The Lyricist

I love singing along with the songs on the radio. If I turn the volume up loud enough I sound really good too. I am very bad at knowing the names of songs or who the group or singer is but regardless when I hear a song I know and love I can’t help but join the band.

I addition to getting the title of the song and the name of the band wrong from time to time I might also get the lyrics wrong. This is not much of a problem when I am alone in my car. In fact, I think that my lyrics are at times an improvement over some of the words coming out of my woofers and tweeters.

Where this does present a problem is in a group setting particularly when I am not aware of the fact that I am in fact singing the wrong words. Case in point, when I was a teenager I was on a family car trip through some western states one summer. Somewhere along the way we procured a copy of an England Dan and John Ford Coley cassette tape. (Remember tapes?)

It was a great album. Every song was terrific and made you just want to sing along, which thank you very much I did along with the rest of my family, parents included. That is of course until the song “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” came on. We were somewhere in northern New Mexico having a fine family sing-a-long when in my best seventies hippie rocker I belt out “I’m not talking about the linen…”

Without warning I hear laughter coming at me from all sides (middle children like me always had to sit in the middle). The comments were flying “What did you say?? What was That? The linen? What does that even mean? It’s not linen you fool, its Moving In – I’m not talking about moving in.”

The kidding and ribbing was endless. And this was just from mom and dad – I don’t even want to get into what my brothers had to say. And oh, did I mention, my older brother had his girlfriend with us? Beyond humiliating. I tried to explain why I thought “linen” would have worked in the song but there were no buyers for the story I was selling.

I wanted to die. Well, for about two seconds, then I too thought it was hilarious. I cannot listen to that song and not hear “linen” try as I might to hear the right lyrics. And every time it brings a big smile to my face.

I would like to think I learned something from that little lesson – I did - I only sing in private now. However, that has not cured my “lyric” problem. In fact it happened just this week, and its only Tuesday.

I was singing a song – alone in my car. One I’ve heard and sung dozens and dozens of times. I turn it up each time I do and regularly sing along. Yesterday I was singing right along and was just so joyous as I belted out “heroes conquered the grave…”

Suddenly, I was back in that family car driving through New Mexico – “Heroes? What does that even mean? It’s not heroes you fool, its He Rose – He rose and conquered the grave!” I started laughing so hard at myself at this realization. Of course the song makes much more sense that way. When I pulled in to park I had to clean the mascara off my cheeks before I went inside. I know God was having a good ‘ol laugh at that one too.

But the more I think about it my version works just fine. My Hero did conquer the grave. Jesus is my Hero. He overcame death. Death. Don’t know about you, but I consider that a big damn deal. And He did it for me; foolish ‘ol me (and you).

My Hero, He rose. And because He did I get to conquer the world of my dreams. Now that is something I could really sing about.

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