A while ago I posted about Walk the Line, the superb bio-pic of Johnny Cash. Well worth a watch, even if you think you don’t like Cash’s music. I’ve also posted about ‘The Wanderer’, his stunning song on the U2 album Zooropa.
BBC 4 ran a series of programmes the other night on Cash including an episode from the Johnny Cash Show, Walk the Line and a brilliant biography which ended with this is the video of Cash performing one of his last songs, his version of ‘Hurt’. It seems to sum up his life in a song. A moment of great insight, openness and hurt.
I’ve known Neil for about 10 years or so since I booked him to play with his then band Nervous Passenger for the 1st Crossover. Since that first time hearing Neil I’ve been hooked. Here he is playing Hallelujah:
I’ve has a busy weekend and in between preaching at Dunfermline (thanks for the tie!) and visiting parents (thanks for a lovely meal!) I rediscovered some things forgotten.
I watched the Masters Golf. I’m not sure I’ve watched it so much as I did this year for ages. For me the Masters seems to hold more appeal than other golf tournaments (except the Ryder Cup where we get to beat the Yanks – in a sporting and fun fashion of course). Perhaps because it is played at the same course each year. Perhaps because the course is Augusta National, perhaps the most beautiful course in the world. Perhaps it is because it never fails to surprise. Well done to Trevor Immelman on winning and to fellow South African Gary Player on his two rounds under 80! Not bad for a 72 year old!
The second thing rediscovered was a musical treat. I found an old CD.
Hats by The Blue Nile. I bought this album when I was at school I think. It is a beautiful collection of angst, hurt and hope. I love it. Perhaps the perfect album for listening to in the dark. The Blue Nile are playing in their hometown of Glasgow soon. I wonder if we could stretch to the tickets. They almost NEVER play and have only produced a handful of albums in 20 years.
Santa brought me a nice new copy of The Joshua Tree! I bought the album first time around the day it came out on vinyl. I lent it to some one and got it back with a big scratch on it. So, 20 years later I have a nice new remastered 20th anniversary cd.
And, yes, it is the best album in the world, ever!
I met with an old friend (as in someone I’ve been friends with for ages not that he is old) I haven’t seen in years today. Clive was a student of mine, then a colleague for a while, then someone who’s band I booked and told people about and then we lost touch. Facebook to the rescue!
We met, interestingly, at Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art. I say interestingly because Clive now works for UCCF working with students around issues of art and theology and culture. We got talking about the Christian artistic ghetto and the oddity that is contemporary christian music (CCM).
I have to say I’ve never understood CCM. It is a niche marketing ploy as far as I’m concerned, usually by people who aren’t good enough to cut it in the real music business. Harsh? I don’t think so.
Why do ‘Christian’ artists, not just musicians but lots of artists too, feel the need to explain their work? Surely as soon as you start to explain art it looses some of it’s transcendent quality. Surely if art is too obvious it becomes bland and less than engaging.
There are some great artists out there who have faith and live in the world and write, sing and paint their world without sticking a fish or a cross on everything so people know it is ok to buy it. I like to think. I like to be drawn in, challenged, moved and engaged by art. That is what art is for. If it does any of those things then surely that is good art and it will speak to me of God because God is in the world that art depicts.
And Edinburgh… when will you stop charging for entry to galleries? Art is for everyone and we have paid for it already through our taxes! Follow Glasgow and London and make entry FREE!
People who go along to their meetings are encouraged to make a CD of their favourite tracks and they swap so people can both discover something about the person who makes the mix and maybe also some new music. Brilliant idea!
I know lent is a whole month away but in a stunning act of forward thinking I was looking through my files and came across these images by Si Smith illustrating Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness.
They are fantastic and also make a pretty cool movie if you stick them in movie maker or something and add music. I’ve used Springsteen’s Devils And Dust.
‘Scream Without Raising Your Voice’ comes from one of my favourite U2 songs, Running To Stand Still from the Joshua Tree album. I’ve always seen it as part of a set… It comes after Bullet The Blue Sky on the CD and mostly the two appear in the same order in U2’s live shows. Bullet is a rage against American intervention in Central America in the 80s. It is loud, shrieking and brash. Running to Stand Still is quiet, desperate and fragile in comparison but it is filled with so much emotion, especially when Bono adds the hallelujahs at the end. It’s a song about the despair and isolation of drug addiction. It makes me cry. It’s such a beautiful song. There is only one way out. Hope.
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we’re going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing Ha, Ah La La La De Day
Ah La La La De Day
Ah La La De Day
Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing…Ha La La La De Day
Ha La La La De Day
Ha La La De Day
She runs through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will…
We watched the Jonny Cash bio Walk The Line the other night. What a brilliant film. I don’t know much about Cash but the movie was very engaging.
Bono wrote a song for Cash called The Wanderer and it’s on the Zooropa album, performed by Cash himself. You should search it out. It is a stunning song, one of my favourites. Here are the lyrics:
I went out walking through the streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground wont turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye
Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering
I went drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men cant walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they dont want God in it
I went out riding
Down that ol eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name
I went with nothing
But the thought youd be there too
Looking for you
I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents
I went out searching, lookin for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his fathers right hand
I went out walking with a Bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now jesus, dont you wait up
Jesus, Ill be home soon
Yeah I went out for the papers
Told her Id be back by noon
Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought youd be there too
Looking for you…
Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you…
I went wandering
It seems from the film that this song sums up Cash and his life. deep, dark but ultimately hopeful.
Posted by Stewart 
Posted by Stewart 
Posted by Stewart 
