Music Day - Major Tom

Since I'm apparently on a 'secular oldies' kick, we're just going to lean into it.

Despite my love for '80s music and my copious oldies-radio-listening, I had not heard this song until early 2020 when I heard it on the local radio station on the way to my husband's family's winter vacation spot (literally weeks before the COVID shutdown). I was immediately captivated by it. Turns out this particular station really likes this song, so I heard it several times over the next few months.

It's the perfect marriage of Things I Like In Songs:

- space themes

- '80s keyboards

- rumbling bass

- harmonies

- melancholy/thoughtful/introspective lyrics

- singer with a good voice

- upbeat/danceable

- '80s production

- clear and well-built climax

- good emotional/aural dynamics

- cohesive storytelling

If you like all (or even some) of these things, have I got the song for you.

It starts out like just another '80s song -- a staccato keyboard line that builds on itself and adds in some fantastic sassy bass before settling into a subdued guitar that brings in the vocals.

Our narrator sketches out the story: a space launch, the final checks, the nerves of the crew both in the ship and on the ground, the countdown to liftoff...

The music is fairly basic during the actual storytelling, but what makes the song truly amazing is how, the second there are no lyrics, the music shoots into the stratosphere with layers of space-y keyboards that paint a rich, full, detailed scene of the galaxies as the ship hurtles farther into the deep. The story itself is compelling, but it's the musical arrangement that the lyric is placed in that takes the song a cut above all the other story songs in the world. This is not merely tone-painting, it is universe-painting.

Earth below us

Drifting, falling

Floating, weightless

Calling, calling home...

In the chorus, the music itself gives one a floating, weightless feel. The echo they put in the vocal emphasizes that 'alone in space' vibe. It's the musical representation of what one feels when they look up at the dark starry night sky in the country, times fifty.

In the second verse, Major Tom begins to doubt the reasons for the mission -- what will it affect; when all is done? His doubts begin to outweigh his confidence in the mission. Meanwhile, all that the ground crew knows is that Major Tom is not responding.

On that cliffhanger, the chorus swoops back in and carries us away again, in the suit of Major Tom alone in the vast fields of stars. There's a brilliant synth bit here that sounds exactly like a spaceship powering up and zooming off, further into the unknown.

The music settles into the backseat and Major Tom sends one final transmission -- give my wife my love... followed by a haunting harmony and sixteen counts of nothing but staccato keyboard to let the impact of what has just happened sink in to the listener -- an odd choice from a songwriting standpoint, but a brilliant choice from a storytelling/dramatic perspective.

The verse continues -- he is presumed dead, and he is content to let them believe it. His reasons for staying in space are ambiguous... is he an alien, returning home at last? is he escaping the world back home (and who wouldn't want to)? does he feel he doesn't fit in on Earth? has he been brainwashed by an alien king? Personally, I'm inclined to believe the second and third options, but Schilling gives no hints other than the ghostly words this is my home... I'm coming home...

Another eight counts to let the listener process, and then we are launched into the chorus again.

The chorus is repeated and here is where the magic really starts to happen -- it's subtle at first; the keyboard backing harmonies began to change very slightly in the second repeat, and then in the third repeat they're joined by voices and clearly building to something.

The word home explodes through the speakers/headphones in a firework display of musical and vocal harmonies that sounds so much like Shotgun Angel Daniel Amos that the first time I heard it I swore I picked out Jerry Chamberlain's voice. It's a beautiful marriage of music, voice, and concept. 'Home' in space, so far away from home; 'home' beyond the stars. It is the perfect song climax, tying everything up with a bow but at the same time showering the listener with the stars of the sky like confetti or fresh snow on our shoulders.

Fun fact: the song (actually the whole album) was originally written and recorded in German, which is, for all its harsh sounds, a very thoughtful and poetic language. It's actually ideal for writing songs that deal with complex emotions with enough logic to not be silly (looking at you, Italian). When I'm better at understanding German, I would love to revisit this song and focus on the German version of it.

Title: Major Tom (Coming Home)

Artist: Peter Schilling

Album: Error In The System (German version: Fehler Im System)

Year: 1983

iTunes here; YouTube here.

And I haven't even gotten to part II yet...

Music Day - Ten Thousand Lightyears

After the disco/dance/pop reign of Boney M., they took a page from ABBA's book and did some rather more serious and introspective work, and in fact they stuck to it longer than ABBA did. What you hear on the typical 'greatest hits of Boney M. album' is NOT the whole story, in fact, those albums only cover the first (and more frivolous) half of their career.

Perhaps their greatest (and most unrecognised) work is the first half of the album Ten Thousand Lightyears, a song cycle about escaping planet Earth for a better world in a plot that foreshadows Halo (assuming I understand Halo correctly, which I probably don't). This song cycle culminates in the epic title track, a slow burner of an anthem that so perfectly captures the sehnsucht for a better world that only Terry Scott Taylor/Daniel Amos can match that level of intense emotional longing.

The song starts with what sounds like a real live string bass, immediately followed by a slow sparking synth melody, then some gentle, airy percussion. This builds slowly for well over a minute before Liz Mitchell's warm voice soars out over the canopy of stars that the synths have laid out before her, painting a picture of a utopian world ten thousand lightyears somewhere out in space... they practice love and they know what it takes... lightyears away, far from pain... came to a place full of grace and of peace...

And it somehow keeps building. Some lovely harmonies follow, then some soft brass in the chorus. For all the mellowness and heart-wrenching lyrics, this is still very clearly Boney M. -- the percussion still somehow recalls hits like Rasputin.

In the second verse, the dreamer is awakened back into a rude and very not-utopian reality.

Suddenly it's ringing in my ears

Why is it now; I don't want to be here

...how I wish that this dream could go on.

By the second chorus, the voices have doubled into what sounds like a small choir, and the music continues to grow richer and fuller, sprinkled with some pizzicato strings and given added richness and polish with the brooding brass section.

Liz Mitchell is capable of incredible vocal depth and emotion, and by and large Boney M. underexploited this ability (probably the only thing they didn't exploit). One sees it on the infamous Christmas album a little bit, but this song was the best opportunity she had to do it with Boney M. proper and boy, does she ever seize it.

Title: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Artist: Boney M.

Album: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Year: 1984

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Obviously this song resonates a lot with me, as I often feel the exact same way. There is a place beyond the stars where Brittney and M and my cousin all live, and I so desperately want to go, to get away from the pain and abuse of this world. I'm not even thirty yet, but I am so, so world-weary. I understand what old people mean when they say they're 'ready to go.' I get it. I am too. I want to go beyond the stars and rest for the first time in my life -- rest from the constant terror that I'm going to breathe wrong and offend somebody or that I'm going to have someone at my throat because I did the literal exact thing they had asked me to do the day before and rest from knowing every single second of my life that I will literally always be a failure and a disappointment. I want to go there so badly it often brings tears to my eyes.

I'd give all I've got if that's where I could stay...

And I would. I really, really would.

Music Day - Tourist Trap

I recently acquired this album on vinyl. I already have it on CD/my iTunes, but this is one of my top five favourite albums of all time and I wanted it on vinyl.

For context, this is a space-age concept album, born out of the 'not of this world' school of thought that you find in the Bible (referring to the people of God whose home is not on earth, but in the kingdom of God). This is a theme also used by Larry Norman in his Only Visiting This Planet album (1972) and Petra's 1983 song Not Of This World, although in my completely biased opinion Crumbächer gave it the most thorough and relatable treatment.

Until I listened to the vinyl and read the enclosed lyric sheet, most of the lyrics of this song had eluded me. I had gotten the general idea of it -- that this was a song about how alluring fallen-earth society can be and how easy it is to get comfortable and to lose sight of the fact that this is not our home. But on the day I listened to this vinyl, lyric sheet in hand, I was not in a great headspace and I was starting to ruminate on suicide again (I say this casually only because it's such a common occurrence).

This song had never been a favourite of mine (that was an honour given to tracks like Royal Command Performance, Interstellar Satellite, and Solo Flight) -- until that day when nearly every single line leapt through the stylus and struck me, particularly this one:

When the pressure drives I want to stall

It would be so easy after all...

It would be so easy. At the time I was exhausted -- physically, mentally, emotionally. The thought of waking up every single morning for the next sixty years and fighting literally non-stop with the demon in my head when I was already so deeply depleted at such a (relatively) young age was more than I could stand. All I wanted was to stop fighting. I just wanted a break. I just wanted to breathe without something telling me I couldn't or that I wasn't working hard enough or that I wasn't good enough. The song's opening lines capture it so perfectly: [W]hen every day's a constant uphill climb / They say the joy of living can get lost within the bittersweet of time...

In spite of that, the chorus continues:
So I sally forth, try, try again
Passing up a 'last chance' now and then...

I couldn't feel the same determination that Stephen and Co. feel in this song within myself, but I caught enough of theirs that it inspired me to keep going, just one more day.

Title: Tourist Trap

Artist: Crumbächer

Album: Escape From The Fallen Planet

Year: 1986

Label: Frontline Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Musically, I think my favourite moment is the key change after the guitar solo (I'm always a sucker for a key change). Other highlights include Crumbächer's trademark harmonies and of course plenty of space-age keyboards. There's a nice little guitar solo in here too (a rarity in early Crumbächer, but I think it gives the song added weight and substance).

Big Deep Space

I finally figured out what I like in my music -- why I love the '80s so much and why I CANNOT STAND hipster music.

I mean, there are several things I like: a good clear voice that's not nasal or raspy (Rick Florian of White Heart, Loyd Boldman of Prodigal), keyboards/piano (David Meece, Crumbächer) poetic/deep/insightful lyrics (everything Terry Scott Taylor has ever breathed on), a good dancing beat (basically the entire 1980s)...

But the other night one more ingredient clicked in my mind: I like bigness.

The 1980s (especially rock and, to an extent, pop) are notorious for 'big' production. Lots of instruments, lots of layers, lots of space -- music that could, and often did, fill arenas and stadiums. Late at night, go crank up the local '80s station and notice how sooner or later your mental pictures start going into outer space even if the song isn't about outer space. The production is just so big, so open, that your mind just starts to fly on its wings and suddenly you're meandering past galaxies.

You don't have that kind of space in a hipster song. There's nothing between the moaning vocal and the acoustic guitar. It's so flat and listless. Rock used to glitter and sparkle and have shape -- big shape, like a cathedral's ceiling. There were layers you could dig through -- drums, bass, keys, multiple guitars, vocal harmonies -- and they all had different dynamics. I realised I like music that lets me escape, distracts me, lets me fly, fires my imagination, releases me to the stars. It awakens my sense of wonder, and these days I need as much of that as possible. Hipster music doesn't do that, and worship music especially doesn't do that (worship music should though, in my opinion -- how are you going to inspire wonder in a congregation about a God you can only praise with flat, listless, bland, boring music?). (For more on that rant, see here.)

This doesn't just apply to '80s rock either -- choral music and symphonic music have a similar effect. Both have been widely used in the church and still capture the hearts of young and old in any religion today. Coincidence?

I'm not saying we have to go back to '80s arena rock. It's not everyone's thing, and that's cool. But can we at least kill this hipster music thing so we can have a resurgence in inspiring music? Please?

Music Day - Central Theme

I don't mind music with lyrics that praise God. Really, I don't. What I can't stand is music that tells you, very explicitly, that they're worshipping God. (If, by 'worship,' you mean 'repeating the same two phrases over and over and over and over and over and over again, ad nauseam.') (What was that Jesus said about those who pray with vain repetitions? Oh right... "do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them." -- Matthew chapter six.)

No, I like music with intelligent praise lyrics. I'm not generally a science nerd, but when it comes to worshipping God, science is probably one of the best things to look to if you want to stand in awe. I mean, God created some seriously cool stuff (the spectrum of light and colour and sound alone is freaking cool).

However, Christians have by and large decided that science doesn't exist. Their loss. Now they've reduced themselves to repeating the same two lyrics over and over and over and... so on, ad nauseum. And since Christians have also decided, by and large, that art in almost all forms also doesn't exist (or is pure evil), they also don't have the creativity or the language skills to even come up with anything more creative than the same two lines (and three chords).

Good praise music, with actual intellectual meaning behind it, is almost impossible to come by -- simply because it almost doesn't exist. I could count on one hand the praise songs (that I know of) that fall into the 'not-insipid' category. One such song comes to us from -- who else? -- Daniel Amos.

Not only is it different from everybody in today's praise-and-worship music machine (I won't mention Chris Tomlin or Hillsong by name), lyrically it captures part of the sheer majesty and size of God by comparing it to space (as in starts-and-planets space, not empty space). It's an infinitesimally small part in real life, but it's a lot bigger than most of us think about on a regular basis. Plus, the syncopated guitar picking in the chorus (Jesus in the centre / Revolving around Him...) is absolutely wonderful.

Title: Central Theme

Artist: Daniel Amos

Album: ¡Alarma!

Year: 1981

Label: Stunt Records

iTunes here; YouTube here; full album available from the band's website here (scroll down just a little bit).

Lyrics here.

More Daniel Amos lore: This song is the kickoff point (the prelude, really) for DA's four-album series collectively entitled The ¡Alarma! Chronicles, a huge artistic undertaking that saw the band move from new wave to rock to synthpop to ethereal keyboard arrangements. Although the Chronicles covered (broadly) apathy, deception, technology, and death, they begin and end with God -- the central theme and the beautiful one.

Solar screams

(I am nothing)

Vibrations under the rings

How great You are

Moon like a gong

(I am nothing)

Deep hollow song

How great You are...