Day 12: Preach to the Choir

 

Day 12: Preach to the Choir

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024

Lyrics:

Raise
Raise up these walls
For inside this hall
Is where you'll be speaking
Fill
The nave and the pews
As you light the fire
On the candelabra
When you preach to the choir

Don't
Let your family or friends
Stop what you're saying
Or challenge your words
Send
Send them away
And when they've gone far
You'll know who you are
When you preach to the choir

Oh, the bells will be ringing
Oh, and heads will be hung

Look
There's a church down the street
It's trying to compete
With the parish you've started
So
If you would look inside
You'd see all the while
They've been stoking the fire
As they preach to the choir

***

Details: Some of the songwriters I've co-written with this month can be pretty political in their music, and it's only highlighted how nervous I am about writing political songs. When I was younger, they came more naturally, but that was when I thought they might make a difference. These days I'm not so sure.

One of my concerns is that political music only seems to engage people who already believe the message. And while that is good for strengthening a subculture, it can also create greater division in the community at large. I worry that we've become so self-segregated that we can't have a civil discussion with people we disagree with.

At the same time, it's hard to have a conversation with someone whose ideals are diametrically opposed to your own-- I understand why people might want to cut out family and friends when it gets like that. But then again, I worry about us settling into our little islands of comfort. I worry that it leads to demonizing the people we disagree with and forgetting the humanity behind the evil caricature. Swinging back the other way, shaming strategies are popular these days, and there's no way to be polite about those. But how effective are they? These are all big questions that I need to reconcile.

Anyway, I'd like to write more political songs, but they're high stakes affairs. I feel like it's hard to capture the nuance of a situation in 3 or 4 verses, a bridge, and a repetitive chorus. In the case of this song, it's worse because there are few words, and they have to be perfect. This song took way longer than it needed to because I was worried the words weren't perfect. Then I reminded myself that it's just a rough draft and it can be revised later.

Musically, I started with the rhythm of the song from "Please Read the Letter" as performed by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. The song itself is lovely, but I found the beat to be slow yet propulsive. I wanted to sing it in a subtle fashion like last night's song "Late Night Show"-- I was just in the mood for another subtle sing.

The guitar part is reflective of my love of drones, but I do feel like the arrangement could use some more variety. And I'm worried the melody is too reminiscent of "Teach Your Children" by Crosby, Stills and Nash. But overall, I like the vibe and the message of the tune; I just want to nail those lyrics.