Erica Gamester - Joe Pug

From my perspective, this song was very reminiscent of Mumford & Sons, a popularized Christian folk band. Using only a soft acoustic guitar and his voice, this minimalist style causes the audience to focus on the poeticism. The lyrics, while tangled and complex, reveal biblical metaphors. Through lyric analysis, one can deduce that this song was written from the perspective of Jesus. (Disclaimer: I’ll admit that I’m not a Christian or religious, like, at all. So if I misinterpret this, bear with me.) 

And I have come to be untroubled in my seeking
And I have come to see that nothing is for naught
I’ve come to reach out blind, to reach forward and behind
For the more I seek, the more I’m sought
The more I seek the more I’m sought

The first line states that Jesus’ faith in God (his father) is steady and ceaseless as he goes on this spiritual venture. The second line uses the world “naught,” meaning nothing, therefore, nothing is for nothing. Perhaps by this, Pug could be referring to everything happening for a reason, just as Jesus trusted God’s will. The third line regarding blindness refers to Jesus performing miracles, such as giving vision to the blind. Reaching forward and behind can refer to his span of influence, as he accumulated many followers and crowds along his journey. The last line is presumably the most obviously connoted to Jesus, as he spread sought to spread God’s word. As a result, people were drawn to him and sought to learn more about his father.  


(Excerpt from Mumford & Sons’ song: “Awake My Soul”)

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
And where you invest your love, you invest your life
Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
For you were made to meet your maker


Unlike Joe Pug, Mumford & Sons’ lyrics are not very subtle when it comes to biblical metaphors. While this verse can be broken down, the overwhelming theme would be their resurrection of faith, presumably Christianity. Whether their faith was ever lost or waivered is unclear, however, they encourage their audience to seek Jesus in order to secure their fate when our earthly bodies deteriorate. This verse coincides with Joe Pug’s song, as it resembles the perspective from the followers of Jesus as they encourage those around them to also seek God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Erica Gamester - Language and Poetry

For our optional homework assignment, we brought in poems to share with the class and reflect accordingly. I brought in an untitled poem by rupi kaur from her book, Milk and Honey …. (note: she prefers her name lowercased) "i want to apologize to all the women  i have called pretty. before i've called them intelligent or brave. i am sorry i made it sound as though  something as simple as what you're born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains from now on i will say things like, you are resilient or, you are extraordinary not because i don't think you're pretty. but because you are much more than that - rupi kaur" The first notable aspect of this poem is the informality of grammar. The lyrics within the poem are seemingly sentences that separate over lines and random periods. However, this informal style is reflective rupi kaur's poetic style and cultural upbringing, as Punjabi langu...
Read more

Beauty of Simple Worship

Tonight I witnessed something truly beautiful. The campus ministry, Cru, gathered in the chapel full of new faces and fresh first year students. I was running late, but when I arrived I did not feel late at all. I felt overwhelmingly welcome, included and invited in by new and old friends alike. Community is a truly beautiful privilege in life. I walk through the doors and the worship team was leading the filled room in song. There were no microphones, but we were going to lift our voices and our instruments to glorify Jesus regardless of technical difficulties. The night went on and the speaker delivered a message on the call to love Jesus and to love each other, which is a beautiful message in and of itself. However, the time came to close in song. This was when I recognized something spiritually greater than myself, while still not of its own divinity. In this time I experienced the biblical meaning of church. Again we stood to lift up the name of God. I closed my eyes, for I did no...
Read more

Taylor Duffy - Reconsidering the Spiritual in Art

11/30 The part in reconsidering the spiritual in art that really struck me was the quote that said, "It was an artistic experience of art - a sense of the easy and seamless merger of religious and artistic experience, their inevitable reciprocity." In other words, you cannot have religion without art, and you cannot have art without religion. This made me think of van der leeuw's theological aesthetics section in Sacred and Profane Beauty. He states, "It is completely true that genuine, great art is, as a rule, also religious art; genuine, noble expression of the beautiful is simultaneously expression of the holy." This quote truly explains what art is and should be. It should be a creation of the most raw and spiritual experiences we have in our lives. This at least applies to great or fine art. It should evoke this holy awakening in the viewer. This is why creating art like singing a song or painting a fine painting is considered worship. There is such a ...
Read more