Music Day - Reality

Like any good Christian '90s kid, I grew up on a steady diet of Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, and dc Talk on the radio (you know, back when 'Christian radio' was at least palatable). The thing is, when you grow up surrounded by something, you trade freshness for nostalgia.

This song was ubiquitous in my early childhood circles (so, church and home), to the point it was just part of the landscape, part of the air I breathed as a six-year-old. I was barely aware that I even knew of this song until over ten years later when I bought a Newsboys greatest hits album after attending one of their concerts on a whim. Even then, this song remained background noise -- just part of the culture that I still had one foot in.

The other day, though, I suddenly remembered the Newsboys existed and played this album off the cuff. This song stood out to me.

It's little secret that I've lived my life so far in a way very similar to the runaway in the song -- constantly out of money, constantly traveling/moving around and involved in odd-sounding activities that concern the people who feel some obligation to show concern for my well-being. Even in this song, the protagonist has performing arts-based aspirations and admits to being malnourished -- these could be subplots taken directly from my own story.

Runaway

Where's your head

Dreamers' dreams

Are grounded

In reality that comes from above

In this simple lead-in to the chorus that takes all of ten seconds, Steve Taylor deftly sneaks in a very powerful truth that we often forget -- the same God who created our dreams also created reality. Christians especially tend to think that dreams and reality are two separate (and mutually exclusive) things, and rarely (if ever) stop to realise that God is in charge of both. The same God who created the runaway dreamer created the reality around them, and therefore the dream will only make sense in God's timing.

This is something I've been pondering a lot for myself lately. I started exploring that in my Desert Rose post from a few weeks ago, and I feel this song continues the thought. For my entire life I've been pushing for more experience, more practice, more education, more opportunities for my art. And those aren't necessarily bad things -- in fact, personal development in the area of one's calling is the best way to make the most of the gift you've been entrusted with when it's really time to shine. But I was starting to get frustrated with how little was happening -- why I was still languishing in the back of the ensemble despite 97% of the directors I've worked with noting both my skill and my ability to learn things accurately and quickly (which is almost more important than pre-existing skill) -- why I'm living in a tiny dying town in the literal middle of nowhere with very few opportunities to practice, let alone learn more. I had worked so hard and invested so much, and none of it seemed to amount to anything. It was like my gift was being wasted. And my increasing age was only fueling the fire of frustration.

At the time I wrote the Desert Rose post, I prayed that if God really wanted me to be an artist; if He had truly called me to be a dancer, that He would provide opportunities, because I sure as heck wasn't finding any. For perhaps the first time in my life, I stopped trying to make stuff happen. I was just too worn out to do it anymore.

Last week a prominent figure in the tap dancing world who I auditioned for exactly once two and a half years ago messaged me completely out of nowhere saying she was just starting up a Zoom class that would be right around my level (based on what she was seeing on my Instagram) and would I be interested? She even readily negotiated a payment plan that worked for us. My husband agreed immediately. I don't even have to pay gas money to drive two hours to the nearest class -- all I'm paying is the tuition. This is exactly the kind of opportunity I've always dreamed of but either was too far away or didn't have a consistent enough income to support it.

Perhaps the reality is that I am called to dance after all... but I had to live in the reality that comes from above.

Now for the song itself.

The Newsboys' glory years were marked by a brightness in the drums and a freshness in the bass paired with melodies just catchy enough to be fun and not annoying. The Australian accents and Steve Taylor's unique (and brilliant) approach to song lyrics didn't hurt anything either.

For this song, Taylor and Furler peek into the letters of a runaway sending letters home to their parents, attempting to soothe their fears (read: keep them off their back) while subtly asking for money to fund their sketchy-sounding exploits (they may or may not have quite literally joined the circus). The thing with Steve Taylor's writing is it's almost funnier to read the lyrics in the liner notes than it is to hear them in the song. I'm very willing to bet that nobody else could write a serious song about God's timing and guidance and include lines like lent the money you sent me to the clown with the knife or could you find a better photo for the milk carton backs? and make it work. The pair also prominently features a line ripped directly old of a Baptist hymnal -- trust and obey; there is no other way (the hymn continues 'to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey'), mostly because it supports their point, but no doubt the chance to annoy all the anti-rhythm-section Baptists was a clincher. And I am very certain that no other band could have managed to pull off this song with the right mix of light humour and serious exhortation -- too much seriousness and the brilliant writing would have fallen flat. Too much lightness and the point would be gone (which would also have been a disservice to the writers).

The song is almost surprisingly fast. One doesn't notice it really until they near the ending, when the chorus repeats. It's a testament to the band's skill that the listener doesn't feel 'rushed.'

Musically, this is Newsboys in their prime. This is the sound and styling that made them CCM superstars and cemented their legacy. This song was a mega-hit in CCM in the mid/late-'90s, and it was still second to Breakfast, which appeared on the same album and may very well be the most well-known Newsboys song of all time (also probably holds the world record for 'most breakfast puns in one song'). It also features Taylor/Newsboys' trademark clapping section (this time a nearly a cappella repeat of the chorus accompanied only by clapping the rhythm).

Title: Reality

Artist: Newsboys

Album: Take Me To Your Leader

Year: 1996

iTunes here; YouTube here.

In the reality that comes from above

God is calling -- there's no greater love

It's His reality that welcomes us back...

Day 3 - National Choreography Month

Accidentally started working on DA's 'Mall (All Over The World)' so I guess that's what we're starting with this year.

As longtime readers know, Doppelgänger is one of my favourite albums of all time. It's a concept album largely about the sins of the church and their effect on society, which of course is something dear to my heart. I've always wanted to do a show centering around this music, and this year on my many long commutes between Alberta and Saskatchewan listening to this album I've started to piece it together.

I've already choreographed a couple of cuts from this album and I'm working at joining them into a cohesive whole. But my current piece is entirely new (tap) choreography.

It's an ensemble dance of course (large groups is what I do best), but I'm trying not to make it too complex visually. I'm taking some thematic inspiration from Steve Taylor's brilliantly incisive 'I Want To Be A Clone' -- repetitive movements, loud bashing, the march of progress and society drowning out any dissenting voices. Cloneliness is next to godliness, right?

However, I do need it to be aurally intriguing, and that's what I suck at.

Music Day - Breakfast

I've really been feeling my age lately. This week I realised that this year's eighteen-year-old college freshmen were born in the year 1998. And that fact will not let me go.

I know 1980s music is old. I get that. But to me, mid to late-'90s music is the actual soundtrack of my childhood. (Even though I wasn't allowed to listen to Britney Spears, I was aware of her.) So I have this thing in my head that just kind of assumes '90s pop is the soundtrack to everyone's childhood -- that is to say, that all church kids grew up singing Shine and The Devil Is Bad and Big House and Flood and maybe even (like me) Missing Person.

And this week I realised it's not. Not anymore. The college freshmen I rub shoulders with this year are younger than all but one of the aforementioned songs. They're not just 'too young to remember.' They were literally not even born yet. And now they're in college. There are adults on this planet who cannot remember hearing Dive on the radio.

So today I am going to do my part to rectify this unfortunate situation. Yeah, the '80s may be a bit of a stretch for this generation, but surely the '90s can still get some attention. They're getting forgotten -- taken for granted. They're in that weird limbo state where everyone thinks they're familiar but they're totally not.

I give you one of the greatest Newsboys songs to ever grace the airwaves, back when the Newsboys were Australian (this generation of college freshmen doesn't know that either). Steve Taylor (who?) was clearly well-involved in the band by that point, and it appears that with this song he simply set out to see how many food puns he could cram into three and a half minutes and still sell it.

The Newsboys, of course, pull it off in infectious, danceable style -- that opening guitar riff is still one of the most recognisable riffs of my generation. The syncopated acoustic piano you hear in the back is something CCM hasn't heard since. This, I believe, is also the start of the tradition of whistling somewhere on every Newsboys radio single (up until they Americanised). You have to give these guys props -- who else could sing a lyric like this and actually make it sound fun (even twenty years on) instead of stupid? Steve Taylor and the Australian Newsboys were a match made in heaven.

Title: Breakfast
Artist: Newsboys
Album: Take Me To Your Leader
Year: 1996
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Music Day - Hero

This song really hit me in my final semester (so far) of college.

I was in the midst of the worst year of my personal life (to that point). Two divorces, both completely out of the blue, came right on each other's heels -- one involved my favourite uncle leaving my favourite aunt. That was the first of two straws that broke me (the second was the death of my cousin). It was unfathomable -- that my uncle, who was so caring and affectionate, would turn his back on the woman he promised to love till death parted them and deliberately rend his children's lives in two.

Not long after that bomb broke, one of the chapel speakers at the college gave a talk that made me realise that my uncle had been one of my heroes. But, as Steve Taylor notes...

Heroes died
When the squealers bought 'em off
Died
When the dealers got 'em off
Welcome to the in-for-the-money-as-an-idol show
When they ain't as big as life
When they ditch their second wife...

It's an incisive look at the despair of a little boy as he grows up and all his dreams are crushed... as he finds that the idol you thought you'd be... was just another zero.

And while I'm not a male in an increasingly feminist world, with all the double-standards and pressure that comes with it, that about sums up how I feel too.

I looked up to my uncle. He was cool, he was funny, he was smart, he was a fantastic storyteller, he was one of the few people who would actually talk to me during my teen years. He still does all these things, but now they reek of insincerity. How can I believe that you will always care for me, your mere niece, when you couldn't even muster up the will to care about the woman you professed to love and the children she gave you? And if I can't look up to my uncle, who else can't I look up to? Who can I trust? At first the obvious answer was 'God,' but then my cousin died -- in spite of our prayers for her -- and I realised even God will turn His back.

Title: Hero
Artist: Steve Taylor
Album: Meltdown
Year: 1984
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Plus, it accurately sums up life as an artist: I want to be an artist -- someone who creates things and touches hearts. I want to be a hero.

But the practical side
Said the question was still,
'When you grow up, what will you be?'
...I want to be an artist.

But that's the wrong answer.

Day Twenty-Five - What Is The Measure...?

Just finished the choreography for Steve Taylor's brilliant What Is The Measure Of Your Success?

This is a pretty emotional song. I found myself almost crying as I choreographed the ending. It's so haunting and hopeless. Taylor very much gets his point across, and it hurts a little more each time I hear it. Because the nature of creating choreography requires that I listen to the same section of the song repeatedly to get the vision and then to solidify the timing, I don't just hear the climax two or three times, it's more like two hundred times, each one on the heels of the other. And every time that final verse left me a little more tight in the chest.

I think my own choreography is part of that strong emotional response in myself. I'd long imagined this as a trio and I've had the blocking in my head for years. As usual, all I needed were the specific steps.

The trio is comprised of the first-person verse narrator -- a businessman, and two others who are equal parts bodyguards, henchmen, Greek chorus, and greedy young executives eyeing this businessman's power and wealth. The choreography is really simple, and that was intentional. It's loud, repetitive, and monotonous, which also happens to be my personal view of the business world. The two dancers move in perfect sync throughout, at once commenting and conniving, while the businessman displays his prowess at the front of the triangle -- until he realises that although he has gained the world, he is losing his soul. And then the sinister side of the other two comes out as they simply continue dancing, not noticing or caring about the hole that is left. It's just another businessman who lived and died in a dog-eat-dog world and no-one misses him. It's a lot like how Ebenezer Scrooge's end would have been if not for the fantastic events of that Christmas Eve.

And maybe what hurts is that the businessman in the middle, flaunting his skill and the heights to which he has risen, is me.

Music Day - Comedian

So guess who else has a Kickstarter going?

Steve Taylor is perhaps the most controversial and most well-known figure in CCM history. He is one of those rare figures in CCM who has managed to be both controversial and well-known for longer than a year. Plenty have been controversial (Petra, post-¡Alarma!-era Daniel Amos), but are not known by today's generation of Christians -- their perceived sins were forgotten after a year or two. And plenty have been well-known (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith), but not really boat-rockers.

Steve Taylor, however, managed to get signed to Sparrow Records -- historically one of the biggest labels in CCM -- which gave him a far bigger potential audience to start with. Add to that a few strong opinions about controversial topics, his knowledge of sarcasm as a first language, and an uncanny ability to pick just the right details and/or wordplay to infuse colour and the unexpected into a song, and you have a recipe for an infamous artist. Even after he stopped releasing solo work, he kept writing songs... my generation of CCM listeners is well acquainted with songs like Breakfast, Shine, Reality, and Million Pieces (Kissing Your Cares Goodbye), all made famous by the Newsboys.

Then the Newsboys Americanised and the brilliant songwriting of Steve Taylor seemed doomed to disappear forever.

But then, two years ago, he launched a Kickstarter campaign with the eventual goal of recording another album with himself on vocals -- his first in over twenty years (the previous Steve Taylor album, Squint, came out in 1993). Naturally, hungry fans pounced on it and if memory serves the campaign was fully funded in twenty-four hours.

This song was a result of that campaign and the resulting album.

Title: Comedian
Artist: Steve Taylor And The Perfect Foil
Album: Goliath
Year: 2014
Label: Independent release
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Now there is another Kickstarter campaign in the works. Steve and his band (which includes Newsboys alum Peter Furler on drums) intend to record an EP, so if you want more of this, go support it here.

Now -- if you're still with me after all that ancient history and the advert -- about the actual song.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain a Steve Taylor lyric because I'll probably get it wrong, so read the lyrics and form your own conclusions here. There's some really great wordplay in the first three verses though (The saints came marching in this morning / And they marched back out the door / Wholly offended...).

Musically speaking, this might be called progressive (I don't actually know, I suck at this genre-classification thing). The music is really sparse until the three-and-a-half-minute mark when the cymbals start competing with Steve's voice for first place in the mix. An electric guitar joins in about a minute later, only to drop out for the ending: a haunting synthesized half-spoken repetition of the phrase Man makes plans / God laughs... (although maybe it only sounds haunting to me because I was watching the Doctor Who episode The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances last night... the voice in the song reminds me a LOT of the voice of the kid saying "Are you my mummy?") This song is significantly mellower than the rest of the album (I very nearly featured Double Negative today instead of Comedian), so if slow songs aren't your thing -- and I don't blame you -- do check out the rest of the album, because if memory serves, this is actually by far the most mellow song on it.

NaNoWriMo Day 8: We Have Music!

So... Day 8 of National Novel Writing Month.

As I've lamented on this blog already, I had a ridiculous amount of trouble even thinking of an idea of what to write this year. Usually my problem is more like 'which of these 17 awesome ideas do I write this year?'

So this year, lacking any other ideas, I dug up a novel I started back in 2008 that had long since died of extensive family histories and minute geographical details (A.K.A. lack of ability to make the actual plot believable), gave it a chronological overhaul, revamped the main character's life, infused a plethora of juicy secrets, and decided that if I really absolutely had to, I could use this one for NaNoWriMo. All the time, of course, I was hoping for a much more exciting plot to come along.

Obviously, none ever came.

I came up with one heck of a backstory for a nonexistent story, but that was it. It was either my impossible ghost-mystery plot or my backstory-without-a-plot. I went with the ghost mystery.

One of my biggest hang-ups about this year was not knowing what my novel's 'soundtrack' should be. Often my novels are heavily inspired by music: last year's Kyrie came from Mr. Mister's song of the same name (although the Newsboys' Elle G. was another strong influence); Angel Falls (2013) was directly inspired by the Veil Of Ashes song; the plot of Chasm (2011) was entirely inspired by the Flyleaf song and a radio interview with Stryper, and so forth. And even in my novels that aren't named after songs, you can always tell what I was listening to that year just by reading the novel. And this year I had nothing. None of the music I listened to captured me at all. And even once I had a plot, I couldn't find music that fit. None of it felt right. I lifted the title from a Daniel Amos song, but even that song didn't fit the feel of the story. But I had no other ideas, so I had to use this intricate, impossible story-without-music.

It's funny how I always think I'm such a pantser (technical NaNoWriMo term for 'writer who makes crap up as they go along') until I actually attempt to do it and realise how much I suck at trusting my imagination. That said, I'm actually quite a long way ahead, but that was mostly because I hated my plot so much that I wanted to get away from it as soon as possible so I've been writing like a madwoman so I could finish it sooner. It's actually starting to pick up a bit (now that I've used up almost every single one of my plot points).

But today -- oh, today was a glorious day! for I decided, while writing, that I hadn't heard Steve Taylor's Hero in a while. And then his song Jenny. And then Sin For A Season. And somewhere between Jenny and Sin For A Season, I realised that those two songs perfectly described the two main players in the central conflict. (Of course, this happens when I'm over half-done the novel.)

Of course, by now my brain was in Steve Taylor mode, so I listened to two and a half entire albums. And nearly every single song applied to at least one character or one aspect of the situation.

So on this, my eighth day of panicking, I would just like to say:

Thanks, Steve Taylor. You saved my novel.

And now, stats time!

Official NaNoWriMo Goal For Day 8: 13,336 words

Current Word Count: 27,461 words
Number Of Characters Killed: 0 in story; like 5 in backstory
Number Of Song References: 0 (what is wrong with me?)
Number Of Doctor Who Episodes Watched: 4
Number Of Injured Wrists: 1
Snow Days: 0

Music Day - Sin For A Season

This song opens perhaps one of the most emotionally heavy sides of vinyl in the history of vinyl. Side two of this record dealt with adultery, drunk driving, crooked TV preachers, hypocrites, teenage runaways, abortion, suicide, and the American dream with a clarity that one will almost certainly never find elsewhere. And all of it to catchy, groovy, and creative rock.

This, the side opener, comes in with a deep, groovy, almost mournful chugging guitar and a slightly ominous synthesizer arpeggio at the appropriate times. The lyrics spin first a tale of a married man's one-night stand, then the story of a drunk woman driving toward home, but not making it unscathed... And Steve Taylor, in his pull-no-punches way, also pans the lyrical camera to the part that nobody ever talks about and the young and (temporarily) innocent never see: the regret. The months, the years of crippling, life-altering regret.
If the healing happens as the time goes by
Tell me why I still can't look her in the eye...
Now the years run together as the guilt goes wild
She still sees the body of an only child...

Coming on the heels of the mournful lines at the end of each verse, the chorus -- a repetition of the cry we all use to justify everything we do, the sort-of right and the clearly wrong -- seems so flimsy in comparison. It seems disgusting, and then to realise these are our own words on a daily basis -- I'm only human... 'nobody's perfect...' it sort of makes one catch their breath.

The third verse states his point even more bluntly, just in case we didn't get it in the first two verses. And it spells out very clearly that sometimes the Christians -- we who think we'll never fall -- are the worst perpetrators of this deception:
Gonna get the good Lord to forgive a little sin
Get the slate cleaned so he can dirty it again...

It's interesting to note the role of the hands in all three verses. The hand in the first verse with the napkin, the shaky hand in the second verse belying how inebriated she is, the hypocritical hands in the third verse carefully and stealthily chopping down the very people they claim to be building up and supporting. Our hands betray us... oh, be careful little hands what you do.

Title: Sin For A Season
Artist: Steve Taylor
Album: Meltdown
Year: 1984
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Steve Taylor News

This needs to happen.

This NEEDS to happen.

Yes, fans of obscure music, a new Steve Taylor album -- the first in twenty years. And it's up to us. Pledge by Christmas Eve.

Let's make this happen.

(For the curious... concert footage here.)

Music Day - Elle G.

This has been running through my head for a week. As the green leaves turn orange and yellow and swirl around below my window and the grey clouds of the approaching winter hang over town, this song weaves its way around the inside of my head, adding a melancholy melody to the chilled wind whipping my hair around my face.

I miss my family and friends so much. I miss the forays to the mall and to antique shops, having time just to have fun and to slow things down. I miss the laughs of my sisters and the faces of my brothers (and vice versa). I miss going to church and knowing everybody there. I miss driving twenty minutes to anywhere during twilight, alone, singing. I miss the hugs from my three closest friends at church, every week. I miss doing choreography, without the shadowed pressure of 'you know you have a paper to write...' I miss telling my mother everything there is to know about my favourite bands, even though she doesn't seem to really care. I miss working with my dad in the blasting sun on the hottest day of the year, shingling the largest roof in Canada. I miss being able to quote Daniel Amos songs and not having to explain what I'm quoting and why I think it's so dad-blamed funny. I miss saying 'White Heart' and people knowing who I'm talking about. I miss hearing Petra playing from other rooms in the house rather than just mine. I miss having an unobstructed view of the sunset every night. I miss people understanding my peculiar brand of sarcasm.

This song touches the same feeling (though deeper and darker than mine). It is perhaps the most beautiful song the Newsboys ever recorded.

Title: Elle G.
Artist: Newsboys
Album: Going Public
Year: 1994
Label: Star Song
iTunes here; YouTube here. (For interest's sake, listen to co-songwriter Steve Taylor's live take on it here.)

I am comforted slightly by the fact that I still see the dancing. As I listen to this song, I still see choreography in my mind, the way it's always been. I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I've been doing this in my head since I was seven. But somehow I thought that I might lose the capability since I haven't had the chance to choreograph anything since the beginning of August.

I've sort of been singing this song to myself here from myself in Alberta -- you can't imagine the guilt I feel in leaving. Most of my siblings are still so young. I feel terrible for leaving them. Sure, I'll be back for Christmas and for the summer, but what is that? What is that when we will be apart for Thanksgiving and the crucial atmospheric weeks leading up to Christmas and depending when Easter falls (I haven't checked), that too?

Silence all
Nobody breathe
How in the world could you just leave?

I feel like I left everything for this, and the stupid thing is I don't even know why. God called me here, so there must be a purpose, but so far I don't see anything that was worth leaving my family for. Not for two years. The people here are wonderful and funny, but though several of them remind me of my family, they will never replace them.

Thumbs out on a desert road I am told
Leads to nowhere...

Maybe this world is a barren place for a soul
Prone to get lost
But heaven still hounds from the smallest sounds to the cries
Of the storm-tossed...

Music Day

I had this guy's music in my head all day at work... I Want To Be A Clone, On The Fritz, Meltdown... so we're making the small leap from the sarcastic Terry Taylor to the sarcastic (and cynical) Steve Taylor. (I may or may not be a sarcastic person...)

It continues to puzzle me that for as much as I like Steve Taylor's solo material, I only own four of his songs and that's been the number for a long, long time. Why only four? I have no clue. I like quite a bit of his stuff (as heard to YouTube) and iTunes does carry I Predict 1990 and a greatest-hits compilation that actually gives you a decent cross-section of his career to date. Plus, I saw both I Want To Be A Clone and Meltdown on vinyl at the record shop the other day (I didn't have enough cash on me, or I totally would have bought them. Along with the Vital Signs LP (White Heart), the Run From The Darkness LP (Daniel Band), and that Barnabas LP I saw that I can't remember the name of right now).

I like the mood of this song. It makes you think, possibly more than the lyrics do. There's a melancholy hollow-ness in the sound, even as it races past. The sonic story of so many 9-to-5 drones -- once-wonderful and amazing people caught up in the song of little dollar signs floating just out of reach, just beyond 'a little more overtime'...

Title: What Is The Measure Of Your Success?
Artist: Steve Taylor
Album: I Predict 1990
Year: 1987
Label: Sparrow
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Brooding sound, heart-piercing story, haunting question. As for the video, I thought it odd at first, but I just watched it again and it feels like genius now. There's all this big set-up and seriousness, and for what? You'll have to watch the video to find out exactly what, but even the absurdity of it makes a point -- 'you think this is ridiculous? What about wasting your entire life in the pursuit of little pieces of paper?'

Well put, Steve. Very well put.


I know better
Still I run...

Music Day

I've been cramming my head full of classicchristian247.com due the the illustrious novel-writing occasion and last night (or early this morning), I heard this song.

Dude. I laughed so hard. Listen all the way to the end -- he gets so sarcastic at the end. It's great.

Title: So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt
Artist: Keith Green
Album: So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt
Year: 1980
Label: Last Days Ministries/Pretty Good Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

It took a bit for me to warm up to this song (until the line the ground opened up and had some of us for lunch). I never realised Keith Green was this versatile. Nor did I realise how great a lyricist he was -- think of mixing the Steve Taylor/Peter Furler team with Larry Norman. Great stuff. (Seriously, who else would ever come up with a line like Manna burgers!)

Tap Shoes

Today I bought my first ever-pair of tap shoes.

Let me say that again -- TAP SHOES! :-D

Ninety-four dollars (ninety-eight with sales tax) (for comparison, my pointe shoes are $80 per pair), but they're TAP SHOES!

And now, all that choreography; all those brilliant ideas I've had -- dances to songs like His Heart Was Always In It, Invitation, Let The Children Play, Bye Bye Babylon, More Sold Out (and that's just the White Heart)... Save Your Life, Ready Or Not, Somebody's Gonna Praise His Name, Walk Away From Love, Don't Waste Your Life, the 2010 remake of Angel Of Light, I Want To Be A Clone, New Earth, everything -- all that is now within my reach!

The ultimate goal? Independence Day by White Heart. That will take SO much work and practice, but it will be SO worth it.

Classes start on Monday...

TAP SHOES! *squeals*

(I am such a dance nerd.)

Music Day

This man is probably one of the most controversial artists in the history of Christian music. And for once, it wasn't because there was a beat to his material (as was the case with artists like Petra and Larry Norman).

Listen to the lyrics of today's song and I think it'll be self-evident (especially if you've ever been a part of a church congregation that was more concerned about tradition and appearances than Jesus). Stereotypical church pew-warmers do not take kindly to biting satire such as this. Think of Lecrae with way more sarcasm.

I think something I read on the back of a greatest-hits album sums up this artist's recordings pretty well... '...his music either offended people or woke them up.'

You know, as I type that I realise that pretty much describes the Gospel in general. It'll either offend you or wake you up. Who are we as artists to dumb it down to the point where it's not only entirely inoffensive, it's a complete waste of time whether you're a Christian or not? To omit any part of the Gospel is to change it. If it's changed, it's no longer the Gospel but some rule-direction religion merely based on it. In a matter of eternal life and death of millions of people, this is not something to skim over.

Ah, but I'm going off on a tangent again. Here's the song:

Title: I Want To Be A Clone

Artist: Steve Taylor

Album: I Want To Be A Clone

Year: 1983

Label: Sparrow Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.
(Just a warning if you love the song so much you click over to the live version in the YouTube sidebar: there is an almost illegal amount of eighties hair in that clip.)

Does the name look familiar? That's because Steve Taylor is the man who helped the Newsboys rise to fame nearly twenty years ago now (has it really been that long? I feel old now...). He's written scores of songs with Peter Furler for the band and for Peter Furler's solo album (released last summer). I'm pretty sure he produced the Newsboys for much of the '90s, though don't quote me on that.

They told me that I'd fall away unless I follow what they say

"Who needs the Bible anyway?"