american noise

There is a new song by the Christian band Skillet. I don't typically like Skillet. Actually I don't know if there has ever been a song of theirs that didn't make me want to change the radio station a little bit.

And I don't know that I love the sound of this song either, but the lyrics? Well, the lyrics are downright delicious.

Here is a link to listen to the song on YouTube: AMERICAN NOISE SONG 

Here are the lyrics:

Angry words and honking cars
Satellites and falling stars
Distant dark blue radios that whisper down my boulevards
Ghosts and chains rattle in the attic
Broken headphones filled with static
Lonely room you’ve got nowhere to run

3, 2, 1 for all and all for 1

Times will be bad times will be good
Things I wish I hadn’t done and somehow wish I would
Cutting through the American noise
You’ve got a voice and a song to sing (and a song to sing)
Drink deep in the morning
Drink deep in the morning
See what the day will bring

La da da da
Lift up your voice
Let love cut through the American noise
Lift up your voice
Let love cut through the American noise

Slamming doors and cell phone rings
Hurricane force of silent screams
Don’t know what to believe
Bend the rule just to break it
You're so tired 'cause you got to fake it
But you just wanna be someone

3, 2, 1 for all and all for 1

Times will be bad times will be good
Things I wish I hadn’t done and somehow wish I would
Cutting through the American noise
You’ve got a voice and a song to sing (and a song to sing)
Drink deep in the morning
Drink deep in the morning
See what the day will bring

La da da da
Lift up your voice
Let love cut through the American noise
La da da da
Lift up your voice
Let love cut through the American noise

No matter who you are you’ve got a voice
Why don’t you use it
Sing your own song- take all the noise
And make it into music

La da da da lift up your voice
Let love cut through the American noise
La da da da you have a choice
Let love cut through the American noise
You’ve got a voiceLet love cut through the American noise

And here is why I like it, minus his scream-o ish voice while singing it:

We are so surrounded and bombarded on every side by people telling us what to think and believe and do and wear and like and dislike etc. etc. etc. We hardly have a moment to breathe, let alone think for ourselves. It reminds me of something I used to do in my classroom from time to time called STILLNESS. I wrote about the first time I did it, way back in Louisville in 2009, HERE. Basically I asked my students if they were ever "unplugged": did they ever turn off their cellphones? No. Not even at night. Did they listen to their ipods or watch TV when they did homework? : Of course. These types of questions. So we started to try and be quiet; to be still.

And it was HARD WORK. For all of us. But you know what? The more we did it and worked at it, the better we became. And the silence became nice instead of this strange, lurking thing. We talked about why it was so hard to sit in silence. My students said things like, "It makes me face my own fears," or "I have to start listening to the voices in my head." [No this wasn't in the curriculum, but I'm so glad we did it!]

Basically being in silence makes us have to think for ourselves. And we aren't used to it. We would rather listen to the "American noise" that drowns out our fears, our inner voice telling us right from wrong, and most of all, drowns out God.

I think that is why I like the challenge of this song: You have a choice…You've got a voice…LET LOVE CUT THROUGH THE AMERICAN NOISE.

We can choose to be a different sound in this unending bombardment; we can choose to be love and light in chaos and hatred and darkness. But in order to do that, we must first tune out the noises we hear all day, every day and let God's love cut through and find us in the stillness and in the quiet.