lyrical joy

i was telling my friends the other day that i have been listening continuously to colplay's x&y album. i started listening to it when i got back from india because i hadn't heard it for so long. i began realizing that every song seemed to have something to say to my current situation. i think chris martin must have just graduated from seminary and been looking for his next place when he wrote these lyrics. to me the whole album is about taking the next step, risking failure for the sake of the move, all the while finding comfort in a great love. there are some lines i sing along to loudly, they confess my greatest fears and hopes. other lines are so sobering and comforting, i just sit and listen. here are some of my favorite lines from the songs on that album.

square one
the future’s for discovering
the space in which we're travelling

under the surface trying to break through
deciphering the codes in you
i need a compass, draw me a map...

what if
every step that you take
could be your biggest mistake
it could bend or it could break
but that's the risk that you take

that’s right
Let’s take a breath, jump over the side
that’s right
how can you know it when you don’t even try
that’s right
let’s take a breath, jump over the side
that’s right
you know the darkness always turns into light

white shadows
maybe you'll get what you wanted
maybe you'll stumble upon it
everything you ever wanted
in a permanent state

maybe you'll know when you've seen it
maybe if you say it you’ll mean it
and when you find it you'll keep it
in a permanent state
a permanent state

swim out on a sea of faces
the tide of the human races
oh, an answer now is what i need
see it in the new sun rise and
see it breaking on your horizon

talk
oh, brother, i can’t believe it’s true
i’m so scared about the future
and i want to talk to you
oh, i want to talk to you

so you don’t know where you’re going
and you want to talk
and you feel like you’re going where you’ve been before
you'll tell anyone who’ll listen but you feel ignored
and nothing’s really making any sense at all
let’s talk, let’s talk

speed of sound
how long before i get in
before it starts, before i begin
how long before you decide
before i know what it feels like
where to, where do i go
if you never try then you’ll never know
how long do i have to climb
up on the side of this mountain of mine

a message
my song is love
love to the loveless shown
and it goes up
you don’t have to be alone

your heavy heart
is made of stone
and it’s so hard to see clearly
you don’t have to be on your own
you don’t have to be on your own

low
all you ever wanted was love
but you never looked hard enough
it’s never gonna give itself up
all you ever wanted to be
living in perfect symmetry
nothing is as down or as up
don’t you want to see it come soon
floating in a big white balloon
or given on your own silver spoon
don’t you want to see it come down
there for throwing your arms around
and say "you're not a moment too soon"

the hardest part
and the hardest part was letting go, not taking part
it was the hardest part
and the strangest thing was waiting for that bell to ring
it was the strangest start

twisted logic
you’ll go backwards
but then you’ll go forwards again

'til kingdom come
still my heart and hold my tongue
i feel my time, my time has come
let me in, unlock the door
i never felt this way before

hold my head inside your hands
i need someone who understands
i need someone, someone who hears
for you i’ve waited all these years

for you i’d wait til kingdom come
until my day, my day is done
and say you’ll come and set me free
just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me

that's almost every song on the album. i wish i was listening to it right now.

another thing that's brought me some comfort (lyrically) is the work of george herbert. i've posted some of his poems before. i've been reading them devotionally, over and over again throughout the day, trying to grasp exactly what he's saying. one of my favorites these days is this one:

The Answer

My comforts drop and melt like snow:
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
Which my fierce youth did bandy, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like summer-friends
Flies of estates and sun-shine. But to all,
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,
But in my prosecutions slack and small;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky;
But cooling by the way, grows pursy and slow,
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark state of tears: to all, that so
Show me, and set me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the rest, know more than I.

i don't want to write a whole lot because i've probably already lost most of my readers, but some favorite things about the poem
- the wisdom of an aged poet who is looking back on time, remembering the passion he had as a youth who wanted to reach the sky. his seeming disappointment with the way his aging has settled him to complacency and his lost vigor.
- the imagery created in the first four lines of a head with hair the color of snow falling when shaken. remembering the seasons backwards, looking back on time. of the thoughts falling slowly now, escaping without any fierce action on his part, not being thrown as they were when he was young.
- having desired as a youth to reach the sky, away from the dirt, he finds himself at the end of the poem settled in a cloud. only the cloud is like a rain cloud, dark and full of tears.
- there is no real answer, except that rest is what is desired. if "the rest" means death, it returns the reader's mind to thoughts of the earth and dirt. so what should be desired? was the fierceness of his youth a good thing? or did his desire for success only lead him away from his natural, intended surroundings? does rest mean contentment where one finds himself instead of always looking up?
- the poem has a completely different tone at the end than what the beginning seemed to be implying. maybe herbert isn't necessarily disappointed with growing pursy and slow. it seems that he is wishing he had learned earlier in life the value of rest and contentment; yet, he is still learning. he has not yet known "the rest." is that to come on the final day?

i started reading the sonnet yesterday and have yet to have it completely figured out. that is why i love the poems of george herbert. i wish you all could love them as much as i do. what do you think about this poem? do you think i'm completely off?