from you
And I know, I know we've never spoken before
But I hope you hear me, oh, Lord
Please let my brother live
And let me learn to forgive
And why do bad things happen to good people
That's all, I guess, amen"
And God said—

Artistically, that ending is really clever, I thought. And Sam Harris has an amazing voice with a whole lot of hurt and soul behind it (OK and I guess "heart" too). But then I listened to it again. This song is SO powerful because it hits on so many doubts I think just about every human has had — is there a God? Should I pray and see? How do I do that? Will He be mad that I swear a lot and I haven't tried talking to him before? Does it work better if I promise to try to be a better person? Why do bad things happen to good people?

Dude! We've all been there!

And then, that silence. Oof. Yeah. A lot of times — maybe all the time, for some of us — we feel like our prayers fall on deaf ears, or in some cases, that there are no ears to hear us. That hurts.

BUT. There's another — additional — interpretation to this. Maybe listen to the song again, and pause on that silence. What do you hear?

I don't know what Sam's intention was, but he left a space for you to hear God's voice — every time you listen to this song! And we will all hear something different in that "silence," because we are individuals, and God wants to have personal relationships with us.

OK, take a breath, and a step back. Some of you reading this may be thinking, "Yeahhhhh, no." I get the skepticism, I really do. But don't write these ideas off just yet.

Let's take a look at the transcript of the spoken recording at the end of the track:

You are definitely not the same person you were when you were a kid, but then you come back full circle when you sort of started to...become comfortable with who you are and

Right 

Less trying to be, something or someone [you're not] 

Do you guess that was kinda like your, at the basis of like a part of your struggle as a kid, like trying—feeling like you didn't know yourself? 

I feel like I was running from everything... 

Right  

I feel like that there in my twenties, one of the biggest struggles for me was you know, finding love...

There are two people talking: One seems older, in the role of a mentor or maybe even a therapist, but actually, it's Sam and his brother Casey (whom I interviewed once!). They discuss two big challenges in life: Knowing who you are and finding someone who loves that person.

Jesus is the answer!!

I know, I know, some of you are not here for "religious" content, and maybe this comes off as "preachy" and makes you dislike this song. I don't care, because I am so excited by this song and what it has revealed to me. When we accept Christ and his sacrifice, we become children of God, and we are loved by our father. This is something that I have been trying to internalize over the last few weeks, in part due to discussions I've had with a new friend.

I don't know where Sam and his brother and his bandmates are at on the "faith" front — who they consider themselves to "be" and what loves they have in their lives — but this song gives me hope. For everyone, honestly.

Now, I don't think my words here offer an immediate or perfect "solution" to the problems laid out in this song, but that's part of what makes it GREAT. We all need these struggles, at some point in our lives, to build our faith, and reveal who we really are. And we need to come to terms with the fact that we're not always going to understand. There is freedom in that, and I hope everyone reading this can experience that someday.

You see, we can fumble over our words and swear and neglect our relationship with God and be angry at him, but He forgives us when we acknowledge him, because by grace we have been saved.

Whatever you take away from this is, obviously, up to you. In any case, go listen to the album, which I've linked at the top of this post. Appreciate the artistry, and groove to some awesome music.

Peace.

Tuesday Tunes: "There is nothing new under the sun..."

Heard this song on the radio for the first time the other day...

... and I noticed the first five notes of the verse sounded awfully familiar!
(Compare the first line of the song above, from 33 to 35 seconds, with the first line of the chorus from the song below, about 53 to 55 seconds.)

Spanish Gold is only like three years old, and they're ripping off a one-hit wonder from the 80s?? Seems desperate. Although, maybe they're banking on the fact that 1984 is now THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO, and their audience is too young — and too uncultured! — to know this creepy classic?

Who knows.

I've also wondered about The Black Keys' "Fever" (2014) and Peggy Lee's "Fever," (1959, cover of the 1956 original by Little Willie John) but I can't actually put my finger on (or ear to) the similarity between those two, beyond the name(s) of the song(s).

ALSO...

I heard on the radio the other day that Portugal. The Man's new hit, which I referenced a few posts ago, apparently "borrowed" the melody from a much older song. At first, my love for that song totally deflated. Then I did some research (I mean, Googled it and read the Wikipedia entry, then went to YouTube), and found that the "borrowed" song — "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvellettes — didn't really sound like "Feel it Still" at all. But the band said it! They're the ones that volunteered the information! Right?

Anyway. This has me wondering how many new songs are really just recycled old songs and what constitutes as copyright violation or plagiarism and what doesn't.

Anyone know the rules or have a philosophical opinion on that?

WCW: Lauren Graham

Don't think I've ever made a #mcm or #wcw post on social media...but to use a cliché, there's a first time for everything!

I only started watching "Gilmore Girls" for the first time this year, right before the reboot came out on Netflix. I fell in love with the show on episode one, and quickly realized that, for once — and in contrast to at LEAST the last two seasons of "Once Upon a Time," my other TV addiction — it was largely because of the writing. GG is the best-written show I have ever seen/heard. The original, that is; the reboot was jarring and weird, complete with that ridiculous musical that took up like 1/3 of one of the four episodes (which Lauren apparently enjoyed, but I fast-forwarded through on the first viewing, something I have literally NEVER done before).

So, even though I pretty much hated every bit of the reboot, I still wanted to read her latest book, the memoir-ish one called "Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls." I finally got around to it this weekend, and I was not disappointed. At first, even as I read the first chapter, I worried it would be another fluffy celebrity slushpile in disguise, but it wasn't. Lauren Graham is as sharp (maybe more so) and witty as the character she played so well for so long. Great advice, pretty woman, decent writer (maybe I should give her more credit?). Plus, I found out her beau went to my alma mater! So cool!

Here are some gems I captured while reading:

 

 

If you're a writer, actress or fellow creative trying to make her way in the world, check out this book! And let me know what you think!

♪On the radio, oh-oh♪

Do you ever hear a song on the radio while you're flipping stations that just kind of catches you? Makes you stop and listen, sort of passively, but intrigued? I heard both of these songs for the first time on the Valley's newest station, Hatcher Pass Radio, the other day. They both have a kind of indie sound, though Snow Patrol isn't. Both bands are from the UK, so maybe that's where some of the similarity comes from? Idk, I just feel like there's some kind of connection between these two songs.

Listen and see what you think!

(That was a Regina Spektor reference in the title, btw)

Holy Hollens!

How have I never mentioned Peter Hollens? I think I discovered this guy on Pandora (on my super slow sad station), but his real presence is on YouTube. He has SO MANY VIDEOS. And his voice is absolutely beautiful. He does a bunch of cool collaborations and covers, and I think it's all crowd-sourced. It's pretty much all a cappella, but I think reaches a whole other level than Pentatonix (which I also like). In fact, here's one he did with Avi Kaplan! And a Charlie Puth cover with Mike somebody, and one from The Hobbit, and a Disney one...

I have a dozen favorites (actually I'm not sure I can even narrow it down that far), but you'll have to browse the rest yourself!

'Hide and Seek'

Do you know that Imogen Heap song Jason Derulo sampled, made famous by, I don't know, the internet and whatnot? Well, the other day I entered one of those weird Twilight Zones of memory and couldn't decide if I had actually heard the original song or just listened to it so hard this time it sounded familiar...but when a choral version of it showed up in my YouTube queue, I (re)discovered the first iteration and damn was it powerful. "Hauntingly beautiful," reviewers called it, and I cannot think of a more accurate description. I just know as soon as I heard that first line I was spellbound, and could see a scene from one of my novels playing out to it perfectly. It's a novel that started in bits and pieces one October, I think, not even in an attempt at NaNoWriMo. It's still stuck halfway in the idea phase, I think, but when I heard that song I thought, this story has to be a reality. If it could become a movie, even better!  I saw a flash of a scene I haven't written, in slo-mo, perfectly fitted to that song. And then I slipped into that mindset again that maybe I should be a screenwriter instead...

But for now, I guess I'm just a dreamer.

Anyway, for your listening enjoyment, Imogen Heap (that's her real name! I didn't know):

Portugal. The Man

Have you heard of Portugal. The Man? The biggest band to come out of Alaska, as far as I know, and they're from my hometown! I even wrote about them once for the local newspaper.

At the time I scheduled the interview, I, shamefully, didn't know any of their music. Even after I spent a couple hours listening to their songs, there were only a few that I really liked -- honestly, I kind of felt like a bad Alaskan (though with album names like "The Satanic Satanist" and "Evil Friends," maybe you can understand my lack of enthusiasm, at least for some of their lyrics).

Then I heard this song on the radio the other day, and I'm pretty obsessed with it.

Enjoy!