Does Taylor Swift make you think about forgiveness? Does a Coldplay chorus sneak up on you in a moment of prayer? Does “Dancing Queen” say something profound about joy and community that you can’t quite put into words — but you’re going to try?
Then the Friday Fix wants to hear from you.
Our Friday Fix blog is where music meets the spiritual — a space for the unexpected connections, the “wait, this song is actually about grace” moments, and the guilty pleasures that turn out to be anything but guilty.
We’d love to publish your thoughts. And the good news? Your job is the easy bit.
Here’s all you need to do:
Pick a song. Any song. (Yes, even that one.)
Jot down a few thoughts about what it sparks for you spiritually — could be a sentence, could be a few paragraphs. There’s no wrong answer and no word count.
Send it to us by email. That’s it. We’ll do the rest.
We’re not looking for essays or theology degrees. We’re looking for you — your music taste, your faith, your reflections, served up however feels natural.
It’s another delve into the Friday Fix archives this week.
Life in the UK feels like we’re in a ‘waiting room’ phase – the data shows that things are okay, but it seems like we’re bracing for the impact of the conflict between the USA/Israel, and Iran. If the UK were a person, they’d probably be sitting on a park bench with a slightly cheaper takeaway coffee, enjoying the sun, but keeping one eye on their phone and the other on the clouds waiting for the next storm to roll in.
I thought David’s reflection from 2023 might help.
David writes (in 2023):
Cave writes ‘the lyrics and the vocal performance emanate from deep inside the lived experience itself’, in this instance he is writing about the Pogues classic. ‘Fairytale in New York’. Few could argue, on listening to his own composition ‘Waiting for You’, that such a description isn’t also merited.
The poignancy that Cave expresses in delivering the title lyric of this song leaves us in no doubt that true love dwells, and even grows, in the waiting space. As he sings ‘waiting for you’ we can sense that during a time of separation, love has grown. Yet, this is far more than a case of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. The waiting is more than the bittersweet parting of lovers pining for precious time together again. This is the heartfelt passion of those whose souls are conjoined, yet who are parted.
Your soul is my anchor, I never asked to be freed
sings Cave, yet, as the line is sung, even as we sense that love has grown, we become aware that the waiting may well be in vain. In the longing is lament, and in the tangible sense of grief and sorrow which emanate from the lyric we are given an insight into the intensity of desire which lies within the waiting. A desire that risks not being fulfilled.
The truth is that for many in today’s society the act of waiting carries no risk. For the privileged, waiting simply means next day delivery! Desire is always fulfilled, and waiting is understood simply as the passage of time from one completed goal achieved towards the next. Richness is measured in the numbers of, not in the depth of, experiences.
Yet this is not the whole picture of course. The wait goes on for clean water for 771 million people across the world (https://www.wateraid.org/facts-and-statistics). 2.99 million food parcels have been given out to those who have waited in line at food banks this year in the UK (https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/). 82 million refugees wait to return home or find security in a foreign land (https://www.rescue.org/topic/refugee-crisis-100-million-displaced). For these, and others, waiting is not simply a passage of time but a deep desire for security and the waiting of course does not always bear fruit. For many, life is not a journey from one peak to another but an attempt to find some even ground. A longing for a change in circumstances. A lament for what might be.
Waiting is one of the themes of the liturgical season of Advent, although it is all too often trivialised, marketed as the countdown to Christmas Day. This is far removed from the real intention of the season, or indeed from the sense of waiting portrayed in Cave’s song. In both, there is real separation, in which the waiting time is not about the passing of the minutes, hours and days between where you are and where you want to be, but rather a profound period of preoccupation with and reflection upon what could and should be. Advent is a season to desire deeply.
Therefore during Advent we should not be asking, “am I prepared for Christmas?” Rather, we should be asking ourselves, “what is it that I long for?” “What do I lament that has passed?” “What do I wait for with a fathomless yearning?” “What would make me sing, my voice quivering, with the same passion and emotion I hear in Cave’s voice?”
‘Your soul is my anchor I never asked to be freed’
To be anchored in God’s soul means that our desire is God’s desire. We wait, deeply desiring and longing for all that God longs for on this earth. ‘On earth, peace and goodwill to all’ has become a cliché of Christmas. It is the greeting of the heavenly host to the shepherds from God and as such is no cliché, but a message from the heart of the divine. This is what God desires.
‘A priest runs through the chapel, all the calendars are turning A Jesus freak on the street says He is returning Well sometimes a little bit of faith can go a long, long way Your soul is my anchor, never asked to be freed’
Too often waiting is seen as an eschatological exercise. We want a different world, restored relationships, water and food for all and peace on earth. Yet our generation seem content to accept this as a pipe dream, and our hopes are focussed instead, while ‘the calendars are turning’, to a day when He returns and all will be well! Yet waiting should never be about apathetic acceptance.
There is no acceptance in Cave’s vocal or lyric – there is only longing.
The longing and yearning of waiting cannot accept what is. To be anchored in God’s soul is to ask never to be freed from our desire to see, and do all we can to ensure, peace on earth and goodwill to all. This waiting, this longing, this yearning leads us to allow our little bit of faith to go a long, long way in action.
‘Waiting for you To return To return To return’
Jesus told a story about goats. The goats were dedicated to the King and longed for him to return. They waited to serve him, and to pander to his every need. If he was overthrown in a coup they were ready to visit him. If he was on his sick bed they would be there too. They waited in their chapels as the calendar turned. One or two of them even shouted loudly in the street that the King would return. As they waited for him to return, others waited in the queue at the Foodbanks, waited for access to clean water and were arrested and languished in prison with no visitors.
Yet, when the King returned he banished the goats from his Kingdom. They were dismayed and didn’t understand. They believed they had been faithful in waiting. The King explained that he was angry with the goats because while they had been waiting for the King to return they had done nothing to achieve the aims of his Kingdom. While they had been dreaming of a future Kingdom, they had failed to help those in their midst who were in need. To realise the kingdom in his absence.
There were sheep in this parable too. The sheep had spent their time in the King’s absence, not waiting, but acting as if the King were with them, always ready to serve those in need. On his return it was the sheep who the King welcomed into his Kingdom…
…true love dwells and even grows in the waiting space…
I don’t know about you, but it feels to me like there have been too many moments recently when the world feels as though it’s holding its breath. This past week has been one of those — on Wednesday, for example, when I woke early and immediately checked the news. It seemed like Armageddon was less a metaphor and more a possibility. In those moments, I think we are confronted with a real question of faith: how do we live fully, love well, and hold onto joy when everything around us feels so scarily fragile?
Last summer, my husband Rob and I found ourselves caught between grief and celebration in a way we hadn’t quite anticipated. We had travelled to Sheffield to see Paul Heaton (supported by The Lightning Seeds and Shed Seven). It was a proper nice occasion – catching up with friends and full of anticipation. Then the call came.
Our dog, Brontë (who was in boarding kennels), had to be rushed to the vet. Her back and her rear legs had given way, paralysed without warning. The conversation with the vet was one of the hardest we’ve had. We made the decision — the one that no pet owner ever wants to make, and we made it from a distance; unable to be there and hold her. We had to trust Hayley, the wonderful owner of the boarding kennels, to be the hands we couldn’t be; to be with Brontë, speak gently and let her know she was loved.
For a moment, we genuinely didn’t know if we could face going to the gig. It felt almost wrong to be standing in a crowd, waiting for music, when our hearts were filled with grief. But our friends were there. We had the tickets. We were a couple of hundred miles from home. And so we went.
And then Shed Seven took to the stage and played ‘Let’s Go Dancing.’
The song isn’t the gentle, reassuring ballad that it hints at. There’s an urgency to it, and a cry for the moments when the world is falling apart around you, and probably the only response is to grab hold of someone you love and move. Let’s go dancing while the world caves in. It feels like there’s something almost rebellious about that, and standing there that evening, with grief still raw, it meshed so relatably for me in that moment. A reminder that joy is not the absence of pain. Sometimes joy is the most courageous thing we have left to offer.
All evening, we sang until our throats were raw. We danced. We laughed through tears, put our arms around each other, and raised a glass to Brontë Dog. It was messy and joyful and grief-stricken and alive, all at once. And it was, I think, exactly where we were supposed to be.
It strikes me that Jesus understood this. He could have spent his last evening in solitude or in sorrow — and who would have blamed him? Instead, he gathered the people he loved around a table. He broke bread, he poured wine, and he was entirely present in that fragile, fleeting moment. The Christian faith has never pretended that joy and grief are opposites. They sit together at the communion table. They show up together at the graveside. And apparently, they dance together at football grounds in Sheffield on warm spring evenings.
Brontë, like all dogs, had no interest in yesterday’s regrets or tomorrow’s worries. She lived in the moment with an uncomplicated enthusiasm. Every walk was the best walk. Every greeting was the greatest greeting. Every sofa was made especially for her to lie on. In a way, I can’t help think that she was, perhaps, more faithful to the spirit of the Gospels than most of us manage to be!
Nearly a year on, she lives on in our memories — and in the small but persistent lesson she left behind. When the world feels heavy, when the news is bleak, when we don’t know what tomorrow holds — be present. Be with the people you love. Hold them close. And if you can, if you can hear music and you can see lights, let’s go dancing
When the boss requests that you write a good “Friday Fix” you begin to doubt the quality of what you’ve submitted in the past… But I’m choosing to think she really wanted me to write a Friday Fix for “Good Friday”.
Some of them didn’t do it for me, and I couldn’t see why they might have been chosen. Some had too much hope, with too many resolved chords, too much major and not enough minor. Some were too “full”. Many had too much hope.
Others had glimpses of what Good Friday feels like for me. I noticed there were a couple that had an underlying “static” (though that might have been my earphones!), which resounds with the confused buzz I imagine the disciples had that afternoon. There were snatched lyrics and motifs that do that Friday a little justice, but they too were resolved too neatly and quickly. For this to be a Fix for Good Friday, we need to stick with Friday and not rush to Sunday.
Because I think we do that too often. We jump to the resurrection because we know the story continues. We skip forward to the joy and the resolving of the music rather than sitting with the minor keys and the static and the silence that should mark the Friday and the Saturday of that Passover weekend.
And so I came full circle back to the first song on the playlist.
I’m not a classical music buff. In fact, I’m not sure I could tell my Bach from my Beethoven, and who even knew there was more than one Mozart!? But I do like films and TV, and sometimes the music makes all the difference.
This is one of those tracks. “Spiegel im Spiegel” (translated “mirror in the mirror”) by Arvo Pärt has appeared in the background alongside a number of scenes in film and television. Perhaps you’ve listened, and you’re wracking your brain to work out which scenes came back to mind for you. For me, it was the final episode of “The Good Place”, when (SPOILER ALERT) Eleanor realises that Chidi is leaving, and the episode of Ted Lasso where a broken Nate Shelley picks up his violin and it underpins his shame, Sam Obisanya’s sadness, Roy Kent’s confusion, and a lamenting cry from the heart from Rebecca Welton.
The music strips everything away. It’s simple, and it’s sad. It is predictable and consistent, inevitable. And yet it conveys infinite mystery and a wondering of what really comes next, and will this ever resolve… It is “the idea of a sound that is simultaneously static and in flux” (https://tinyurl.com/ycjjurp4). The style itself, called “Tintinnabuli”, was created by Arvo Pärt. It exists to strip the ego and focus the mind.
Of the style, Pärt has said:
“Tintinnabuli is the mathematically exact connection from one line to another…..tintinnabuli is the rule where the melody and the accompaniment… is one. One and one, it is one – it is not two. This is the secret of this technique.” (https://tinyurl.com/mua79e8c)
“Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this.” (https://tinyurl.com/ycjjurp4)
This piece, in all its simplicity, is deep and mournful. It could easily lie underneath the feelings and experiences surrounding the cross on Good Friday, without drawing us too quickly to the hope of the resurrection. I can feel the brokenness and disillusionment of the disciples who have lost a friend and mentor, who have seen their hope for life in all its fullness stripped of its final breath.
I can picture the sky turning dark and the curtain tearing in two. I can hear the wails of a weeping mother. I can see the blood. Everything else is stripped away, and I am trying to make sense of this moment. Where is the meaning even in this one thing? Everything pales and becomes distant in the light of this darkness.
I’ve picked this version in particular because of the cello. I’m musical, but if ever I was going to learn to play a “proper” instrument, it would be the cello. There’s something about the richness of the sound, the depth that conveys sorrow as it drones and reverberates, that is so beautifully sad, raw and real.
What would we experience by allowing this piece to sit underneath the crucifixion today?
…
Before the silence or the static of tomorrow…
…
And yet it is, for me, that the cello also emits a sound that sings of hope.
Having said we shouldn’t be jumping to Sunday, and that this piece evokes all the imagined feels of the lived experience of the disciples on that Friday, I think I could quite comfortably also play this piece under the resurrection.
Placed under the crucifixion, the hope seems lost, but under the stone rolling away and the Son rising, I think this same piece might also have something equally beautiful and real to reveal. But that’s for Sunday morning.
This is one of my favourite songs from last year. I was lucky enough to hear Kate sing it live, and she introduced it by saying it was written for her teenage daughters as an encouragement for them to become who they wanted to be. She also said what a joy it was to have Barnsley Youth Choir sing with her – and I can hear that joy in this song (and see it in the video!)
There’s a lot on the choices we all have: “You can buy in, you can sell out, you can take time to work it all out” – for me, the taking the time to work it out is the becoming – and all of us at all ages, when we take time to work it out, are in a process of becoming who we want to be, who we think God wants us to be.
I’ve been particularly struck by the line“You can run wild, you can be good, do as you want or do as you should”
It feels like only now, in my 50s, I realise that I have such choices – that being good or doing what I should aren’t the only options!! I suspect that kind of realisation isn’t what’s expected when we focus on “becoming” during Lent. But there’s something liberating about realising that we don’t have to only be a narrow version of ourselves, based around the messages we first received about ourselves as children. My recent reading of some queer theologies has me thinking about how God doesn’t see us as fixed, but continually becoming, transforming into who God is encouraging us to fully be. There’s some necessary unlearning, then relearning to be done.
There’s no set pathway for our becoming – “You can fly high, you can dig deep, cling on or take a big leap”. There are times that in order for us to blossom, we need to cling on securely and dig deep into what grounds us, whereas other times it does involve that huge leap of faith into the unknown. Similarly, “You can let go, you can hold strong, shy as you like or sing your own song, but let your light shine.”
Kate is quoted as saying the song is “about embracing who you are, having faith in your unique gifts, and letting the world see your light. Be strong, be positive, and be kind.” I appreciate that life isn’t as simple as just saying our “shadows will be gone” and am wary of any toxic positivity, but I also see value in remembering that our call is to let our light shine rather than hide it under anything. That’s who I hope we all can become.
It’s a 90s album track you may not be familiar with, but if you listen closely, it’s a masterclass in the humility of being the recipient.
”You’ve been so kind and generous / I don’t know how you keep on giving.“
Merchant, who was in the band 10,000 Maniacs and has had far more US chart success than in the UK, isn’t the one doing the heavy lifting in this song. She is the one standing in the light of someone else’s benevolence.
She is acknowledging that she didn’t get here alone. She is recognising the power of receiving. She is comfortable and happy to note the ways in which she has received.
In our culture, we pride ourselves on being the givers. Giving is powerful; it’s active; it’s in control. Receiving, however, is vulnerable. To receive a gift—whether it’s a compliment, a helping hand, or Divine Grace—is to admit that we are not self-sufficient.
So the challenge to you this week is, are you as willing to receive as you are to give?
There is nothing I like more at the moment than having a bright bunch of flowers in the house.
A crowd of yellow daffodils or a pop of red tulips in a vase makes me smile. I think it’s something to do with colour defiantly revealing itself in nature after months of grey skies and often relentless rain.
As a new season sneaks in, I’m glad to find a song which reflects my current cautious optimism.
The narrator of ‘Flowers in the Window’ at first reflects on past decisions and situations which have led to isolation.
However, a new relationship has changed things. A connection has been made where walls have come down and vulnerabilities shared. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes, they recognise that life does not always feel sunny (“there are many seasons to feel glad, sad, mad”) but the overall feeling that they are experiencing now is that of hope and optimism.
“Wow, look at you now, flowers in the window It’s such a lovely day, and I’m glad you feel the same”
To steal a phrase from CS Lewis, the narrator has been surprised by joy. They weren’t looking for it, but have made an unexpected connection which has led to an unfolding and opening up of possibilities. There is a glimmer of hope and the future feels different.
“So now we’re here, and now is fine So far away from there, and there is time, time, time To plant new seeds and watch them grow So there’ll be flowers in the window when we go”
Life does not always feel as sunny as a bright bunch of flowers. In the hard and challenging times we might long for a glimmer of brightness, a sense that it is all going to be OK.
Maybe at these points it is also OK to pray to be surprised by joy, as small as those moments may be. Even in the wilderness, flowers bloom.
We’ve been having conversations recently at one of the chapels I work with. Conversations about a bench. This bench is outside the chapel, on our property, ideally located in a place where people walking by, as they do, might choose to sit down and take a little pause, a little breather, before carrying on their way.
The reason we’ve been talking about it is that it needs some restoration. We’re all agreed that work should happen, but the challenge has been that some were not keen on directly replacing the text written on the bench. For, on the bench, is written some text. Whoever wrote it was familiar, I would suggest, with one of the older translations of scripture available. For it reads: “Come ye apart, and rest a while.” (A shortening of Mark 6.31.)
More than one of our folk suggested, not unreasonably, that to come apart was not understood today as it once was. Indeed, one person wryly noted that coming apart was precisely what the bench was currently doing itself! As part of our conversations, we did consider whether simply removing the bench would be appropriate. This suggestion was swiftly dismissed – the bench is a part of our mission. A very small part, admittedly, (no-one is expecting the bench to be the centre of a great revival) but nonetheless it is a gift to the local community, a place, a space, a point on the landscape where a pause is possible, where someone can rest, and think, and talk, and pray in the midst of whatever journeys, physical or otherwise, they are undertaking.
The opportunity to do this is a truly open gift. Neither the bench, nor the community of faith who offer its use to the wider neighbouring community, makes any request other than a willingness to cross the threshold of the church property. You don’t have to be religious, or spiritually inquisitive, or a seeker of faith; you can be happy or sad, in company or on your own, heading somewhere specific or just wandering around: whoever you are, wherever you’re at in life, if you want to sit down then the bench exists for you.
And the opportunity to pause, to spend time resting, recovering and recuperating, is one of the opportunities Lent offers. We don’t often see it like that. We see it as a time of putting down things we’d rather keep hold of, or picking up things we’ve mistakenly let go of. In other words, we see it as a time of effort. Yet within that opening reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return, is a reminder that we cannot obtain grace through our own efforts. Within that opening reminder that we are to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ is a reminder that we are called into relationship with one whose yolk is easy, and whose burden is light, and who calls us apart to rest a while. I’ve often mused on the strange juxtaposition of the call to carry our crosses alongside the call to carry a yolk that is easy. I’ve never found any kind of solution to its seeming paradox. But I’ve learnt to trust that by resting in Christ there is strength to do far more than we could possibly imagine.
So, the bench will be repaired and repainted. The words will be updated (“Come aside, and rest a while”) but the invitation will remain the same: come, sit down, whoever you are, wherever you are in life, however you’re feeling, and pause for a moment in the busyness of the world – and perhaps, just perhaps, while sat beside a building that stands for God’s presence in the world, you might come to feel the great love God has for you, and the peace that only God can give.
When I sat myself down to think about the FF this week, I had half a plan. Then my mind wandered, and I got stuck in a vortex of walking songs.
I could have walked 500 miles or have been walking…. Back to happiness In the rain Or on sunshine In boots of a certain kind Like an Egyptian On broken glass Or even on the moon
You get the picture. It’s a theme that has fascinated lyricists everywhere for years and years.
Still, choosing what I already had on my mind was ok because it lives in great company. It’s a song from the musical Carousel, but it is also an anthem for football fans and sung by thousands (largely in Liverpool thanks to the Gerry and the Pacemakers version from the 60s). It tugs at the heartstrings wherever it finds itself in earshot.
Now … take care, I’m about to give a plot spoiler ( I don’t feel too bad as the original production of Carousel was in 1945, but you know how complex the world of culture works). Someone in this story, who is pivotal to the plot, dies, and this song is designed to bring comfort in grief.
I guess that may be the reason my dad chose it for his funeral. That, and the footy connection, a game he adored both as a fan and a hospital radio commentator. This song has, in its v. simple and limited lyrics, a recognition that life is complex and stormy. That no one goes untouched by its ups and downs, and that deep loss is inevitable. It tries to paint a picture of a possible positive outcome with its overriding message of hope in its chorus.
Walk on through the wind Walk on through the rain Though your dreams be tossed and blown Walk on, Walk on with hope in your heart And you’ll never walk alone, you’ll never walk alone
It seems somehow fitting too for this Lenten season, which is of course a time of reflection and wondering – or indeed wandering in deserts. It encourages getting back to basics with who we are, often by denying ourselves the things that get in the way. It encourages us to step out day by day. It brings us to a point of death and grief in a story that has stayed around for 2000 years in the world’s psyche, and it seems a bit hopeless.
The golden skies in both the song and the Easter story are not always obvious for us, somehow unseen. Yet we can hold on to the fact that our faith, our people and our God are accompanying us on life’s journey and that might give us just enough hope to reach a different, and more positive, place. Hope is always a bit of a mystery concept for me, but if we can hold on to the sense that we are not in things alone and that we can draw on the “hive mind” of groups and communities out there, then we may move forward in tiny steps.
Those communities that encourage, not diminish. Those that love, not hate. Those who support without judgment. Those found in church or beyond its walls. Walking alone is not a thing you have to do. That bit is not just hope, but reality, and it builds possibilities.
Walk on today, for hope is never very far away in all sorts of forms, and maybe if you’re in a good place, take a walk with others who need a companion to embody that hope.
The Friday Fix 