What Do the Lyrics Say?
Theme of the Week: Bridge the Musical Gap
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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Key Bible Verse: "What you say flows from what is in your heart" (Luke 6:45). Bonus Reading: Luke 6:43-45
The lyrics carry the message of the song. They can be straightforward or can employ double-entendre, saying one thing but meaning another. Certain words and phrases that seem harmless to our "old" ears have taken on new, inappropriate meanings. Dad, you may need to research today's youth slang. (See www.thesource4ym.com/teenlingo/ and www.family.org.)
For every song that Nathan wants to download, I require him to first look up the lyrics, print them out, and give them to me. (He does a web search on the song title, typing "lyrics" after the title. Wikipedia.com is a great resource.) This teaches him to take responsibility for what is good and avoid what is bad. It gives him a sense of confidence and ownership in the process.
Once we began reading the lyrics together, Nathan and I settled on three lyrical disqualifiers that kept a song off our playlists: (1) It denounces God in any way; (2) it uses cuss words or takes the name of God in vain; (3) it contains sexual innuendo.
Nathan now eliminates some songs without even asking me because he knows what is and isn't acceptable.
—Todd Stocker in An 8-Track Parent in an Mp3 World
My Response: Am I a stickler on the words of any song that will live in my household? On the other hand, am I open to more than one music style?
Thought to Apply: Not just Christian music but all music is worship music, because every song is amplifying the value of something… . The problem is that a lot of us have really bad gods. —Louie Giglio (Sixsteps Records co-founder)
Adapted from An 8-Track Parent in an Mp3 World (Kregel, 2010) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Thank you for your gift of music to calm anxieties, lift spirits, and express feelings. May it be used for your glory and not to the Enemy's advantage.
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