Friday, December 16, 2005

Songs That Should Be in the CL Songbook

First, what is the CL songbook? Well, it's the 'official' songbook of Communion and Liberation. (CL Online) It has songs by everyone from Bob Dylan to Simon and Garfunkel to U2. There are also lots of traditional songs, Catholic hymns, African-American spirituals, and foreign-language songs.

Anyway, these are just some suggestions of mine for the songbook; songs that I think fit very well among the actual selections. They all have a 'CL' message and strike me as fitting additions.

"Hanging by a Moment"-Lifehouse

"Talkin 'bout a Revolution"-Tracy Chapman

"Clarity"-John Mayer

"Something's Missing"-John Mayer

"3x5"-John Mayer

"No Such Thing"-John Mayer

"The Great Divide"-Scott Stapp

"Broken"-Scott Stapp

"We Danced Anyway"-Deena Carter

"With Arms Wide Open"-Creed

"Higher"-Creed

"Crawling in the Dark"-Hoobastank

"This is Your Life"-Switchfoot

"Meant to Live"-Switchfoot

"Dare You to Move"-Switchfoot

"Pride(In the Name of Love)"-U2 (This is not only the 2nd best U2 song of all time, it's one of the few that is not in the songbook.)

"Walk On"-U2 (3rd best; and in case you're wondering, the #1 U2 song of all time is "Beautiful Day," which is in the book.)

"Caruso"-(Traditional Italian)

"Summer of '69"-Bryan Adams

"Better Days"-The Goo Goo Dolls

"Iris"-The Goo Goo Dolls

"The Scarlet Tide"-Alison Krauss

"You Will Be My Ain True Love"-Alison Krauss

"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"-Alison Krauss and Union Station

"Carry on Wayward Son"-Kansas

"Meet Virginia"-Train

"Shoulda Been a Cowboy"-Toby Keith (it's all about desire ; )

"Don't Stop Believing"-Journey



If anyone has any more ideas, please share them! Thanks for reading...




"Our voices sing with a reason."

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

What sort of Bob Dylan and S&G? I'm a huge fan of both.


(teehee, first posties!)

Anonymous said...

Hmm... I don't think I could pick between "The Boxer", "Homeward Bound", and "The Sound of Silence".

Good luck with your concert and Sarah with her audition! Have a good time at your dance tonight!

Paz de Cristo

seacb said...

My favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs are America (I love Josh Groban's piano/voice cover) and The Boxer (Rocky, anyone?). Lai la lai...

Which are both in the songbook, by the way...

Bob Dylan, I'm not sure.

There are also Beatles songs in it, but as you all know, I'm not a fan.

Hey, what do y'all want for Christmas? I want U2's Best of the '90s CD.

Happy Advent!

Anonymous said...

Pish-Posh Sarah, everyone is a Beatles fan, you just haven't heard the right stuff yet. One of these days you're going to listen to Abbey Road; you can't not like it.

In case anyone else is a Dylan fan, I like "In My Time of Dyin'" (Led Zeppelin did the most amazing cover ever of this song), "The House of the Rising Sun", "The Times They Are A-Changin'" among many others...

For Christmas, mostly stuff that I'll want for college next year: laptop, digital camera, etc etc.

How did your dance go?

John B. said...

How can one sing Crawling in the Dark? Hmm...I'm not so sure about that one...all the other ones, however, definitely...

Anonymous said...

How's TAC been treating you Mr. Brungardt?

seacb said...

Good Lord, Michael, you actually believe all that *stuff* they're writing on that site!?!? Who are those people? You're going to accept their interpretation instead of your own?

The whole idea of listening to songs and the whole reason you like a song is because of what it means to you, not to some random person(s) on the internet.

TO ME, "Higher" is about Heaven, pure and simple. My Dad, John B., and Jen all agree with this.

"Summer of '69" is about none of that garbage on the website (scroll down a little, anyways). It's just a song about his memories of one summer.

And as for the list in general, all of those songs have a common theme of desire. They all communicate a desire for something more, a desire for an encounter, a desire for the Infinite. Each of those songs fits into one or more of those categories. If you get down to it, Christianity isn't just a set of beliefs, it is an EVENT. The event of God becoming a man. And before I get too preachy, I encourage you to read "Mere Christianity," by C.S. Lewis, or any book by Luigi Giussani or Lorenzo Albacete.

God put into each of our hearts a hole, an empty spot, that we try and try to fill with all the stuff of this world. In reality, this absence, this DESIRE FOR SOMETHING MORE, can only be fulfilled with Christ.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." (St. Augustine) I chose this quote for the top of my blog because St. Augustine, in his genius, captured perfectly this innate quality common to every man. Where you see evil, that is where man refuses Christ as the fulfillment of his desires. Where you see joy, and happiness, and hope, that is where Chirst has been accepted and embraced as the Light of life.

To get back to the songs, each one of them, whether inherantly Christian or not, captures some aspect or aspects of the Desire. (I could expound upon each song individually, if you'd like.) And that is why they are on this list. Because in CL, you celebrate the desire, and seek to know it more deeply, and thus to know Christ more deeply.

And that is wht Cl is so awesome.

And now that this comment is longer than most of my posts, I'll leave you with this:

The drama of existence
looks forward to meeting its Truth;
It wants to hide His Presence,
to forget His Incarnation.
My heart will struggle
to keep His justice,
my life belongs to Him,
nothing can keep my away.

I have known the source
that saves a man from evil,
in my body, there is a strong cry,
in my blood a tempest.
My new law is the story
that I must follow,
great is His mercy,
even thought I did not deserve it.

Today I will sing,
I will sing my life or my death.
Today I will risk all my destiny.
Today I will sing,
I will sing my life or my death.
Today I will announce,
I will announce that He is still present.

-"Hoy Arriesgare"

Anonymous said...

Woah, lots of catching up to do, ok:

Michael,

How was his voice? I hear it's kind of deteriorated over the years. Does he still perform some of the early stuff? I definitly prefer his earlier albums (like the first 5) that were more folk oriented before he tried his hand at rock. Can't get over "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" where he compares the evil in the world in the time before Noah and the great flood with the world before its (seemingly) inevitable nuclear holocaust.

Oh the Bucs....it was just soooo ugly.....I can't talk about it. It's like Gruden said though, we were simply outplayed by a better team that was running like a machine Saturday.

Favorite bands? Well my all time favorite is the greatest ever (objectively speaking): The Beatles (I have all the albums). I also love the greatly misunderstood Led Zeppelin (it was NOT a heavy metal group), The Eagles, The Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don't like much written after 1980, but Queen and U2 are the two exceptions I can think of from the top of my head...

haha, no, Johnny Cash is as close as I get to country.

And Sarah is right; the interpretation of art is left only to the beholder. The apparent meaning and even the original intention of the author are irrelevant next to the interpretation of the beholder. Music is the greatest form of art, and this is therefore even more pertinent in music.

On a minor point though Sarah, I would argue that the hole in our hearts was put there by us when we denied God's goodness in the beginning. Then did God plant the desire for that "greatest good", or does it occur naturally due simply to its absence from the soul?

hmm...

anyway good post Sarah...

In Christ, John

seacb said...

God put the void there when he gave us free will. Adam and Eve had the choice between Him and their own "earthly" desires, and they passed Him over. (I put earthly in quotations because technically they were in Paradise.)

But the concept is the same, and the hole was there from the beginning. Nowadays, it's simply harder to choose God over everything else because of the original sin that they (Adam and Eve) added to the soul.

Similarly, the desire for the Infinite Good was also there from the beginning, but also now more clouded and hard to reach.

And of course Dylan's voice has deteriorated; smoking will do that to the vocal chords...

Take care, everyone.

seacb said...

And just to clear up the whole Scott Stapp issue, here's a very good interview with him from a Christian magazine, around the time he released "Relearn Love" for "The Passion of the Christ-Music Inspired By."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/interviews/2004/scottstapp-0804.html

Anonymous said...

But are you saying that our souls were spiritually incomplete, even in a paradisical state? I can understand there being a natural drive towards the good (it's still a part of all nature, including the human one, even after the fall) before the fall, but a longing for a lost completeness? Bah, we're splitting hairs anyway...


haha, well the reason I say that is because Dylan never had a conventionally "good" voice to begin with. I can only imagine what it must sound like now. Still, the genius of his songwriting would probably shine through.

P.S.: "I am a man of constant sorrow" is a Dylan song from his debut album, I believe.

Noli said...

Sarah, you are going to sail through Sophomore Theology. :) A bunch of us had an awesome discussion about the reason for man's desire for happiness while studying for finals. Your understanding of St. Augustine is great already. It's really amazing, learning about the way the soul works.
I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon! I'm way more excited about seeing you than John *wink*.

Anonymous said...

Michael,

No, I haven't heard that live version of the song, is it better than the album version?

I believe Sarah was referring to concupiscence (the inclination towards sin, or in other words, self-satisfaction), which remains even after Baptism.

Oh I agree about his voice, just some people (most people I know) don't like it at all. If he comes anywhere near Tampa I'll be there...

You have my e-mail right?

Peace of Christ All, John

seacb said...

John H. and Michael, I was talking about free will; I think I made that clear. From the instant of creation there was free will; how else could Adam and Eve have sinned? Yes, they were in communion with God, but because of free will, there was always the possibility of the fall, and, as we all know, it happened. So while they were already completely united to God, there also had to be the Desire for God; they had to choose to be with Him. Which they did until the fall, when they rejected their desire for God and instead chose their desire to be God, as the devil suggested.

Before the fall, the desire was a choice, as it still is now. Love is always a choice. Even though we are cleansed from original sin at Baptism, we still have an inclination to sin. And we all do. Unless, Michael, you're to tell me that you're the only perfect one here.

By "nowadays" I meant that it is harder to follow our desires to God because of everything that faces us in the world today that wasn't there in Adam and Eve's time.

Anyway, it's great to discuss this with you guys; I wish you could come to School of Community. (Well, Michael, you could.) But we could start one here on my blog.

Take care

Anonymous said...

Sarah,

I think what you're doing here is equivocating the two distinct concepts that I pointed out above. You're saying that the desire for the infinite goodness (intrinsic in nature) and the longing to return to our communion with the father (soley a result of the sin) are one and the same. It's difficult to distinguish the two after the fall, since their goal is ultimately the same. In other words, you seem to be talking about the state of the soul after the fall, and I'm talking about it before. If we were in perfect communion with God (as Adam and Eve were before the fall), then St. Augustine's quote wouldn't make any sense. This is why I think the two concepts are separate, but like I said, we are majorly splitting hairs here.

Hehe, yeah it is harder now than it was then, heck it's harder now than it was 30 years ago!

You mean Michael isn't perfect like me?! Well I won't be associating with him anymore!

It's fun to be able to talk about this stuff with someone other than the Baptists; I really get sick of talking about the Faith & Works controversy and "the traditions of men"...

Plus you guys are awesome, y'all are the only people I can talk about Bob Dylan and original sin in the same thread of conversation with. :-)

seacb said...

Hey, I didn't mean to ignore you, Mary Rose; I'm excited to see you too!

The desire for infinite goodness and the desire to be united with God are one and the same, because God is the Infinite Goodness. But before the fall, yes, they were already united to God, but they still had to have the desire for Him.

And thanks for your comment about sin/temptation, Michael; sin is a result of temptation. I wasn't saying that we're doomed to sin no matter what. That's what sanctifying grace is for, right?

Anyway, I'll try to get a new post up pretty soon; an article or something we can discuss.

God Bless

Anonymous said...

Sarah,

Yeah, well, we're arguing semantics anyway, so I guess the outcome is totally impertinent. ;-)

How would you do that thing you mentioned earlier on your blog?

In Christ, John H.

Fred said...

Graceland by Paul Simon, almost the entire album. Especially "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," a song that dramatically evokes the Mystery within human relationships.