Foo Fighter’s Hearing Voices’ is clearly about grief. The whole album feels as though it is a form of processing grief, that of the deaths of drummer Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl’s mother, Virginia. But Grohl is on record as recognising that part of the joy of music is that people find different meanings in the same song. For me, the song, and the idea of seeking out a particular voice, brings to mind a different experience.
Now, to tell this story I need to be clear that while I grew up in the Church, the son of an Anglican parish priest, it was very much the rational, reasonable, liberal-to-radical part of the Church. To put it bluntly, I was more likely to think someone who told me God had spoken to them was psychotic rather than a saint!
It is important to know this because I have no other way of describing the situation I found myself in other than saying that God spoke to me! And I know how crazy that sounds because I grew up thinking the same. In fact, the cynic in me is probably still more likely to lean towards hearing God’s voice as a sign of mental breakdown than of divine revelation.
Yet, this is my story. As I say, I grew up the son of a ‘preacher man’ (to coin a phrase), and faced the usual comments from usually well-meaning folk, asking, “When are you going to follow your dad into the ministry?” In my late teens and early twenties my stock answer was that “the only kind of minister I plan on being is the kind who sits on a green leather bench.”
However, as my non-political career developed, I found myself in a job that I loved, working with a team of people I loved working with. It’s important to know that – I’d done jobs I didn’t enjoy, but I loved this one. Then, one afternoon, sat alone in my office, at my desk, working on a particularly exciting project, I heard a voice in my head say, “You should be a minister.” Now, I could have ignored this. It was, after all, a nonsense – I was doing a job I loved and heading in a good direction both in terms of work and social life. Why would I let go of all of this to head in an entirely new, and to my way of thinking entirely undesired, direction?
Yet the voice was insistent, and I took it seriously precisely because I could not consider it my own voice – I would never have said that! So, as stupid as I thought it sounded, I told my then-girlfriend (now wife), my minister, my dad, some friends I trusted (faithful, agnostic and atheist). None denied the idea was somewhat amusing, but also none suggested it was unreasonable. So here I am, closing in on 20 years later, an ordained minister, in circuit for over 11 of those years.
Since then, I’ve continued to hear voices – as a depressive and sufferer of anxiety, Black Dog’s voice is a familiar one, sometimes quiet and sometimes overwhelmingly loud; my own voice is also familiar to me as someone who has a very keen internal monologue; and there are the voices of those who have helped or hindered me down the years, who continue to echo around my mind. But only that once would I say I heard the voice of God speak straight to me.
The journey since has not been easy, but I know what I heard, and I will never regret listening to what it said. And I keep listening, just in case…
Lyrics
I think I spoke too soon
It’s time to clear the air
It’s quiet in my room
The silence is unfair
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
Late at night, I tell myself
Nothing this good could last forever
No one cries like you
No one cries like you
I’ve been hearing voices
I’ve been hearing voices now
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
None of them are you
None of them are you
None of them are you
I’ve seen you in the moon
I wish that you were here
You promised me your word
A whisper in my ear
Every night, I tell myself
Nothing like you could last forever
No one cries like you
No one cries like you
No one lies like you
No one lies like you
I’ve been hearing voices
I’ve been hearing voices now
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
None of them are you
None of them are you
None of them are you
Speak to me, my love
Speak to me, my love
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
I’ve been hearing voices
None of them are you
Speak to me, my love
Speak to me, my love
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: David Grohl / Pat Smear / Rami Jaffee / Christopher Shiflett / Nathan Mendel
Hearing Voices lyrics © Mj Twelve Music, Flying Earform Music, I Love The Punk Rock Music, Ruthensmear Music, Tovy Tunes
The Friday Fix 