Jane writes:

I’ve never been more tempted to write a double FF than I have at this moment.

I’m a fickle soul when it comes to music. Tune and lyrical content need to blend seamlessly for me, and the song usually has to do something to my soul. I have to say if I was giving things up for Lent, this pair of songs would be really easy.

I am annoyed at these songs for all sorts of reasons but mostly because people latch onto the words in a chorus and sing them endlessly without pondering what the rest of the song is about.

Because you’re gorgeous. I’d do anything for you

Or/and

You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re Beautiful, it’s true

One is about the exploitation of a person’s beauty and sexy persona by another in a position of power and influence. The other is a kind of hankering over something you can’t have – to a point of drug-induced obsession. A story of stalking in plain sight.

Both situations are never going to end well and yet people sing ‘You’re gorgeous’ or ‘You’re beautiful’ like the songs are anthems to love and all things
joyous. Herrrummphhhh.

Pay attention is what I want to shout. Don’t latch on to two words and then think they’re the answer to everything. I’m not saying it’s bad to be catchy per se. I’m just saying this girl is conscious that it is easy to get distracted with a tune and easy words (in actual fact I have a massive list of these kinds
of songs but you’d be bored by the end of it – well maybe I could seed a few; Under My Thumb by The Stones say, or Every Breath You Take by the Police).

It isn’t always the writer’s fault as many are making a point (well …………) but a song is the whole thing and you have to be absolutely bothered before you burst forth in song.

You, the reader, are undoubtedly gorgeous; you are absolutely beautiful; but believe me, you don’t want someone to sing these songs to you!

I guess the Lenten takeaway from all of this is: give up being lazy and making assumptions about people, life news and all things cultural, and pay attention to the truth of the matter. Any matter.

Don’t live life in a haze of someone else’s story but dig deep for the honest centre. Look beyond the surface. Don’t get carried along but look for more. Be a seeker of the divine in everyone.

PS I’m am actually annoyed at the writers of these particular songs as their choruses themselves are intentionally exploitative of a listening public. Designed to sell records and hang the consequences. However, you can catch up with their music if you like here:
Baby Bird on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BabybirdOfficial/?locale=en_GB
James Blunt https://jamesblunt.com/

Bev writes:

Paul Simon released  “I am a Rock” in 1965 (initially as a solo artist but within a year, it was re-released with Art Garfunkel), and it quickly became a hit in the UK charts. I never saw the attraction and can honestly say without reservation, that it’s my number one least favourite song of all time (The Birdy Song is a close second).  

I have no need of friendship.  Friendship causes pain.  

I touch no one, and no one touches me. 

I am a rock. I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

The song portrays a person who has experienced emotional pain and has chosen to shut themselves off from others to protect themselves from further hurt. 

I imagine most of us can relate to the words of this song because I’m sure we have all, at some point, suffered the pain of a broken heart caused by the rejection of someone we love. It can be devastating, and nothing takes that kind of pain away.  No matter how well-meaning those close to us are, their words of comfort telling us that time is a great healer, and things will be alright in the end, seem hollow, insignificant, and sometimes downright irritating. 

We are all vulnerable when it comes to friendships, things can go wrong, and we can get hurt, however, to remain an island is to rob ourselves of something very special, because our relationships with other people can be truly transformational. 

I recently watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”.  I was rather hoping for something a bit more spiritually enlightening, it does after all take place in the heart of India, but alas there is only minimal mention of the Hindu faith. It was also full of clichéd characters – the widow looking to see if there was life outside of being a wife, a man looking to atone for his past because he betrayed his boyfriend, a married couple who had nothing left in common except their loyalty to each other, a woman who couldn’t accept that her youth had long since departed, and a woman who alienated everyone around her. The hotel owner, a very over-enthusiastic young man, answered all of the setbacks his elderly guests were suffering by continually reminding them that “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end”.

In some respects, I found it quite depressing because there was a strong thread of loneliness which ran through all the characters and I was tempted to switch it off, but I couldn’t.  I felt compelled to watch it to see if they all sorted themselves out, which of course they did, and they did it by getting to know one another better.  

This wasn’t without its difficulties though because some of them quite obviously rubbed each other up the wrong way. In the real world their paths would never have crossed because they had absolutely nothing whatsoever in common, yet by developing close relationships they each began to understand and empathise with one another’s respective pain, even to the point of devising plans to face them together.  By the end of the film, they had each been transformed by taking their eyes off their own troubles to help one another.

This so reminds me of how our church families work. We are called into friendship with God and that is the engine that drives every other friendship – because out of the rich resources of loving God and knowing God’s presence, we build our friendships with others, even those that we wouldn’t naturally gravitate toward, and to be honest, maybe even those we may positively avoid.

Friendships need to develop slowly and naturally, but if we are living within the confines of past hurts and disappointments there is every chance that our lives will bear testimony to the words of Paul Simon’s song.  That would be tragic because we were never meant to be an island – we are God’s means of enriching others and ourselves through true and lasting friendships. 

So my prayer for you all is – don’t be afraid to take a risk on friendships. Yes, you might get hurt – nobody can guarantee that you won’t but I do know this – everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, then it’s not the end.

Find out more about Paul Simon at http://www.paulsimon.com/

Jane writes:

So I’ve lost track of the times and occasions when this line from this track has popped into my head. Sometimes it’s a fatalistic realisation for me, and often a refrain I want to sing to others. Especially in church meetings!!

You can’t always get what you want

Apparently, it has been voted as the 100th greatest song of all time so…

I have no idea, of course, if Keith & Mick intended it to be written as a pep talk for complex individuals like me, or a statement of the obvious, but it often does the trick. The narrative of the story in this song seems to move about between scenes and places that have a sort of non-ending to them. Assumed connection, a place to vent frustration and ambiguity between life and death. It’s kind of chaotic and really doesn’t make much sense other than the refrain.

You can’t always get what you want, well no
You can’t always get what you want. I tell you, baby
You can’t always get what you want, no
But if you try sometimes you just might find, uh, mm
You get what you need, oh yeah, woo!

I almost hate the fact that life is not predictable. I recognise it can’t be and I also recognise that the joy of it might be lost if it was but when it all feels too much, having clues might be great!!

My personality understands the flexibility needed in life to navigate who we are and what happens to us and those we love but I really do, at the heart of me, long for clarity. I think that might be why this song resonates so much. I often know what I want and I often know too that it might not be good for me.

Up to a point I can live with that but if I turn into Sandra Bullock in ‘Miss Congeniality’ for a minute, what happens if what I want is world peace?! Why can’t I get what I want? ‘cos frankly I’ve thought it through quite well and it seems reasonable. In those contexts, this song becomes a lament too.

As people of faith, we know scripture is littered with people who very definitely didn’t get what they wanted. God used them differently and often they discovered what they needed all along. But not always.

Sometimes life got very tough and there was seemingly no point nor did those characters get any sense of obtaining what they needed. Which leads me to another less-than-satisfactory conclusion for my complicated soul.

You can’t get the God that you want

God is constant but constantly as unpredictable as life. God is a narrator, an accompanist, a revealer, a shaper, a maker, a creator, an encourager, an enabler, and 50 more descriptors before dinner.

I wonder, then, if the thing for me about this song and all its connotations leads me to new lyrical content:

You can’t get the God that you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find the God you need

I think I’m encouraging us today to be brave enough to seek out the God that helps us discern what we need and go there with them. I’m not promising for one moment though that it will be easy

The Rolling Stones are still releasing new music and you can find out more about them here https://rollingstones.com/

So here’s a challenge for Lent. Are there any songs where:

a) You don’t like the lyrics but love the tune?

or

b) Don’t like the tune but love the lyrics?

or

c) Do You dislike a song that is really popular with other people and can’t understand the fuss about it ?

If there are, would you like to write a Friday Fix about it so that we can include it in our Friday Fixes during Lent? It doesn’t have to be long and profound, short and snappy is welcome here too!

Have a think, write your thoughts down and send it to fridayfixmail@gmail.com. Give us something to think about this Lent!

Tom writes:

Growing up when I did, Queen were one of the great bands that loomed over all other musical output. Yet, at the same time, they were coming towards the end of their heyday (The Miracle was released just before I moved to secondary school, so in my own musical growing up I really only experienced Innuendo and Made in Heaven as new releases – the latter released, of course, after
Freddie Mercury’s death). The opportunity to see and hear them live therefore never existed. So when, in 2002, 11 years after Freddie’s death, The Darkness released the “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” EP, it felt like a big deal.

Now, don’t get me wrong, as much as I love Justin Hawkins (do check out his fabulous YouTube channel, Justin Hawkins Rides Again) I am not suggesting he has anything approaching the genius or star quality of Freddie Mercury, nor that The Darkness are to be equated in any significant way with Queen. Yet, Justin and the band have never hidden their love of Queen and the inspiration they gained from the music of Freddie, Brian, Roger and John. As they strutted onto the music scene in the early noughties, with their overt glam style, flamboyant stage moves, high-pitched melodies and driving riffs, I was one of those who rejoiced that here was a band that gave us at least a little, just a
little, of a taste of what it might have been to see the mighty London-based quartet in their early pomp.

Of course, unlike Queen, The Darkness were never the success story that Queen were. To be fair, they were never likely to be, and the health and addiction issues that affected Hawkins in particular just added to the lowering of their odds of long-lasting superstardom. At the same time, they were far from a failure, or even a one-hit wonder. Despite disagreements and periods of break-up, they’re back together, touring and releasing new music. Yet, it is likely their biggest hit will forever remain “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” (released first as the title track of the aforementioned EP and then as their third official single off the Permission to Land LP).

Listening to “I Believe…” never fails to lift my mood. It is a joyful song that seems full of the excitement that love brings to our lives. It’s a song whose opening riff has me breaking into a huge smile and immediately has me singing along, while attempting both air guitar and air drums at the same time, all while dancing inanely around the kitchen or office (though probably not down the High Street – that’s really not my style!) And at the heart of that joy is, I think, a sense that I really do believe in a thing called Love. Not just the romantic, sexual love that the song is clearly about, but the larger understanding of love as well. The love enables me to see others as being made in the image of God, just as I am. The love that draws me to weep with those in sorrow, and to laugh with those experiencing joy. The love that drives me to have compassion for the least and the lost, and the passion to give a voice to the voiceless and a platform to the downtrodden.

God is love. And I believe in God. Ergo…

Cue lights. Cue spangly unitards. Cue drums. Cue bass. Cue guitars. Cue falsetto scream. “I believe in a thing called love…”

Find out about what The Darkness are up to at https://www.thedarknesslive.com/

Anne writes:

I don’t really know much about Kirsty MacColl apart from the fact that she died a horrible death and she is part of one of the most played Christmas songs of all time. I also remember her funny song about a guy who looks like Elvis that works in the chip shop. Last year, I was introduced to another song from her back catalogue that I have played on a loop ever since.

On the way to work, I tune into Zoe Ball’s breakfast show and she had Jojo Moyes as a guest. Jojo is one of my favourite writers so I was interested to
hear about her new book ‘Someone Else’s Shoes’. During the interview, Zoe played this song by Kirsty MacColl and as soon as I got to work, I began researching it.

It had such a catchy melody with horns and a Salsa beat. Now it is my favourite song to sing in the shower when no one is listening.

Kirsty described it as “a song about being a fashion victim; being a slave to fashion and crippling yourself in the process”. It’s a song about a woman who is propositioned by a number of men who offer her exciting adventures but she cannot take part and says to the men:

“In these shoes? I don’t think so!”

One hopeful partner asks her to walk up and down his spine but she says if she did:

“I doubt you’d survive!”.

The chorus is in Spanish and proclaims

No le gusta caminar
No puede montar a caballo
Cómo se puede bailar
Es un escándalo

Which translates into

She doesn’t like to walk,
She can’t ride a horse
How can she dance
It’s a scandal

In the bible, we are told that there is a time for every activity under heaven. 

I love to dance.

There have been nights when I have danced until the music was turned off but nowadays my hips will not allow too much boogying before they begin complaining.

I have never been one to dance in heels though. I am not a slave to fashion in that way. In fact, in the recent past, I went to an 80s weekend at Butlins and all the people in my party decided to dress up as Octogenarians. I danced in my granny slippers. My feet didn’t ache at all the next day so I have taken to turning up to parties in my dancing slippers.

So when no one is in the house I will put on my slippers, turn on my tune and salsa around with abandon because no one is watching.

I will sing at the top of my voice.

In these slippers? I don’t think so!

You can find out more about Kirsty MacColl at an independently run website – https://www.kirstymaccoll.com/

How many times have you read the Friday Fix and been inspired, moved or reassured – and it’s reminded you of a different song that prompted similar feelings?

How many times have you thought ‘I could write a Friday Fix’ and then not got around to writing it and sending it in?

How many times have you half-written one but then worried that it’s not good enough?

We have some fabulous regular contributors but we also love to receive ‘one-offs’ too – and we can’t help thinking that there are a few of you that are almost poised to send a Friday Fix to us but then bottle it.

So we want to say, believe in yourself – and send it to us at fridayfixmail@gmail.com

Gill writes:

A few years ago, I got a bit grumpy that music wasn’t what it used to be. Well, what do you expect – I’d become properly middle-aged so complaining about what the younger generations were listening to seems to be a thing you do. What I really meant was that it didn’t seem to be a mouthpiece for social commentary, observation and, heaven forbid, activism anymore. And it felt like the ‘protest song’ had especially disappeared from the popular music sphere.

I was born into the world when the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. I grew up with Bob Dylan, Edwin Starr, and John Lennon blaring away in the background. And during my teenage years in the 1980s, it felt like you couldn’t move for protest songs – Bob Marley, U2, The Specials, NWA, Midnight Oil, The Jam, Peter Gabriel…to name but a few.

The 90’s had its fair share too but since 2000, the number of protest songs seems to have reduced reasonably dramatically. Of course, I’m not saying that there aren’t any, it just seems that they don’t seem to exist in the mainstream so much anymore, and that’s probably down to the changing way in which we engage with popular music these days through streaming and so on.

So I was delighted when I walked past my teenage son’s bedroom the other day and heard these words blaring out:

Mister, how you making all your money?
Tell me, what’s the reason for this war?
You’ve bombed another country and left its people hungry
Where I doubt that things where quite so bad before

It made my heart skip a beat to hear the words and music of this song. I often hear young people being derided and criticised for not being interested and concerned about things; that they are lazy and entitled, and that ‘our generation’ was never like that – we showed respect, blah, blah. Hmm. Having been a worker with young people since the early 90’s, I can categorically say these accusations fly at every generation. I once read an article from the Leicester Mercury about young people marauding and causing havoc in the city to a Rotary Club dinner and asked them when they thought it was written. Nobody guessed it was from the 1800’s.

So my concern that protest songs were on the decline doesn’t need to exist. When you start looking, there are lots and lots out there and this I find reassuring. That people continue to use music to voice concerns, ask questions and nudge consciences. The centuries-old tradition of the protest song is still shining the light on injustice.

Art in its many forms, has always been a way to question and challenge. Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective which brings together craft and activism describes it as the art of gentle protest. Music likewise, has been a non-violent way to galvanise people to collectively protest and speak truth to power. 

Listening to, and playing music is more than a means of deriving pleasure and enjoyment. It’s an art that has, and continues to play a key role in tackling injustice, striving for equality, and gives voice to our desire for peace.

What I love most about this song is that it questions the values and morals of those who govern. The hypocritical nature of policies and actions:

Mister, why d’you send that fleeing family
In squalor to wherever you see fit?
When its in your manifesto to stop them begging outside Tesco…
Do you not think this makes you a hypocrite?

The influence of global business and manufacturers:

Mister, what d’you make of all these rebels?
In the deserts, fighting in the sands
With guns from South Dakota and trucks made by Toyota
One wonders how such things posses their hand?

And how we respond (or don’t respond) to the impact that our actions have on others

Mister, where’s the place that they call home now?
Tell me when these people will be free
You’ve rolled in with your tanks and now you’ve set up all your banks
It’s thanks to you they’re labelled refugees

Yes – the protest song is still alive and well.

Find out more about Jamie Webster at https://www.jamiewebstermusic.com

Tom writes:

I pray to God it will be one of the last memories I lose, should my memory start to fade (at least in relation to music). Somewhat surprisingly, it is not of the Glastonbury Festival, or the Indie Discos of my university days, or secret moments of dancing around the house. No, it is far more traditional than that. Staying at Sarum College in Salisbury, feeling in somewhat of a funk, I took myself over to the cathedral for evensong. To be honest, as the service progressed I was operating pretty much on auto-pilot, with the music simply washing over me. That is, until we reached the Magnificat. The setting was that of Orlando Gibbons’ Second Service, not a setting I knew until that point. Suddenly my mood lifted and I felt an energy I had not felt in quite some time.

To start with, the impact was fairly gentle, but as the piece built the charge it gave me grew. I have always found the Magnificat to be a fairly radical prayer – prophetic both in its claiming eternal blessing for a woman, and in its sense of God’s justice. As I not only listened but heard Gibbons’ setting, as it grabbed me, it felt I was hearing its prophetic power anew. Gibbons, it seemed to me, and still seems, understood its prophetic power in a way few religious composers have. And it seems to me that prophetic power must itself have coursed in his veins as he wrote his Second Service. He was a member of the Royal Chapel from about 1603, and spent much of his musical career under the
patronage of James I amongst others of significant power and wealth.

It is remarkable, therefore, that he should choose to musically highlight that part of the Magnificat that speaks of God’s preferential option for the poor and the just judgement that the rich and powerful face. The most repeated line (Jacobean polyphony and verse work includes much repetition of lines) in the whole piece is “He has scatterèd the proud” – one could find few more proud in the Jacobean Court than James himself! Over and over again, Gibbons emphasises Mary’s expression of God’s disdain for the proud, powerful and rich and the priority given to the humble and hungry. When one considers his need for patronage, and the reality that this piece would undoubtedly be performed before the highest echelons of the still-feudal aristocratic society, one cannot surely be failed to be moved to think that it must have taken great courage, no doubt inspired by the same Spirit that inspired Mary, for Gibbons to set the words of Mary’s great prophetic words in a way that itself was prophetic, speaking great truth to significant power.

When I need reminding of the power and good news of the Gospel, I turn to the Magnificat and to Gibbons’ Second Service setting of it. In doing so I am reminded of God’s willingness to unexpectedly engage with a young woman in the work of the incarnation, of God’s justice and the truth that in the incarnation the ways of the world have been turned upside down, and of the reality that God’s Spirit has used the words of Mary recorded by Luke to inspire further generations to speak prophetically to those in power.