Friday, October 28, 2005

Rhyme and rhythm for the glory of God

I had a thought this morning in chapel. It is not a new thought. We were doing praise songs. Don't get me wrong; I like praise songs, in principle, and there are a few good ones. I also don't want to criticize our song leader this morning, because he did an entirely adequate job, and I'm grateful to him.

Nevertheless, the lyrics we sang today, and many lyrics we sing often, are not good. On a purely literary and technical level, they are sub-par. They possess neither rhyme nor rhythm. They do not draw one's attention to what one is singing. They have no brilliant moments of insight, no skillfully-drawn-out metaphors to make anything become realer or truer to the singer. They feel incompetent. They may or may not be amateur, but they certainly look it.

It is the nature of a song--or indeed any poetry--to be brief (relative to an epic or a novel). It must choose one thing to say and say it as effectively as ever it may. You get this in short story theory: you don't have many words to work with, so every word needs to be doing its duty well and twice and thrice over, doing more than one thing, never ever ever there just as filler. Dr. Hake calls poetry "language at its densest."

You can choose to write a poem in meter or not, as you like, but a poet should be aware that the decision has meaning. (This is like the "intolerable compliment" Lewis speaks of: God has decreed that the decisions human make actually matter eternally.) Critics notice the form of a poem. Syllables halting along in irregular ways reflect the chaos and meaninglessness of the universe. A regular meter with nicely rounded-off phrases tends to reflect a coherent, comprehensible, beautiful universe. One could, conceivably, write a praise song in which form and substance are unified--as in, rough rhythm and mourning over one's sin--but when there is no conceivable design behind word choice--when it is apparently just what the author thought of first, and didn't have the time or skill to refine into anything more meaningful--when one analyzes something according to the rules of its trade and it is found wanting--then a Christian can mourn.

Meter and rhyme schemes help a song, they really do, because then even if the words are a bit uninspired, one can analyze the form and gain edification that way. When the words are, basically, "I love You/ Forever and ever/ You are good and great," --well, this is true, one hopes, but it's really boring.

Also, it occurs to me that when a stanza is repeated, oh, six times in the course of a song, if the words were worth listening to and repeating, that would be better. The unbelievers can do it; even nihilists can craft a piece so that it is a joy to hear and know and memorize. Word choice matters. Mark Twain mocked James Fenimore Cooper for using "a word's second cousin" instead of the word itself. The right word actually emphasizes the point an author is trying to get across. The mostly-right word fogs things.

This comes back to a Christian view of work, I think. It's not just what job is done, but how well one does it. Incompetence depresses. God is pleased for the foolish to shame the wise, but He also demanded skilled workmen to build His temple. Glorify God, people! We wouldn't like a Christian plumber who couldn't keep a pipe from leaking! We wouldn't like a Christian jeweler whose necklaces didn't clasp properly! Just the same, it's annoying to sing songs written by poets who can't tell an iamb from a dactyl, or if they can tell, don't care.

It's really not that complicated, but it does take work. Future lyricists, take note!

7 comments:

bethany said...

thanks for the comment - I always appreciate thoughtful comments, even from strangers.

I thought about this problem a lot when I worked for the chapel last year. The thing is, ther ARE songs that are both profound and well done. It's just not all of them, and sensitive worship leaders are really what's neccesary to seek out and find those songs. (and of course intelligent and artful lyricists)

CDawg said...

if I may add something... It would be good to keep in mind that sometimes simpler song lyrics are good too. There are times when people in worship simply need to say "I love you, Jesus" or some equally modest phrase, and let it sink in. I'm not discounting what you're saying, but I have been witness to multiple times when the simple outdoes the grand. :-D

Lisa Adams said...

Good post. I've thought a lot about the question of hymns vs. choruses and ultimately I think it's important to remember that the purpose is to worship God, and I think whatever style is most conducive to that for the individual should be the one chosen.

I've been thinking about "beauty and truth" this weekend and I think that really applies here ... we should worship God in beauty and in truth. The content of our songs should be right doctrine, and the form and music should be beautiful.

A lot of choruses (and hymns, for that matter) have both beauty and truth problems ... but then all human art does, some more than others. I guess it's an incentive to us to take the best we can from the songs we sing, and to maybe become song-writers in the future?

Some favorite choruses of mine:

"You are God alone ..."

"Before there was time, there were visions in your mind ..."

"Magnificent Obsession"

I wish we would sing these at school :).

Pinon Coffee said...

I don't think I disagree with any of you. :-)

True theology is good.

Some Christian songs--hymns and choruses alike--are good.

Simple is good. The gospel is so simple a child can understand it, and so complex a PhD can't begin to understand it properly. In demanding good craftsmanship, I don't think I'm necessarily requesting incomprehensibility. I hope not.

Truth and beauty are also good. :-) And no, I hope I never fail to appreciate the good works people create, despite their human-ness. What could be better than the true, the good, and the beautiful? :-)

Anonymous said...

Oh, THANK YOU, thank you thank you... yeah, I agree with all of that. And all of what's in the comments, too. Didn't really leave me anything to say. :-D

- Nic

Ruhamah said...

I figured "Glories of Calvary" was the song you were talking about. Now I'm wondering about the song too.

I brought up the question last week with some folks over dinner. They raised some interesting questions. For instance, can sin can be measured? If sin is not "infinite," why does it require infinite punishment in hell? Is the concept of "boundless sin" related to the finiteness of the one sinning, or the finiteness of the one sinned against?

Was it Jonathan Edwards who argued that sin increases in magnitude according to the worth of the person offended, and therefore human sin is infinite because committed against an infinite God?

I'm still pondering :-)

CDawg said...

I recently had to think about that inquiry, and here's what it came down to:
Sin requires infinite punishment not because it is or is not infinite (or boundless for that matter) but because it is a barrier between us and God's presence. So, its very existance is the reason that the seperation with God is eternal, not because of amount (1 sin is enough already) or because of degree (which the Bible says there's no heirarchy of sin anyway...)
Anything anyone else wants to add? :-D