Author: inertus

Gill writes:

It’s another sweltering summer down here in the south-west of England. And depending on where you’re reading this, you may or may not have spent this week watching England have the rug pulled from underneath them by Argentina. Again.

Some of us are still processing. Yet another fleeting moment of hope extinguished. Our Scottish family reading this will have experienced the same feeling a couple of weeks back.

So who better than a Scottish duo, Strawberry Switchblade, to remind us about such fleeting moments? Their 1984 one-hit wonder, Since Yesterday, shone briefly in the UK top five and then, like all the best one-hit wonders (and like certain footballing dreams we won’t labour), left us with just the song and the feeling.

Like Jane’s reflection last week, it’s a song where the melody seems to contradict the lyrics. Lyrics that sit in a melancholic place while the melody chimes along cheerfully. But one look at the lyrics takes us to a more fragile place:

When tomorrow comes, you’ll wish you had today.

Sound advice dressed up as a seemingly frivolous pop song.

All we have now are our thoughts of yesterday.

The song reminds us that the present – the right here, right now – slips through our fingers before we’ve even noticed it. And underneath those jangly guitars and Rose McDowall’s beautifully clear voice, there’s a message of loss and hope mingled together. You sense the feeling of searching, of yearning, of looking for a reason to go on.

So, as many of us in the UK try to find whatever passes for shade whilst we gently wilt and replay various 85th minutes of our own lives, maybe we know exactly what this feels like.

Something about this song that’s worth noticing is that it was written in the shadow of the Cold War (1984 also saw Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ closely followed by Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ – there was a definite theme at the time), where we lived with an ever-present threat of a world that might not survive its own tomorrows.

I think that the context in which this song made an appearance makes the yearning even more poignant. It’s not just personal nostalgia. It’s a whole generation asking what are we leaving behind, and what will remain?

And here we are, in our own overheated summer, asking not dissimilar questions – about climate, about the world our children are inheriting, about whether we are doing nearly enough with the time we have.

Which is where I want to bring in the prophet Micah. Micah had a vision of summer too. Everyone sitting under their own vine and fig tree in a world of peace. It’s an aspirational image – sitting in shade with fruit, peace, abundance and the smell of warm earth. It sounds like a perfect July afternoon.

The thing is, what Micah describes is a promise. Something to be built, cared for, handed on and grown into for people who may never meet us, but who will benefit from the choices we make right now.

A key difference between nostalgia and hope lies in how you approach the present moment. Nostalgia clutches at yesterday – at summers that were somehow always better, at an 85th minute that still hadn’t happened yet, at a version of the past which gleams much more in retrospect than it ever did at the time. Hope, on the other hand, plants something in today’s ground that tomorrow will be pleased with.

So this summer – which for many of us is panning out to be sweaty, bittersweet and slightly apocalyptic – perhaps the question we should ask is: am I helping build something worth handing on?

A kindness that might cost you a little; a conversation you’ve been putting off; a world (no matter how small your corner of it is) where those who come after us might sit under their own vine and fig tree without fear and in peace.

One-hit wonders remind us that a single moment done well can outlast a great deal. Strawberry Switchblade had one glorious moment in the charts. The song is still here, forty years later, still asking its questions and still on my playlist. If a song can make such a lasting impact, just imagine the bigger things we can do to ensure the best tomorrow for those we pass this world on to.

…

Here’s a Strawberry Switchblade fansite for you to look up their art – https://strawberryswitchblade.net/

Jane writes:

In 1969, I was 5, and apparently even then I’d pretend to be on Top of the Pops using the handle from the poker as a microphone (The younger folk among you may have to look up most of what that statement is about, but you can – so that’s ok)

It was the year that this song ‘In The Year 2525’ was released, and to be fair, when I started on this little musical task, I’d never really thought about who sang it or any of the lyrics apart from the big one-liner. I definitely have no memory of what they looked like, or actually what speed it was. It’s weird ‘cos when I sing the iconic line in my head, it’s faster and definitely NOT by two guys with acoustic guitars.

You might say this blog is about music, Jane and nothing to do with what people look like, but I disagree.

This song and its relentless lyrical move to a future of doom sits in a real opposing place to its perky tune and men with sideburns and neckerchiefs.
So. Ordinary blokes singing a song about futurology like they’d just invented it and tapping into the state of the world in the midst of war(s)(one of which was bloody and damaging to an entire American generation) and the aftermath of the death of John F Kennedy, which makes it to number 1. It captured a moment, and I have no idea if people needed an outlet for their lament or were just intrigued by a catchy tune. That’s the fun of it for me. I love the way people get sucked into something popular only to discover its deep socio- political ramblings. I also love that, to an extent, we are living out the predicted future at an alarming rate.

Here are some examples from the lyrics:

In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today

Or maybe your social media profile

In the year 4545
Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes
You won’t find a thing to chew
Nobody’s gonna look at you

Oh, how the working from home idea has taken a turn.

In the year 6565
Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife
You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter, too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

This one is quite impactful for an IVF mum

But maybe most telling for us folk of faith is:

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He’ll either say, “I’m pleased where man has been”
Or tear it down and start again

OR

In the year 9595
I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing

I love a post-apocalyptic tale that makes us see exactly what humankind is doing to the created world. A story that reveals God and how people perceive what they might do to humanity in a moment of despair, despite promises to the contrary.

Simply put, creative artists – musicians, filmmakers, writers – have been trying to show us the reality of our future for decades and even centuries, so that we don’t feel lectured to and hoping we will change our behaviour.

Frankly, though it appears that we aren’t taking much notice about changing. Maybe this song reminds us that now is the moment to do justice to the world we live in and the God we worship, so the future is less bleak than painted. To avoid descending into the chaos of a world with no moral compass or, indeed, respect for the scientific advances that might destroy what we see as precious.

Do sing along, but remember it may impact your psyche.

Zagar and Evans were not overly successful after. Rick Evans was hurt in a car crash during promotion for this music. Combined with the fact that ubsequent songs maintained a darker perspective on life, the universe and everything.

Their Wikipedia page is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zager_and_Evans

Vicci writes:

Those of us who are of a certain age will remember Spirit in the Sky as an iconic song of our teen-aged years when (at least in the rural communities) there were village discos where you could buy pop, crisps and perhaps a chocolate bar if you were really lucky, where alcohol was banned (but occasionally slipped in via cunningly devised routes) and where we would stand around in circles head-banging to this song. My mother, who nursed at the island hospital, would mutter darkly about brain injuries, but was unusually unable to back this assertion up with work-derived illustrations.

It took an embarrassing number of decades for me to realise that this banger of a tune was a song that thought it was making a statement about Christians. Having grown up with the concept of the Spirit living in me and thus having never thought of God as a “Spirit in the Sky” in the first place, it didn’t occur to me that anyone else might.

So who is right? Me, who thinks it’s okay to start not just a sentence, but a whole paragraph with “so” or Norman Greenbaum, who wrote a part of the soundtrack to my youth? The ancient Hebrews believed that it took three elements to create a baby. They understood about male and female – after all, they were mostly farmers – but they didn’t understand why sometimes conception happened, and sometimes it didn’t. The Holy Spirit made sense to them as the missing element. If we follow that thought to its conclusion, it would suggest that not only do our bodies contain the DNA of both of our parents, but also that we contain the Holy Spirit. Some of you may think that this doesn’t account for the events of Pentecost, but bear with me.

When I was a child, the house was predominantly heated by a coal fire. This was in the sitting-room, and had a back boiler where water was heated. If the fire went out overnight, we not only woke up to a very cold house, but no hot water and a long wait for the fire to be re-lit and the fuel to become a warming influence, and not just a crackling light. Of course, we also didn’t want a spark to fly out and set the house on fire and there was a trick to balancing these two needs. It involved letting the fire burn down to glowing embers and carefully covering these with a small mound of ash. This was called “banking in the fire.”

The following morning, the first person up would have to rake through the ash, so that it fell down below the grate, was then scooped up and thrown away, and the embers were gradually coaxed back into a full flame with the addition of initially small pieces of wood and coal, and then as the fire took hold with larger bits.

I wonder if the Holy Spirit in each of us is banked in, tamped down with sin, fear, worry, anxiety and so on and when we confess our sins and add in to our lives the things that Wesley called “the means of grace”: Bible reading, prayer, Communion, gathering together with other Christians for fellowship and debate, then we are performing the spiritual equivalent of the early morning routine of raking through the fire and bringing it back to life.

The song says “Never been a sinner, I never sinned” but then goes on “I got a friend in Jesus”, perhaps suggesting not that the singer has never sinned, but that Jesus has wiped those sins away. For me, thinking of sin as the ash that damps down the fire of the Holy Spirit in me is a helpful way of understanding why it might matter so much to God, and also of interpreting my day. Imagining the means of grace as adding fuel to the fire of the Holy Spirit in me gives me an image that calls me back to Bible and prayer when the daily routines have become difficult to follow.

In the end, perhaps we are both right, Norman Greenbaum and me. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is in each one of us, a well-fed fire, or a banked in, scarcely there ember, and also outside of us, in the world at large, God’s Spirit in the sky and in the very air we breathe.

…

Norman Greenbaum is still alive and kicking – you can find out more at https://spiritinthesky.com/

Well, here’s the thing. There is no Friday Fix today.

Not because the world is short of songs with something to say. Not because the connection between a well-chosen lyric and the deeper things of life has dried up. But simply because nobody sent one in. The inbox sits there, quiet as a country church on a Tuesday afternoon.

And we’re not judging. Honestly.

But we are about to launch a whole summer season of One Hit Wonders — those gloriously brief musical gems that appeared in the charts, said their piece, and were never quite heard from again. One magnificent moment. One song that somehow said everything.

The trouble is, a season needs submissions. And submissions need you.

So here’s our gentle, entirely non-desperate appeal: dig back through your musical memory. What’s the one-hit wonder that’s stuck with you? The one that came on the radio and made you turn it up? The one that, when you think about it, might just have something to say about faith, or hope, or what it means to be human?

To get the creative juices flowing, we’re sharing a link to BBC Radio 2’s show on the UK’s best-selling One Hit Wonders — it’s not brand new, but it’s a wonderful trip down memory lane, and who knows what it might shake loose.

🎵 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mwjbhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/

Send us your Fix and let’s make this a summer to remember.

The inbox (fridayfixmail@gmail.com) is waiting. Hopefully not for long.

Gill writes:

My recent reflections have often been about how lately it feels like I’ve been swimming in some pretty deep, heavy waters against the tide. So today, I thought I would give the despair a well-deserved day off. Instead, I thought I’d focus on the pure joy of savouring the moment. And to help us do that, I  thought I’d take a little step back into 1966 and this classic from Cliff Richard and The Shadows.

Your recollections of this track are probably of a bright, relentlessly cheerful piece of vintage sixties pop. It’s the kind of tune that is definitely of its time. But if you peel back that upbeat tempo and actually look at what the song is saying, it has the perfect message for our busy modern minds.

The song starts with that feeling of isolation:

When the world in which you live in
Gets a bit too much to bear
And you need someone to lean on
When you look, there’s no one there

Tell me about it, Cliff. And then it goes on to talk about the world closing in on you:

When you’re walking in the city
And you’re feeling rather small
And the people on the sidewalk
Seem to form a solid wall

Back then, that solid wall closing in on you was probably more literal – brick, mortar, and bustling crowds. Today, I think our solid wall is usually digital—the endless scrolling, the furious commentary on our screens, and the crushing weight of opinions we didn’t ask for. 

If we don’t actively and intentionally claim our own peace, the noise of the world will claim it for us. Making the most of a quiet moment seems more of a challenge to make space for. In a world that demands our constant attention, making time for peace and joy is probably what you could call an act of radical defiance. As Julian Cope once sang, it’s a way of saying ‘World, shut your mouth!’

We have a lovely, long bank holiday weekend stretching out ahead of us – with cracking weather promised apparently. It can be easy to treat these extra days as time to catch up on chores, run errands (usually to the tip), or, dare I say, spend an extra twelve hours staring at our phones.

This weekend, I wonder if I could challenge you to do something different. I wonder if you could practice a little bit of radical defiance. You don’t need to buy a train ticket to some dramatic coast or countryside to do this though. I think that ‘the country’ is more a state of mind. It’s any neutral ground where you are completely safe from the noise—and surely the absolute best place to find that is in nature.

There is a profound spiritual peace waiting for us outdoors. When human spaces feel fractured and heavy, stepping into creation reminds us that there is a wider, divine reality at work. Nature has a beautiful way of grounding us because it doesn’t have anxieties like we do. A forest doesn’t care about arguments. A stream doesn’t worry if it has done the ‘right’ thing. The grass grows, the trees reach upwards, and the breeze blows exactly as God designed them to do.

When we quieten our minds in green spaces, we aren’t just escaping; we are opening our hearts. We are making room to hear that “still, small voice” that so easily gets drowned out by the digital roar of our world. For a moment or two, we can tell ourselves that while we might feel powerless to fix the world, we can rest safely in the hands of the One who holds it all.

So, pack up a flask of tea, find a patch of green, and go reclaim your piece of the country.

Have a peaceful, wonderfully defiant Bank Holiday weekend.

…

Well – Cliff is still with us 60 years later and you can find out what he’s up to at https://www.cliffrichard.org/