Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Sweet Melissa

No, this isn't a blog post about an old girlfriend...

Last Friday night, we had dinner with some friends at one of our favorite local places, Twisted Oak. We were upstairs with the singer/guitar player. After freaking me out with his vocal harmonies (he was the only singer), I realized that he was using a voice box to add harmonies and effects. But that's not the point of this post.

He was playing the expected mix of folk, country, rock ballads, etc. when he started singing the worship song "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever". Initially, I appreciated him including a worship song in his set list, even if it is an ambiguous one like this one. Then the ambiguity reared it's ugly head. He made it into a medley with the Allman Brothers Band classic "Melissa"! At first, I thought it was just a transition that I missed, but then he recapped into "I Could Sing..." making the medley complete. It was horrible.

As I thought about it, it brought to mind a question that I have asked before: why do we worship women and sing sappy love songs to Jesus?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good point, Michael. Honestly, I'm not sure what you meant here - what was bad about the medley? Was it that he added a secular song in with a worship song - de-valuing the worship song, or was it that he was cheesy?

Well, anyway, I really enjoyed your comment on my recent post. Thanks for commenting! I'll take some of those questions and make them posts, VERY GOOD questions! THANKS!

Michael said...

I guess it just highlights the point that our worship music is mostly romantic in nature. While marriage is used to illustrate the relationship of Christ and the church, so are a lot of other things. I think overly romantic worship music is a problem, especially for men. Have you read "Why Men Hate Going to Church" by David Murrow?

My problem with the medley was that it combined two songs that were about two different things. Imagine combining a fatherly song about your daughter with a romantic love song about your wife. Both may be about your family, but it's kind of creepy.