Top 10 Pop Songs Secretly About God
Top 10 Pop Songs Secretly About God
Jul 10Sure, cocktail strain seems to have small in a approach of … umm … abyss (“boom bang boom, even brighter than a moon moon moon” — appreciate you, Katy). The doubt is either God is benefaction even in what can seem to be vacuously superficial. Can what primarily appears to be a cheesy strain about teenage intrigue indeed be a approach to suppose God singing honeyed nothings to you? Can a inability to get Carly Rae out of a heads indeed assistance us live out a Gospel ideal of praying though ceasing?
Of course, it’s not always so easy. we mean, who doesn’t “Believe in a Thing Called Love”? Sometimes it’s usually not probable for me to suppose God and myself “rocking ’til a object goes down.” And infrequently cocktail songs are usually distracting (in an all-time you-gotta-be-kidding-me moment, one of my slightest favorite songs of all time, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper, infiltrated my mind during maybe a misfortune probable time: while perplexing to urge with a Passion. Yup, that was flattering bad.)
Sometimes a usually thing we can do is baptize a song, spin it into something about a Christian life regardless of what it was ostensible to mean. On a new wordless retreat, for example, we usually couldn’t keep a certain song, one that’s not accurately shelter material, out of my conduct (OK, it was “Wild Ones” by Flo Rida ft. Sia — so good!). Instead of perplexing to restrain it, that usually done me consider about it more, we motionless that we would spin a word “wild ones” into a outline of all those people Jesus invited to travel with him along a brave highway toward a Kingdom of God. I’ll confess that we was some-more or reduction pumped that we managed to get Flo Rida to assistance me concentration on a Kingdom of God.
Even aside from than a lyrics and strain videos, baptizing a strain that unequivocally doesn’t offer God can be a small duplicitous, generally when a artists have done some less-than-edifying personal choices. It is no doubt easier to see a participation of God in someone who not usually performs a familiar strain though also lives a usually life.
All of that is true. But a understanding is that all of us are unlawful carriers of God’s grace. At slightest that’s what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ seems to have had in mind when he wrote, “by trait of Creation, and still some-more a Incarnation, zero here is scurrilous for those who know how to see.”
With Teilhard’s blessing, here’s my top-10 list of cocktail songs that competence personally be about God (or during slightest have messages that God competence wish us to hear). Alright, no some-more caveats, here’s a list.
The “This Is Too Easy Because we Already Imagine God Singing Them To Me” Division
10. OneDirection — “What Makes You Beautiful”
Best Line: “You don’t know you’re beautiful. If usually we saw what we can see…”
I unequivocally don’t like OneDirection, and this strain seems both too immature and done for pre-teen girls. That said, we can’t quarrel a good message, and this is one we simply can't hear enough. We are desired into being by God, and nonetheless we can hatred ourselves for our flaws. If usually we could see what God can see, we’d know that we indeed are beautiful.
9. Drake ft. Rihanna — “Take Care”
Best Line: “I know you’ve been harm by someone else. If we let me, here’s what I’ll do: I’ll take caring of you. When you’re ready, usually contend you’re ready.”
Understatement of a year alert: not all of Rihanna’s songs are easy to urge with. But we have to acknowledge that a few of her songs lend themselves to ruminating on messages we have to consider God wants us to internalize. Because we have been hurt. We have built walls to strengthen ourselves. Without coercing us God simply whispers, “You are precious; we are mine. Just contend you’re prepared and let yourself be desired by me.”
The “Did They Steal That Line From Scripture? No, Really, Did They?” Division
8.vTaylor Swift — “Eyes Open”
Best Line: “The night goes dark. Keep your eyes open. Everybody’s watchful for we to mangle down. Everybody’s examination to see a fallout. Even when you’re sleeping, keep your eyes open.”
Was Taylor meditating on a Gospel of Matthew while singing this strain for a “Hunger Games” soundtrack? Because she sounds an awful lot like Matthew 25:13, “stay awake, for we know conjunction a day nor a hour.”
Taylor also competence be finding Ignatian spirituality, since there are some peculiar parallels between her admonitions about what to do when “the night goes dark” and Ignatius’ instructions for what to do when we’re in gloom and feel distant from God. Whenever we’re enthralled in gloom and tempted to give adult on God, that is accurately a time to “keep [our] eyes open” and to quarrel such a temptation.
7. Fun. — “We Are Young”
Best Line: “Tonight we are young, so let’s set a universe on fire. We can bake brighter than a sun.”
I certain as heck wish there is some arrange of Gospel summary in this strain deliberation that we (and a rest of a country) have spend a final few months carrying these difference tattooed onto a ear drums. Fortunately, we consider there is. Jesus tells us in a Sermon on a Mount, “You are a light of a universe … Your light contingency gleam before others, that they competence see your good deeds and worship your celestial Father” (Matthew 5:14-16). Ignatius suspicion this was so critical that, fable has it, they were a final difference he ever spoke to his tighten crony (and associate saint) Francis Xavier as Xavier was withdrawal for a Indies. “Ite inflammate omnia,” Ignatius is to have said, or, “Go, and set a universe on fire.”
Let’s have some Fun. environment a universe on fire.
6. Katy Perry — “Firework”
Best Line: “‘Cause baby you’re a firework. Come on, uncover ‘em what you’re worth. Make ‘em go oh oh oh as we fire opposite a sky. …You usually gotta light a light and let it shine. Just possess a night like a 4th of July.”
While Katy has strayed distant from her Christian strain beginnings, she nails this Gospel summary even improved than Fun. If Jesus were around today, he expected would not speak about covering one’s light underneath a bushelbasket though instead “own[ing] a night like a 4th of July” for your celestial Father.
The “Unintentional Catechesis” Division
5. Rebecca Black — “Friday”
Best Line: “It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. Partyin’, partyin’ (yeah!), partyin’, partyin’, (yeah!), fun, fun, fun, fun, lookin’ brazen to a weekend. We, we, we, we so excited. We so excited. We gonna have a round today.”
OK, OK, we know observant that “Friday,” arguably one of a many hated songs ever created, helps explain partial of a faith is a bit of a stretch, though hear me out. And, no, I’m not going to contend that listening to this strain creates me miserable thereby putting me in a space to urge with Good Friday. That would usually be cruel.
Nope, this was nonetheless another of a songs that got lodged in my mind during that new retreat. While we was primarily vibrated that a strain with lyrics as surpassing as “we, we, we so excited” was distracting me from perplexing to urge with a Resurrection, we baptized it, branch Rebecca Black into an assist to prayer. “It’s Easter, Easter, gotta get down on Easter” we found myself singing (hopefully, for a consequence of my associate retreatants, not too audibly).
But wait, a possibilities for Rebecca-angelism don’t finish here! If we change it to Sunday, can we consider of another cocktail strain that improved illustrates a significance of a sabbath? Thanks to Rebecca, now “I, I, I, we so excited” for a Lord’s Day.
4. Hanson — “MMMBop”
Best Line: “MMMBop… It’s a tip no one knows. Can we tell me? Oh no we can’t ’cause we don’t know. Oh yeah we contend we can though we don’t know.”
Since a age of 12 a doubt has condemned me: What on earth is an mmmbop?! Finally, after nonetheless another “Well, a Trinity is a mystery” moral on Trinity Sunday, we thought, “That’s it! What if they were singing about an Mmmystery!” We can write books — or songs — about a Trinity. And nonetheless on some level, Hansen will always be right, we usually don’t know.
As if rebellious a poser of a Trinity wasn’t enough, Isaac, Taylor, and Zac seem steeped in Scripture and full of knowledge for those in ministry. They sing:
Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose
you can plant any one of those.
Can we tell me oh that flower’s going to grow?
No we can’t ’cause we don’t know.
Keep planting to find out that one grows.
Hansen, like Paul and Apollos before them, know that no matter how tough we work eventually God causes a expansion (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). we positively am never certain either my efforts will furnish anything good, all we can do is keep planting and trust that I’ll eventually learn what has grown.
3. Rihanna — “We Found Love”
Best Line: “We found adore in a destroyed place. We found adore in a destroyed place.”
Christians do a impossible: see a passed male unresolved on a wooden lamp and call it love. We find a abyss of God’s adore for us in one of a cruelest ways amiability has figured out how to kill any other. We have found adore in a destroyed place, indeed.
The “This One’s Got It All” Division
2. Adele — “Make You Feel My Love”
Best Line: “I can offer we a comfortable welcome / To make we feel my love. When there is no one there to dry your tears / we could reason we for a million years / To make we feel my love. / we know we haven’t done your mind adult nonetheless / though we would never do we wrong. / Go to a finish of a earth for we / To make we feel my love.”
I know this is a Bob Dylan original, and I’m admittedly sleepy of a strenuous volume of Adele on a air, though there’s no denying that this is a smashing strain to urge with. Seriously, lift it adult on your browser and suppose God is singing to we for 4 mins and 7 stately seconds.
Almost each shelter executive I’ve ever had has started off a shelter by mouth-watering me to urge with Psalm 139, though maybe they should have usually asked me to listen to Adele. “Where can we censor from your spirit? From your presence, where can we flee? If we rise to a heavens, we are there… Even there your palm shall lead me, and your right palm shall reason me” (Psalm 139 7-10). God will go even to a finish of a earth to offer us a kind of comfortable welcome that can make us feel God’s love.
1. Whitney Houston (R.I.P.) — “I Will Always Love You”
Best Line: “If we should stay, we would usually be in your way. we wish we have all you’ve dreamed of. And we wish to we fun and happiness. But above all this, we wish we love.”
Just like No. 2, Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You” is indeed a cover (this one’s indeed a Dolly Parton original). But honestly, can anyone tip Whitney? That note in “I Will Always Love You” — we know, that note, a summary of a income note — is maybe one of a closest practice to a blissful prophesy we have in this conceivable life. Whitney is one of those performers whose life didn’t always compare a transcendence of her talent, and after she died, there was most discussion. But that note always sounds to me like it came right out of a brokenness of her life.
More than usually an knowledge of beauty, records like that report God and God’s love, they report a Jesus who wishes for his fun to “be in we that your fun competence be complete” (John 15:11). God offers us umbrella adore while giving us a leisure to respond to this offer of adore however we will.
And with YouTube during a fingertips we’ve got even some-more leisure to knowledge The Note — or any of your other favorite songs that competence (secretly) be about God.
A chronicle of this essay creatively seemed on The Jesuit Post.
Follow Michael Rossmann, SJ on Twitter:
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