Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Estrangement and shame redux...

Last night at band practice we started working on a few "grunge" tunes to adapt for our more "cowboy junkies" type groove: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (Green Day) and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana) have great potential. There are a few minor lyric tweaks we'll need to make to do these songs in worship, but they both hold great potential for exploring the way that alienation is a prayer/song of lament.

Other possibilities include:

+ Keep the Car Running and Wake Up - Arcade Fire
+ Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car - U2
+ Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
+ Nobody Knows My Name and It Hurts - Rickie Lee Jones
+ Hurt - NIN/Johnny Cash

Are there other good rock/country/pop tunes that express the anguish of alienation that are among your favorites? I would love to know so that we can experiment with them, ok? Just as Paul Tillich discovered that the abstract expressionist painters of Germany were giving shape and voice to the Living God better than the church after WWI - and just as others look to film and television to discern sacred insights amidst secular genres - I continue to search contemporary music.

There are, of course, other themes... but right now I am curious about how alienation, estrangement and shame are being expressed. Any thoughts?

2 comments:

Mary said...

We do a version of U2s Love Rescue Me that is now a regular part of our worship song list. It has the alienation aspect to it but ends with redemption.

RJ said...

I love this song, too, Mary. Thanks for reminding me about it...

getting into the holy week groove...

We FINALLY got our seed and wildflower order in! By now we've usually had seedlings started but... my new gig at church, Di's health...