Music Is Your Only Friend, Until...?
Oh, my, my -- one could go on and on for hours about this one -- the appalling pop-ification and de-Christianizing of even ostensibly Christian funerals.
The best line of many memorable lines in this wonderful piece (I'm not sure the writer is a believer) is that nowadays, one's funeral is "the last me moment."
Here is what most of your friends and mine actually believe:
"To us hymns are just half-remembered school songs; prayers are comforting but broken spells; God's name has been sullied by hypocrites and zealots; death -- we're betting, though we hoped to be wrong -- is no glorious hereafter but the great bugger-all. Without faith, all we have is now, each other and the songs we grew up with, which embody our lives' meaning, our love affairs and losses. What sounded profane to our parents is to us sacred. Pop is our only ceremonial music and, in the years to come, it will provide our unlikely requiems."
In other words, "music is your only friend, until the end."
This is so terribly, terribly, sad, and it speaks volumes about the vacuousness of a postmodern culture that has rejected God. Let the debate begin. Either Christ has a proper place at a funeral, or He has a place nowhere in society or culture.
[Hint: for those of you who didn't grow up in the late sixties or early seventies -- lucky you -- the title of this post is taken from a famous song by The Doors called, "When The Music's Over (Turn Out the Lights)." You can see the relevance.]
The best line of many memorable lines in this wonderful piece (I'm not sure the writer is a believer) is that nowadays, one's funeral is "the last me moment."
Here is what most of your friends and mine actually believe:
"To us hymns are just half-remembered school songs; prayers are comforting but broken spells; God's name has been sullied by hypocrites and zealots; death -- we're betting, though we hoped to be wrong -- is no glorious hereafter but the great bugger-all. Without faith, all we have is now, each other and the songs we grew up with, which embody our lives' meaning, our love affairs and losses. What sounded profane to our parents is to us sacred. Pop is our only ceremonial music and, in the years to come, it will provide our unlikely requiems."
In other words, "music is your only friend, until the end."
This is so terribly, terribly, sad, and it speaks volumes about the vacuousness of a postmodern culture that has rejected God. Let the debate begin. Either Christ has a proper place at a funeral, or He has a place nowhere in society or culture.
[Hint: for those of you who didn't grow up in the late sixties or early seventies -- lucky you -- the title of this post is taken from a famous song by The Doors called, "When The Music's Over (Turn Out the Lights)." You can see the relevance.]
posted by Shark Food at 10:28 AM
2 Comments:
Music is your only friend, until the end. Morrison was right. When God isn't enough, the only thing left out there that's innocent and faithful is music. There's other things like drugs and partying, but they're not innocent. And even friends and family aren't faithful. So music and God are the only thing that is left(not to get them confused). i think music refers to autonomy,or self-governance,choice. Why? Because we don't always listen to the Father, our Shepherd. It's our ultimately our choice to return to the gentle pasture, or jump off a cliff cause the other sheep do it too. or maybe even eat fungus from feces dropped by our neighbor the horse.
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