Music and Meaning

As I jog around Glasgow, one of the songs that rotates through my iPod is Katy Perry's "Firework." This is hard for a 50-year-old raised on classic rock like Led Zeppelin and Van Halen to admit, but the opening riffs of that fluffy pop song never fail to inspire hopeful emotions in me. I love that silly, dramatic song with lyrics that almost, but don't quite, rhyme. "Boom, boom, boom! Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon..." A song sure to appeal to middle school girls, but not so much to middle-aged joggers.

When our family moved to Glasgow in December 2010, Firework was new and frequently played on KLTZ's playlist. Every morning as I got ready for work at my new job, I was hearing Firework and radio personality Tim Phillips for the first time. Everything was new and exciting: New song, new radio station, new town, new house, new school for the kids (Go Scotties!). The world was full of new beginnings and new hope and Katy Perry was singing to me, "Baby you're a firework!"

Music is poetry and is full of meaning. Certain songs help bring meaning to our lives. When I hear the Saskatoon Police Pipers playing "Scotland the Brave," at the high school homecoming parade, I feel a special stirring in my soul, which must be the heritage of my Scot grandmother Mary MacDonald. When I hear the blue grass and banjos of Flatt and Scruggs, I think of my hillbilly grandfather, Daddy Bob. Def Leppard songs take me back to my high school days. U2's "40" reminds me of all the times God pulled me out of the miry clay. It is hard to convey the meaning of the emotions which come from songs like these, but I know the feelings are real nonetheless.

In our overly scientific, skeptical and cynically-minded times, we tend to downplay the importance of subjective experiences in our lives. We discount the value of poetry, music, literature and spirituality because they aren't logical, practical or rational. Karl Marx said, "Religion is the sigh of an oppressed people, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." While I am as far from being a communist, and truthfully far from even being a liberal, I think Marx had a point. With the current opioid addiction crisis, perhaps we have outsmarted ourselves and traded the healthy religiosity of our grandparents for soul killing distractions, like prescription pills. We pin our hopes on the practicalities of politics and presidents instead of the promises of poetry, priests and preachers. Our hearts have become heartless. We think we have gained the world and in the process we have lost our souls.

Science cannot explain everything, but a few supposed scientists try to explain everything away. Fox News and CNN inform us 24 hours a day, but we don't know anything important. We have news, but no Good News. In our sophistry and sophistication, we have isolated ourselves from God and spirituality because religious ideas cannot be proven scientifically. Our senses numb and hopes dead, we fritter out lives away on frivolities. We have lost the musical Joy that causes us to hum a happy tune.

G.K. Chesterton wrote that the poetry of hope and faith allows us to float forever with joy in an endless sea. But when we insist on having a complete explanation for a Higher Power we can't explain, it is like trying to swim across that endless sea. We drown in the futility of that impossible effort. However, hope and faith stop us from sinking in despair. They set our feet upon a rock and make our footsteps firm. We sing a new song.

To regain joy, meaning and music in our lives, perhaps it is time for us to remember what the preacher of a new religion said years ago to a sophisticated but declining culture like ours about the importance of hope and faith. He taught that for now we can only know in part, but one day we will know in full. But until that day comes, three things remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.