Commentary: But wait, you say, for all its many merits, of what religious value is "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long"? So glad you asked! On Friday night, I was strong-armed into attending an event at my parish that I'd devoutly wished to avoid, an interminable fiasco that ended with a fifteen-minute rendition of a praise & worship song that had all of one verse & one chorus, repeated over & over & over again, for fifteen godforsaken minutes. "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" is a salve for that still-open wound.
The beautiful irony of "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" is that the song's lyrics have many, many more than just six words, but I doubt the praise-&-worship crowd—who all agreed that the path to God is to "get rid of your mind" (even though one is told in Scripture to love the Lord will all one's mind, in addition to all one's heart, strength, & soul)—are savvy enough to grasp, let alone appreciate, the irony.
"Couldn't think of any lyrics,Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, protect us from vapid, hollow, anti-intellectual Christianity.
No, I never wrote the lyrics,
So I'll just sing any old lyrics
That come to mind, Child.
"You really need words,
Whole lot of rhyming words,
You gotta write so many words
To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right, Child…
"I know that you're probably sore
'Cause I didn't write any more,
I just didn't get to complete it,
So that's why I gotta repeat it…
"Oh, I'll make a lot of money,
They pay me a ton of money.
They're paying me plenty of money
To sing this song, Child.
"I gotta fill time,
Three minutes worth of time,
Oh, how will I fill so much time?
I'll throw in a solo, a solo, a solo, a solo, a solo here!…
"This song's got nothing to say,
But I'm recording it anyway,
I know if I put my mind to it,
I know I could find a good rhyme here.
"Oh, you gotta have music,
You need really catchy music,
This song has got plenty of music,
But just six words, Child.
"And so I sing 'em over
And over and over and over
And over and over and over
And over and over and over and over and over and over again!…"
2 comments:
I will make sure never to get you a rosary then.
Thank you. We should carefully husband the material goods the Lord has entrusted to us. I already possess at least six rosaries, & normally carry two about my person; I'm concerned that this half dozen already comes perilously close to collecting for the sake of collecting, rather than for devotion.
(This is me intentionally not addressing the substance of your critique.)
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