listening too long...to one song

sometimes, there's a song that is so catchy and ingenious, you just can't get it out of your head.

for the past nine months or so, that song for me has been 'Sing Me Spanish Techno' by The New Pornographers.

two questions may arise from that last admission:

1. why is a song about singing Spanish techno so meaningful to me?

2. what is a 'currently-non-practicing pastor' doing listening to music by a band with a name like 'The New PORNOGRAPHERS'?

allow me to address these questions, in ascending order.

2. while some have opined that the group derived their name from a quote from televangelist Jimmy Swaggart calling popular music 'the new pornography', they insist that they just got the name from watching a Japanese film called 'The Pornographers' and combining that phrase with 'New' to communicate something fresh, and that the combination implies something unexpected, surprising, and even a bit provocative.

1. the song really isn't about singing Spanish techno. like all masterful lyrics, the words provide imagery for something deeper and more multi-faceted. 

in this case, they evoke a sense of being caught in a rut in life, recognizing both the ways that life can plunge us into those places where we feel trapped, and the part that we play in keeping ourselves there.

in my case, having my sense of calling and vocation turned upside-down by circumstances in life i could not anticipate or even imagine, and the somewhat natural response of shame and guilt arising from failure combined with anger and hurt emerging from rejection, resulting in my running in circles deeper and deeper into a hole of apathy, amnesia, ambiguity, and ultimately, obscurity and obsolescence.

but the song doesn't leave me in that dark hole. 

because it expresses a deeper desire to detonate the ditch, to blast the bunker.

to be resurrected from the rut.

and find a new rhythm.

to stop listening to the same song over and over and over and over and over again.

and find a new song to sing.

the best songs can distill the overwhelming obfuscations of life into three or four minutes of magnificent, miraculous bliss.

such is the case here.

(three things should result from clicking on the link to a live performance of the song and reading the lyrics below:

1. you will want to listen to the song more than once, at MAXIMUM volume.

2. your spirit will be lifted, whether it's in a hole or not.
3. you will not miss the irony of wanting to listen repeatedly to a song about listening to the same song repeatedly.)

Don't you know
after picking the glass off the ground
Don't you know
after shaking the thing for a sound
Do we see what the clock makes you do
But I won't let this happen to you

In a town
where I lost every shirt on the fence
Don't you know
I am bleeding a trail through the lens
When I see what I now know is you
I was caught in the eye as you came
Pulled by the name
I'm fallin' through

Traveling at godspeed
over the hills and trails
I have refused my call
pushin' my lazy sails
into the blue flame
I want to crash here right now
The hourglass spills with sand
if only to punish you

for listenin' too long to one song
listenin' too long to one song
Sing me Spanish techno
listenin' too long to one song
listenin' too long to one song
Sing me Spanish techno

Don't you know
after wiring the thing to explode
Wired for sound
wide awake here for days in a row
Now we see what the engine can do
And I won't let this happen to you
I won't let this happen to you

Traveling at godspeed

over the hills and trails

I have refused my call

pushin' my lazy sails

into the blue flame

I want to crash here right now

The hourglass spills with sand

if only to punish you

for listenin' too long to one song

listenin' too long to one song

Sing me Spanish techno

listenin' too long to one song

listenin' too long to one song

Sing me Spanish techno