The funny and serious dichotomy

At the risk of milking a joke too much, today I turn my attention to The Police's 1978 hit, Roxanne. Years before Sting embarked on a solo career with songs like Russians and campaigning to preserve Amazonian rainforests, he shows his social conscience by singing against prostitution.

As a child hearing this on the radio, I had trouble making out the lyrics. The chorus goes:

Roxanne (Put on the red light)
Roxanne (Put on the red light)
Roxanne (Put on the red light)
Roxanne (Put on the red light)
Roxanne (Put on the red light)

I'm not joking when I thought that it sounded like "Ooo roo roo red right." It wasn't until years later that I properly understood the lyrics and the meaning of this song. Indeed, I used to sing it on the way to church on Sundays, because the congregation I belonged to met in a building that was on the same street as a brothel, and I often saw customers arriving and leaving said premises on a Sunday morning.

Bill Cosby's secret Australian connection

The Brown Hornet

As I sit and write this I'm only 30 minutes drive from the Mornington Peninsula, one of the state of Victoria's premier tourist destinations. In addition to its historic sites, spectacular coastline, amazing beaches, and gourmet produce, it has also contributed to the Australian music scene.

Australian Crawl came from Mount Eliza. It was founded when its members were at school together. Active between 1978 and 1986, they were one of the most popular Australian bands of the era. Lead singer James Reyne was famous for his unintelligible vocals. Take for example their 1980 single, Downhearted, which hit number 12 in the Australian charts in July of that year.

I left my heart back in the Orient
Down on Bali bays
It's not the way that I should feel
But it's the way I'm gonna stay

Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started
Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really start

It seems all wrong to be back home
There's no end in sight
Should I be made to drag you through
This lovers and spite

Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started
Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really start

Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started
Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really start

I sometimes think that we should stay
Happy on the farm
I sometimes think I'll give it all away
This love and all it's charms

Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started
Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started

Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really started
Yeah
Downhearted
Broken dreams that never really start

It's clearly a song about love and loss. This was lost on me as I heard this song on early 1980's AM radio. To my untrained young ears, it sounded like James Reyne was singing about the Brown Hornet, a superhero who appeared in the animated television series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which Bill Cosby created, produced, and hosted.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of websites about misheard song lyrics, which are known as mondegreens. Some of them are quite amusing to look at. Reyne's unique vocal style was obvious fodder for these sites.

http://amiright.com/

http://www.australiancrawl.com

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/australiancrawl/downhearted.html

http://kissthisguy.com/

http://viewer.dacast.com/broadcaster/25999/f/88347

Hmm, okay...

Hermans' Hermits. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

2014 marks fifty years since Herman's Hermits burst onto the music scene with their debut hit single, I'm Into Something Good. Unlike some of their contemporaries, such as the Rolling Stones and The Who, the Hermits sung light and fluffy songs. They had no pretensions of being subversive or making social or political statements. 

On first glance, their 1965 hit, I'm Henry the VIII, I Am, a revival of a 1910 British music hall hit by Fred Murray and R.P. Weston, also seems to be a novelty song. It tells the story of an unnamed widow who has been married seven times. All of her deceased former husbands were named Henry. The song doesn't reveal how they died.  Was it from natural causes, or could it be that this widow is a black widow who killed each of her former husbands in order to receive sizable life insurance payouts?

To avoid the same fate, Henry the VIII (his wife's eighth old man) needs to prepare all of his own meals, regularly check his car for signs of sabotage, and look over his shoulder. The other solution is to change his name to something other than Henry.

More sonorous emanations

When I was a kid, I listened to and sang children's songs such as The Wheels on the Bus, Ten in the Bed, Twelve Green Bottles, and I Wish I Were a Windmill. Not being a father, I don't have my finger on the pulse of the contemporary children's music scene, but it seems that these songs aren't as innocuous as the ones that I knew in the past.

On Sunday morning, I was channel surfing when I came across a children's program on a community radio station. I don't know who the artist was, but I caught a snippet of a song with lyrics along the lines of, "When you're feeling down, remember that you are good and the universe loves you." That grated with me. "Oh, really?" I thought.

Due to the shortcomings of search engines I have no idea who the composer and performer of this song is. Regardless, this concept was popularised by the best selling self help book, The Secret. by Rhonda Byrne. It also got occasional mentions in the TV comedy How I Met Your Mother. In a vague sense, the Universe is analogous to the Judeo-Christian God. Only rather than the personal being of the Old and New Testaments, the Universe is an impersonal, collective spiritual force that permeates everything.

It shapes the course of your life, and you can also tap into its energies to receive good things and success in life. In which case, where's my house with home theatre room, and a large back yard with room for a dog and my private golf driving range, which I share with a wife and 2.3 children, you know, all the trappings of a comfortable first world, middle class existence?

Jesting aside, this song is just another example of consumer driven spirituality. A child hearing this song may be encouraged to be selfish in their thinking, receiving the message that the world revolves around them, and that they can have whatever they want in life. In this expression of spirituality, where is the ethic of serving others and making a positive difference in the world?

As for the notion that we are "good," nobody is truly good. To the extent that human beings are capable of being or doing good, it is because the grace of God enables them to be (Philippians 2:13, Hebrews 13:21). Some Christian traditions believe in the age of accountability, where for the purpose of salvation, a child is covered by God's grace until mature enough to understand and thus be responsible for obedience to God's moral law. After that, all of humanity is accountable to God in how we live our lives, and need to consider where we stand before Him.

God is not an impersonal force. He is personal and knowable (Jeremiah 9:23-24, John 17:3, 1 John 2:13), Because God is love (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 1:9), He wants all of humanity to come to saving faith in Him (1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9). We are here to serve Him, and not the other way around. I'd rather know a loving, holy God than some vague, fuzzy concept of a universe.