Listening to Springsteen Tuesday night I was struck by how much of his lyrics attest to that truth of the gospels. I was again amazed at how he seems to lend credence to a good news that is often missing in the church. There is no further proof of that then in a sampling of the songs he performed in Tulsa:

Badlands
Lyric: Badlands, you gotta live it everyday/Let the broken hearts stand/As the price you’ve gotta pay/We’ll keep pushin’ till it’s understood/and these badlands start treating us good

Outlaw Pete
Lyric: Father Jesus I’m an outlaw, killer and a thief/And I slow down only to sow my grief/I’m Outlaw Pete, I’m Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?

Night
Lyric: And the world is busting at its seams/And you’re just a prisoner of your dreams/Holding on for your life/’cause you work all day/To blow ‘em away in the night

Working on A Dream
Lyric: I’m working on a dream/Though sometimes it feels so far away/I’m working on a dream/And how it will be mine someday/Rain pourin’ down I swing my hammer/My hands are rough from working on a dream/I’m working on a dream

Johnny 99
Lyric: Now judge judge I had debts no honest man could pay/The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and they was takin’ my house away

The Promised Land
Lyric: Gonna be a twister to blow everything down/That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground/Blow away the dreams that tear you apart/Blow away the dreams that break your heart/Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

The Wrestler
Lyric: Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free/If you’ve ever seen a one trick pony then you’ve seen me/Have you ever seen a one legged dog makin’ his way down the street/If you’ve ever seen a one legged dog then you’ve seen me/(Then you’ve seen me) I come and stand at every door/(Then you’ve seen me) I always leave with less than I had before

The Rising
Lyric: Spirits above and behind me/Faces gone, black eyes burnin’ bright/May their precious blood forever bind me/Lord as I stand before your fiery light

Born To Run
Lyric: The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive/Everybody’s out on the run tonight/but there’s no place left to hide/Together Wendy we’ll live with the sadness/I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul/Someday girl I don’t know when/we’re gonna get to that place/Where we really want to go/and we’ll walk in the sun/But till then tramps like us/baby we were born to run

Hard Times
Lyric: Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears/While we all sup sorrow with the poor/There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears/Oh Hard times come again no more/Tis the song, the sigh of the weary/Hard Times, hard times, come again no more

Land Of Hope And Dreams
Lyric: This train Carries saints and sinners/This train Carries losers and winners/This Train Carries whores and gamblers/This Train Carries lost souls/This Train Dreams will not be thwarted/This Train Faith will be rewarded/This Train Hear the steel wheels singin’/This Train Bells of freedom ringin’/This Train Carries broken-hearted/This Train Thieves and sweet souls departed/This Train Carries fools and kings/This Train All aboard

The characters in Springsteen are borne straight out of the gospels. They are the beat-up and the burned-out. They are the tramps and the thieves. The ones who have been forgotten and the ones who won’t forget their dreams. They are the ones who have lost and one. The whores and the gambles.

They are the ones that forever search for grace and hope against hope that one day that train will come to lead them to the Promised Land. Out of the Badlands. Into the Land of Hope and Dreams.

I often reside at the nexus of faith and doubt. From the lyrics of Springsteen it is obvious that he is intimately acquainted with that place as well. And it was in the midst of that show Tuesday night that I saw Jesus clearly. The champion of the one legged pony. The one who showed tramps like us how to live.

As I was driving I began to think what would comprise my favorite Springsteen songs of all time. It was too difficult to narrow it down to 10 so I left it at 20. Note: no songs from his new disc, Magic, made the cut. That is due to the fact that they have not withstood the test of time yet, not to the fact that they aren’t incredible songs from one of his finest albums. In addition these are all Springsteen originals so, alas, no Trapped or Jersey Girl.

20. No Surrender–This is a wall of sound gem from Born in the USA. Can you not sense that Bruce knows this is the end of the active membership of Little Steven in the E Street Band?

Money Lyric: We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned is school.

19. Hungry Heart–We will never get to hear this song as Bruce originally intended: a Ramones tune. Instead, we have yet another quintessential Springsteen tune of running.
Money Lyric: Everybody needs a place to rest/Everybody wants to have a home/Don’t make no difference what nobody says/Ain’t nobody like to be alone

18. Highway Patrolman–This song is from the first Springsteen album I ever bought when I was 13 years old. Nebraska is still my favorite Bruce disk and this song about brotherly love and fidelity still resonates with me. If you feel nothing when Joe Roberts pulls over then you have no soul.
Money Lyric: Well I chased him through them county roads/Till a sign said “Canadian border five miles from here”/I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear

17. Brilliant Disguise–Bruce has always zigged when people expected him to zag and this romantic follow-up to the gargantuan selling USA is the epitome of that. Here we see The Boss growing up and looking beyond the road.
Money Lyric: Tonight our bed is cold/I’m lost in the darkness of our love/God have mercy on the man/Who doubts what he’s sure of

“Is it me baby or just a brilliant disguise!”

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16. Fade Away–This is a deep cut off of “The River.” I’ve always loved the notion of refusing to go quietly.
Money Lyric: Now rooms that once were so bright are filled with the coming night

15. American Skin (41 Shots)–This is Bruce at his most unapologetically political. I still get chills every time I hear this protest of a senseless killing.
Money Lyric: Well, is it a gun, is it a knife/Is it a wallet, this is your life/It ain’t no secret (it ain’t no secret)/No secret my friend/You can get killed just for living in your American skin

14. If I Should Fall Behind–I love this song because of the palpable emotion I felt when watching Bruce perform this song with the E Street Band back in 1999. That night the song became more than just another love song but a touching tribute to the band that made him who he is. It was as if Bruce was acknowledging that his greatest musical moments would always come from the partnership of those fellow musicians. This video is from the same reunion tour I saw. Watch the interaction with the band here singing along.
Money Lyric: If I should fall behind/Wait for me

13. My Hometown–No matter what I was doing as a high school student when this video came on MTV with Keith Richards sitting in I was drawn to the screen. Nobody encapsulated the heartache and hopelessness of this era like Bruce.
Money Lyric: Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores/Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more/They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks/Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back to your hometown

12. Used Cars–Another song from Nebraska this one deals with his childhood watching his father deal with the humiliation of being poor. It’s an indelible word picture. Alas, there seems to be no video of Bruce performing this tune.
Money Lyric: Now, my ma, she fingers her wedding band/And watches the salesman stare at my old man’s hands/He’s tellin’ us all ’bout the break he’d give us if he could, but he just can’t/Well if I could, I swear I know just what I’d do/Now, mister, the day the lottery I win I ain’t ever gonna ride in no used car again

11. Promised Land–This classic is from what I believe to be his greatest E Street release, Darkness on the Edge of Town. This is Rock and Roll the way it is intended to be played.
Money Lyric: Well there’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor/I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm/Gonna be a twister to blow everything down/That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground/Blow away the dreams that tear you apart/Blow away the dreams that break your heart/Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

10. Rosalita–If I have to explain why this is in my top 10 then you just aren’t a Springsteen fan.
Money Lyric: Tell him this is last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance/Because a record company Rosie just gave me a big advance
9. Dancing In The Dark–The song that propelled Bruce from Rock and Roll greatness to super-stardom. It still rocks. And this was when Courtney Cox was still making good TV.
Money Lyric: You sit around getting older, there’s a joke here somewhere and it’s on me/I’ll shake this world off my shoulders, come on baby this laugh’s on me
8. My City of Ruins–This song was written prior to 9/11 but took on its greatest significance after that date. Still one of his most powerful lyrics ever. It took on even more added meaning in post Katrina New Orleans.
Money Lyric: Come on rise up! Come on rise up!

My City of Ruins

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7. Darkness On The Edge of Town–Pure greatness.
Money Lyric: Well everybody’s got a secret Sonny/Something that they just can’t face/Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it/They carry it with them every step that they take/Till some day they just cut it loose/Cut it loose or let it drag ‘em down/

6. The River–Do yourself a favor and get a hold of the spoken word intro to this from his 1975-85 live set. It brings the heartbreak of this song into stark relief.
Money Lyric: Then I got Mary pregnant, and man that was all she wrote/And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat/We went down to the courthouse/And the judge put it all to rest/No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle/No flowers no wedding dress

5. Badlands–Yet another cut off of Darkness, this track kicks off with a rollicking keyboard and doesn’t let up until the end. A flawless tune.
Money Lyric: For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside/That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive/I wanna find one face that ain’t looking through me/I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these

4. Atlantic City–The first video of his I ever saw from the first album of his that I bought. A moving depiction of the demise of a once great town and how that trickles down to honest hard-working people.
Money Lyric: Everything dies baby that’s a fact/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back/Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty and meet me tonight in Atlantic City

3. Born To Run–It feels wrong putting this song all the way down at number 3. It’s the tune that first introduced me to the greatness of the greatest rocker of my lifetime. But, as great as it is, it’s not my favorite Springsteen song. But it’s oh so close. And oh so perfect. I never knew who Wendy was but I sure wanted to marry her.

Money Lyric: The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive/Everybody’s out on the run tonight but there’s no place left to hide/Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness/I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul/Someday girl I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place/Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun/But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run

2. Land of Hope and Dreams–I first heard this song in 1999 when Bruce closed the Staples show with it. To me this is his most hopeful, most redemptive and most faith filled song. It’s a Christ message wrapped in that vintage E Street sound.
Money Lyric:
This Train…
Carries saints and sinners
This Train…
Carries losers and winners
This Train…
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train…
Carries lost souls
This Train…
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train…
Faith will be rewarded
This Train…
Hear the steel wheels singin’
This Train…
Bells of freedom ringin’

1. Thunder Road–Specifically the 1975 version that was on the live set. This song, to me, stands as the quintessential Springsteen song: the specific girl, the cars, the hopelessness, the feelings of inadequacy and longing, and ultimately the hope of something better out there waiting.
Money Lyric: The whole thing.

Thoughts

One artist releasing a career-defining disk.

The other proving that he is still The Boss.

Melissa Etheridge’s The Awakening is a companion to Bruce’s earlier “The Rising.” Far and away the best outing of her career. Every track crackles with emotion, rage and pathos.

“The Kingdom of Heaven” is my favorite track:

The first single is “Message To Myself”

And what can be said about Bruce? It’s his best album since “Born In The USA.” And that’s high praise.

“Radio Nowhere”

This past Sunday night I was teaching through the book of Revelation. As we were discussing chapter 12 I made the statement that I don’t believe that Scripture teaches that Satan is a fallen angel. I’m never able to get far past that declaration without someone stopping me.

Ultimately, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that God created evil. For me, it teeters at the brink of a dualism that I can’t quite embrace. The very idea of Theodicy, reconciling the existence of a loving God with the presence of evil, is very troubling to me. If there was ever an area where my faith could most be attacked, as for many of us, this would be it.

Theodicy is a process that is fraught with danger and unanswered questions. When we are honest we must admit that many of our conclusions rarely rise above platitudes and shallow theology. For many of life’s catastrophe’s there is no explanation, no justification for the heart-ache, pain, war and injustices that we wage against one another.

That is why my theodicy is best summed up from the writings of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” That, to me, is the gospel. It is the hope that we have as children of God. It seems like such a simple saying but it is so profound and deep that it is many days the one thing that gives me hope: that all will be well. I would like to give a greater reading into Julian of Norwich and I might do so later. For now, look her up on your own. Her story is a compelling one. You will be blessed.

The power and resonance of that conclusion is why, over the past year, this song by Gabe Dixon has been on frequent rotation on my iPod. He crystallizes in four minutes the truth, beauty, hope and glory that we have that God is good and “all will be well.”

The new day dawns
And I am practicing my purpose once again
It is fresh and it is fruitful if I win
but if I lose, ooh, I don’t know
I’ll be tired but I will turn and I will go
Only guessing ’til I get there then I’ll know
Ohh, I will know

And all the children walking home past the factories
Can see the light that’s shining in my window
As I write this song to you
And all the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true

And all will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

The winter’s cold
But the snow still lightly settles on the trees
And a mess is still a moment I can seize until I know
That all will be well
Even though sometimes this is hard to tell
And the fight is just as frustrating as hell
All will be well

And all the children walking home past the factories
Can see the light that’s shining in my window
As I write this song to you
And all the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true

And all will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

You got to keep it up
And don’t give up
And chase your dreams
And you will find
All in time

And all the children walking home past the factories
Can see the light that’s shining in my window
As I write this song to you
And all the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true

And all will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell

All will be well
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well
You can ask me how but only time will tell
You can ask me how but only time will tell

Because my musical tastes tend to favor those artists who focus more on lyrics than polish and studio machinations I have a large number of songs that resonate deeply with biblical truths although they might not be written by Christians. Over the next few weeks I want to share some of those songs with you. I hope the words contained will enrich you and bless you. Note: Just because I spotlight a song does not mean that I endorse the artist and/or their oeuvre.

My first song is by Dolly Parton. It is from a movie that I have never seen: Transamerica. The song is about finding your place. It is about searching and seeking hope, clarity and meaning. My favorite part of the song begins at 3:32 and I never fail to get chills when she belts out “Oh sweet Jesus if you’re out there, keep me ever close to you” It’s one of my kids favorite songs.

The song makes me think of my own spiritual journey. Even now at the age of 39 I’m not sure what lies ahead for me and my family. Uncertainty with Cassie’s condition, my job situation and other issues bring up questions of our directions. We are all wanderers and the hope and promise that Jesus is out there cheering us on makes the journey so much easier.

I’ve been up and down so much over the past few months questioning my ability to preach and teach, wondering if I don’t belong in ministry, and questioning my worth. This song is such a blessing to me. One of my favorite lines is “redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain.” There is still a lot of pain in our lives and in our search. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The path to Christ requires the pain.

Watch the video and read the incredible lyrics. For all the punch lines that Dolly Parton has been through the year she has always been an amazing lyricist.

Well I can’t tell you where I’m going, I’m not sure of where I’ve been
But I know I must keep travelin’ till my road comes to an end
I’m out here on my journey, trying to make the most of it
I’m a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fit

Like a poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I’m just a weary pilgrim trying to find what feels like home
Where that is no one can tell me, am I doomed to ever roam
I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ on

Questions I have many, answers but a few
But we’re here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth
We’ve all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
And when I’m born again, you’re gonna see a change in me

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus if you’re listening, keep me ever close to you
As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wonderin’, as I’m travelin’ thru

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ thru
I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ thru

Oh sometimes the road is rugged, and it’s hard to travel on
But holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone
When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try
We can make a world of difference, if we want to we can fly

Goodbye little children, goodnight you handsome men
Farewell to all you ladies and to all who knew me when
And I hope I’ll see you down the road, you meant more than I knew
As I was travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, travelin’ thru

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’
Drifting like a floating boat and roaming like the wind
Oh give me some direction lord, let me lean on you
As I’m travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, thru

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ thru
I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ thru

Like the poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I’m just a weary pilgrim trying to find my own way home
Oh sweet Jesus if you’re out there, keep me ever close to you
As I’m travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, as I’m travelin’ thru

Give it until at least 45 seconds in when he starts jamming. And then if you could explain why I love this guy so much I’d appreciate it:

The headlines have focused on E’s decision to edit out that part of her acceptance speech when it airs on their network this weekend.

None of these media outlets have brought up the most pertinent question of all: What is Kathy Griffin doing winning an Emmy?

What is the criteria for winning one of these awards anyway?

It reminds me of the furor back in the day when people were claiming that Milli Vanilli should return their Grammy’s when it came to light that they were just lip synching. I maintained then, as I do now, that Rob and Fab should have kept the awards.
The point to me was that any organization that is going to award such a talentless act is one that has no shred of credibility in the first place. Where does the greater fault lie? Milli Vanilli for being fake or the Grammys for not being able to find an act to laud that was in possession of some modicum of talent?

Sorry, I don’t know where this post came from.

God Saw Fit To Make Tears – Alastair Moock

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Everybody is living just this side of the drain
You’re either parched in the desert or you’re drowned in the rain
You ride the rails for a while you keep your hands close to your sides
But God saw fit to make tears so go on and cry

Your mother will love you whatever you do
And that’s worth what it costs you ’cause she’s one of the few
You look around for a lifeline you turn your head up to the sky
But God saw fit to make tears so go on and cry

Pride hangs around on the corners showing its legs to the crowd
And wisdom’s hailing a taxi trying to get out of this town
Mercy’s begging for spare change as the rest of us keep walking by
But God saw fit to make tears so go on and cry

This life is a quilt of trouble but it’s all that you own
And it’s better than none when you’re cold and alone

Everybody’s a soldier everybody’s a rock
Everybody is living with whatever they got
You close the gates to wherever you’ve been you try to leave tomorrows behind
But God saw fit to make tears so go on and cry

Here is the video for the first cut To The Dogs Or Whoever:

As if that isn’t enough The New Pornographers have a CD out today (their name comes from Jimmy Swaggart who once called music “the new pornography”). They were on Letterman last night. My one quibble with this video is that the cameraman did not realize the true heart of the band, Neko Case:

Wait, one more: Rilo Kiley. Three incredible performers in one day. Can’t beat it: