who'll stop the rain (new lyrics)

Long as I remember, rain's been coming down.

Clouds of mystery throwing confusion on the ground

Must be ten years gone now, trying to find the sun,

And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain.

I went to Virginia, seeking shelter from the storm.

Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower burn.

Broken vows and new starts never loose the chains,

And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain.

Heard the children singing, how we cheered for more.

We huddled close together, trying to keep warm.

Still the rain kept falling, pouring on our ears,

And I wonder, still I wonder, how to stop the rain.

the day the music died

Don McLean has never come out and said exactly what "American Pie" is about, and though the most common (and probable) explanation is that the song chronicles the upheaval of the 1960s as seen through pop music, beginning with the death with Buddy Holly and ending with the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway, I've seen interpretations of varying degrees of improbability, ranging from the assassination of President Kennedy to an unlikely dissertation on the spirtual dissolution traditional Christians see in the 1960s' rejection of the outward-seeming righteousness of the 1950s.

My girls know the chorus and parts of the verses to "American Pie" and belt them out with great enthusiasm. They know who The Beatles are, and who Bob Dylan is, but they've never heard a song by the Stones, by Buddy Holly, or by a number of the other groups mentioned in the song. (Evangeline does know a different cover of "Turn, Turn, Turn" from the one covered by the Byrds.)

I think for a lot of people, the music died when John Lennon was assassinated. I wonder if someone more familiar with pop music than I could compose lyrics connected to 9-11 and the fall of the Twin Towers, which ignited a cultural shift in many ways as profound as the one spearheaded 40 years ago by The Beatles.

But I think it likely that the music died, either with the debut of "Funkytown" or some other discoworthy moment; or during some period of horror during the 1980s, such as the debut of "The Best of Tiffany" on 8-track, or perhaps with the onset of the career of Rick Astley.

But whenever it kicked the bucket, I think it's been dead on the table for a while now.

'o holy night'

I never even heard "O Holy Night" until I was a missionary in Haiti, back in 1993. We sang it once at a school staff Christmas party, accompanied only by guitar, and the song has forever been emblazoned in memory as having the most beautiful tune, best sung by candlelight in temperatures in the mid- to upper 80s.

Last year when Christmastime rolled around, I printed up a list of Christmas carols for us to sing during family devotions. The girls preferred "Do You Hear what I Hear," probably because it's so simple to learn, but I have high hopes that "O Holy Night" will catch on in years to come, even though our New Jersey winters are far colder than in Haiti.

the musician

Some songs every child should learn by the time she is 4:

• "American Pie"
• "The Phantom of the Opera"
• "Yellow Submarine"
• "My Deliverer is Coming"
• "Awesome God"
• "Casey Jones"
• "John Henry"
• "Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There is a Season)"
• John Williams' score to "Superman: The Movie"
• The theme from "Spider-man"
• "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
• "Yesterday"

This is just a sampler of the music Rachel knows. She has made quite an impression on people by singing these songs with great enthusiasm, especially "American Pie" and "Phantom."

insipid worship

The worship team at our old church used to lead us through the song, "I Can Sing of Your Love Forever." Lyrically, the first verse is not that bad, although it is too me-focused for my tastes:

Over the mountains and the sea
Your river flows with love for me.
I'm happy to be in the truth
And I will daily lift my hands
For I will always sing of
When your love came down.

I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.
I can sing of your love forever.

The chief fault of the song is that it really does seem like you'll be singing of his love forever. The band usually played the chorus over and over again, and as you'll notice, there's not much variety to the lyric sheet at that point. Natasha decided at some point to spruce it up by singing, "But I can't sing this song forever."

Another of the popular songwriters whose work we sang in worship was Scott Underwood. Underwood seemed to have the notion that God was schizophrenic and would have an identity crisis if we didn't remind him who he was. Note the stunningly insightful chorus:

You are God of the heavens and God of the earth
You are God of our Saviour's virgin birth
You were God on the cross and God over hell
You were God before man and God when he fell

You
You are
You are God
You are God, God, God
You
You are
You are God
You are God, God, God

Underwood seems to love pointless repetition, as evidenced by this other gem we used to sing:

You are my shepherd, I have no needs
You lead me by peaceful streams
And you refresh my life
You hold my hand and You guide my steps
I could walk through the valley of death
And I won't be afraid
Because you are in control
You are in control
You are in control
You are in control

It's good to acknowledge that God is in control of the situation, but why do we have to repeat it four times in a chorus that is going to be repeated at least four times itself before the worship leader realizes that we're starting to depict God as a control freak with his booted foot pressing down on our heads?

Still, the all-time most meaningless praise-and-worship song I've ever encountered is this one:

Every move I make, I make in you
You make me move, Jesus
Every breath I take, I breathe in you
Every step I take, I take in you
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take, I breathe in you.
Waves of mercy, waves of grace
Everywhere I look, I see your face
Your love has captured me
Oh my God this love
How can it be?

It has a great, catchy melody, but I've never yet found a single person who can tell me what the song means. I like a good mix. The music has to be nice, but I want to be able to worship God with my mind as well. I have a hard time doing that with a lot of the praise choruses in circulation at the moment.

Okay. I feel better now.

Praise choruses are a reaction to the reliance our parents' generation had on the hymns to the exclusion of much else. Played on an organ as though they were a dirge, hymns exercise the mind but not the body. Praise music, with its much catchier tempos and updated instrumentation, allows us to worship with our bodies, but not as often our minds.

When I first became a Christian almost 17 years ago -- it'll be 17 sometime this July -- I took to praise music and CCM like a duck to water. It was alive, vibrant and everything the music at my parents' church wasn't.

I'm a little older now, and I want more balance. I still get bored to tears by the music at church when I attend with my parents, or when I attend with my grandmother-in-law, because it's so lifeless. And when it's just a catchy melody mixed with empty words, I can still only get halfway into it. Both my body and my spirit long for perfect worship and unity with God, so I long for even an imperfect fusion of the approaches to worship.

Give it 20 or 30 years, and I figure the bulk of the junk we sing today will have filtered out by then. Of course, we'll have new junk to contend with, but that's how it usually works.

'o holy night'

I've only ever sung "O Holy Night" once, but to this day it remains a Christmas hymn that makes me soar.

It was Christmas 1990 in Haiti, when I was teaching at Quisqueya Christian School. We had a staff Christmas party. This was in the tropics, mind you -- about as un-Christmasy as I can imagine. No snow. No evergreen trees. It was hot, dry and dusty as all get-out, and I was a bachelor living more than 1,500 miles from the family I had celebrated Christmas with 20 times previously.

Jim Muchmore was playing his guitar, the kerosense lamps were flickering -- I don't think the power had even been on that night -- and as we sang "O Holy Night," the worship was one of the most tremendous Christmasy experiences I've ever had. That scene is burned indelibly into my mind and I see it again whenever I hear this song.

kiddie songs

So Evangeline, Rachel and I are in the car headed out to get some dog food for the dog. I convince Evangeline it would be nice to sing a song during the trip. After fishing around for a few moments, she decided to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat":

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the street.
Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary,
Once upon a dream.

Around this time last year, "Ring around the Rosie" was:

Ring around rosies!
Pockies, posies!
Washes, washes,
All fall down!
Cows in meadows,
Buttercups!
Thunder! Wipies!
All stand up!

And of course, the very first song she ever sang went like this:

Silent night, hose.
All's calm. All's bright.
Yine verse mommy
Sleep.
Silent night, hose.
Sheps quake at sight.

Kids are great.

waltzing matilda

So my daughter has this song on one of her children's CDs, and for some reason it makes me think of Australia:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me?"
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda!
Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me?
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"Who'll come waltzing Matilda with me?"

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swag man and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he watched and waitied til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me."

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda!
You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me.
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me."

Up rode the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came troopers! one, two, three!
"Now where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me."

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda!
You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me.
"Now where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me."

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never catch me alive," said he.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by the billabong,
"You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me."

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda!
You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by the billabong,
"You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me."

Okay, after checking the dictionary thoroughly, I think I'm getting the hang of it:
swagman: an itinerant worker, like an "okie" here in the States
tuckerbag: where he keeps his food
jumbuck: a sheep
billabong: a (mostly) dried-up river
billy: tea kettle

So if I'm reading this aright, it's a folk song about an itinerant worker who was killed while "resisting arrest" for stealing a sheep. In essence, a form of protest over the gentility -- the "squatter" who claims to own public land -- and police brutality. (Three troopers to arrest one man?)

If I understand correctly, the squatter usually was an absent landlord, someone who might never have seen the land or sheep in question. While that doesn't undercut the legality of the ownership, it does make the contempt for the landowners more understandable, much like the laborers in California resented the corporate farm owners they had to deal with, like in "The Grapes of Wrath."

It gets even more interesting. (See, I obsess over stuff I find really interesting.) According to the author of www.waltzingmatilda.com, I'm not too far off in my guesswork.

He links the song to an eight-day period in 1894, when the landowners were trying to reduce by 12½ percent the amount of money sheep-shearers were paid. The sheep-shearers unionized, a couple of them were shot as insurrectionists, they burned down a few things, and things got pretty hairy. The writer, who claims to have done about 10 years of research into this, even identifies the swagman he thinks the song is about -- and yes, the incident the song describes apparently is even historical.

The web site author believes the events of that eight-day strike broke the back of a nascent class system in Australia and led to a society where people could move about based on ability rather than social class, which is why the song is such a fundamentally Australian folk song.

And if you think THIS is unpleasant, you should hear about "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" and "Ring Around the Rosie," and what they're about.