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#26. Songs that sound Christian but aren’t.

January 26, 2008 in music with 85 Comments

I’m really guilty of this one. Whenever I get tired of Christian music, I just listen to secular radio and imagine that the artist singing is not talking about his girlfriend in a song, he’s talking about God. Try it sometime, for the most part it works. And any “I need to find myself” kind of song is perfect too. Colin Hay’s, “Waiting for my real life to begin” is a beautiful picture of a conversation with God. Only it’s probably about something he said to his wife or just the inner dialogue of his head. Sometimes though, doing this can create some awkward situations. One Sunday, my wife and I were at church waiting for it to begin when they played a song over the speakers by the band, Our Lady Peace. They’re not a Christian band, but their song, “Somewhere Out There” kind of sounds like a God song. I mean this part does:

Down here in the atmosphere, Garbage and city lights, You gotta save your tired soul, You gotta save our lives.

But then, in the middle of church, with thousands of other people, I hear the singer say this:

Hope you remember me, When youre homesick and need a change. I miss your purple hair,

OK, I think to myself, that’s a little weird. I’m not sure Jesus had purple hair but you know, when the sun is setting just right over the Dead Sea maybe it was kind of purple. And then the next line comes in:

I miss the way you taste.

I had a hard time tying that directly to Jesus or God.