I will not be alone there

It's gorgeous out today. Today is the day that we'll all remember in 6 months when we're so cold that we can't put a sentence together, and we'll think back to summer, remembering the entire season as filled with nothing but 80 degree days, when we could wear t-shirts, but we'll conveniently forget all the days when we were melting and looking longingly in our sweater drawers. But that's not what I wanted to talk about today.

I found out last night that my apartment has another fancy, enviable feature. The apartment is in a building that possesses the World's Slowest Dryer. If you're tired of your laundry taking less than an hour to dry, come on over to my place. You can watch every movie on your Netflix queue in the time it takes to dry a single sock. But that's not what's on my mind, either.

The topic at hand is this: why is good Christian music so sad? What is it about God that makes this music sound so mournful even when the subject matter is about joy and love?

Forgetting the fact that they're probably at least partly sad because so much Christian music sucks so goddamn much, that feeling of sad faith is one that I understand. There's that weird Protestant (and also, apparently, Greek Orthodox) feeling of the stained glass and huge organs pumping out emotional songs about being happy and thankful or ELSE that just gives this often-overwhelming feeling of mortality and humility. And it's those swooping, gorgeous melodies of so many hymns that, for no good reason, just feel sad. So when an artist is writing songs of faith and humanity that are not only well-written and sincerely sung, but have those same swooping melodies and an inescapable feeling of sadness, I latch onto it.

All this started yesterday when my Never Played playlist served up a song from an album that I now somewhat regret trading: "Too Early To Say" by the Innocence Mission. This is a band that I can only listen to for so long before the spiritual sadness of it brings me so far down that I have to turn it off. I know that Karen Peris's fragile voice has a lot to do with it, but it just amazes me that she can sing about joyous things and spiritual certainty (from "Brave": "I know it, here is God beside, and I meant it, I'm sure of that") and make it heartbreaking.

Sufjan Stevens is the same way. Not only does it seem like he's almost always singing either about God or crying or both, but he has that same emphasis on grand "praise God because he's scary" melodies, no matter what he's singing about. Even "Chicago", the impossibly gorgeous song off of his new album sounds like it's about his faith even though it seems like it's mostly about crying in a van. And one of his most overtly relious songs, "The Transfiguration" ("Lost in the cloud, a sign. Son of man! Son of God!") is also one of his saddest.

There's two songs by the Innocence Mission that nail (pardon the pun) this feeling for me, and neither of them are clearly about God. The first is "The Lakes of Canada" (which I just found in a search was picked out for NPR by Sufjan Stevens), a song so sad that I want to listen to over and over, but it ultimately brings me down so much that I have to have an intervention with myself ("Reid, stop listening to the Innocence Mission and put on 'Back In Black' or 'Don't Leave Me This Way'."). I didn't put this song in the jukebox specifically so I wouldn't listen to it.

But while "Lakes of Canada" is about hard times ("Don't tell me what cannot be done") and has tons of minor chords to rip at your heart, the other song by the Innocence Mission that just kills me is, at first listen, a joyous song that doesn't seem to be about anything specific. But there's just something about the song that feels overwhelmingly faithful, and in no clear way, feel unquestionably about that heavy humility and humanity that spirituality can often bring.

and this boy who is leaving his home,
who is reaching out, says:
yes I'm sure about some things.
When I will be driving away
I will not be alone there.
And I know
I hear you say so

The vague references to faith and moving on just crumbles me to pieces, a feeling that seems almost self-destructive, but one that I've constantly searched out in music, ever since I loved "Show Me The Way To Go Home" when I was little and that I'm reminded of every Christmas when I get to belt out "Angels We Have Heard On High".

So in other words, the jukebox is not exactly fun, though I did put in "The Beast and Dragon, Adored", the first track off the fantastic new album by Spoon. The fact that it mentions the Beast, a dragon and is off the sexiest record I've heard in ages should be enough to counter any discomfort you might feel with all my babbling about religious music.