Common Sense

I am not sure who it was that first said, “Common sense is not all that common.” Many have said the same thing in a variety of ways and Mac McAnally has a song that expresses this. “Take It Easy,” from the 1994 album Knots, pokes fun at the TV talk show hosts who earnestly dispense common sense. It is simply one more reminder to listen to advice with discernment.

Take It Easy

(Words and Music by Mac McAnally)

A little boy walks in a diner,

Where his Momma cleans up at night

As she walked out from the kitchen,

She could see something wasn't right

He said Momma I got a problem,

And I really need to talk to you.

I love this girl but were fighting all the time

And I wanna know what to do

Momma said

Take it easy, when it gets too hard

Make it hard, if it don't seem hard enough

Don't you worry child, unless it makes you feel better

That's all I know about love

Now the man the next booth over,

A psychoanalyst by trade

He took and wrote down on a napkin,

What the cleaning lady said.

Now he's up on all the talk shows,

He's got the books and video tapes

He says for much more money,

Than a cleaning lady makes

He says,

Take it easy, when it gets too hard

Make it hard, if it don't seem hard enough

Don't you worry child, unless it makes you feel better

That's all I know about love

Some people go to a great expense,

To see who they want to be

I believe a little common sense,

Is gonna trickle down eventually

If you

Take it easy, when it gets too hard

Make it hard, if it don't seem hard enough

Don't you worry child, unless it makes you feel better

That's all I know about love

Take it easy, when it gets too hard

Make it hard, if it don't seem hard enough

Don't you worry child, unless it makes you feel better

That's all I know about love

Take it easy

Make it hard

Don’t you worry child, unless it makes you feel better

That's all I know about love

Take it

Make it

Don’t you

That’s all I know about

That’s all I know

That’s all I know about love

Chained to the Rhythm

I have a confession: I like one of Katy Perry’s songs. “Chained to the Rhythm” is her latest single and she debuted the song on the Grammy Awards Show. Why do I like this song? The message of the song is aimed at the average person in North American culture, and the message is that we should no longer be content with the things that previously made us happy. The white picket fence, enough drinks to keep us comfortably numb, and our favourite songs to keep us dancing and distracted should not be the way to the good life. Simply putting on “rose colored glasses” and pretending that all will be well is not going to solve the problems of the world. It reminds me of another song, from another time, from another artist: “It will all get back to normal if we put our nation first. But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.” (Bruce Cockburn, “The Trouble with Normal”)

The bridge of the song features Skip Marley and suggests that it is time to “Break down the walls to connect, inspire.” Yes, I can concur with those sentiments. He then begins to speak about rioting. Is that the solution? Surely in every culture, riots should be a last resort and they must always be peaceful. Martin Luther King, Jr. led what might be called riots; but it was always his desire that they remain peaceful. These protests have long stood as some of the most effective in history.

“Chained to the Rhythm” is designed to be a “wake-up call” for all of us. The artists of our culture have often provided a prophetic role. The solutions remain for other prophets to proclaim.

Chained To The Rhythm
(Written by Katy Perry, Max Martin, Sia Furler, Ali Payami, Skip Marley)

(Listen to the song while you read the lyrics.)

Are we crazy?
Living our lives through a lens
Trapped in our white picket fence
Like ornaments
So comfortable, we're living in a bubble, bubble
So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, trouble
Aren't you lonely?
Up there in utopia
Where nothing will ever be enough
Happily numb
So comfortable, we're living in a bubble, bubble
So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, trouble

(Aha)
So put your rose-colored glasses on
And party on

Turn it up, it's your favorite song
Dance, dance, dance to the distortion

Turn it up, keep it on repeat
Stumbling around like a wasted zombie, yeah
We think we're free (Aha)
Drink, this one's on me
We're all chained to the rhythm
To the rhythm
To the rhythm
Turn it up, it's your favorite song
Dance, dance, dance to the distortion
Turn it up, keep it on repeat
Stumbling around like a wasted zombie, yeah
We think we're free (Aha)
Drink, this one's on me
We're all chained to the rhythm
To the rhythm
To the rhythm

Are we tone deaf?
Keep sweeping it under the mat
Thought we could do better than that
I hope we can
So comfortable, we're living in a bubble, bubble
So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, trouble

(Aha)
So put your rose-colored glasses on
And party on

Turn it up, it's your favorite song
Dance, dance, dance to the distortion
Turn it up, keep it on repeat
Stumbling around like a wasted zombie, yeah
We think we're free (Aha)
Drink, this one's on me
We're all chained to the rhythm
To the rhythm
To the rhythm

Turn it up, it's your favorite song
Dance, dance, dance to the distortion
Turn it up, keep it on repeat
Stumbling around like a wasted zombie, yeah
We think we're free (Aha)
Drink, this one's on me
We're all chained to the rhythm
To the rhythm
To the rhythm

It is my desire
Break down the walls to connect, inspire, ay
Up in your high place, liars
Time is ticking for the empire
The truth they feed is feeble
As so many times before
They greed over the people
They stumbling and fumbling
And we about to riot
They woke up, they woke up the lions
(Woo!)

Turn it up, it's your favorite song
Dance, dance, dance to the distortion
Turn it up (turn it up, turn it up), keep it on repeat
Stumbling around like a wasted zombie (like a wasted zombie), yeah
We think we're free (Aha)
Drink, this one's on me
We're all chained to the rhythm
To the rhythm
To the rhythm

It goes on and on and on
It goes on and on and on
It goes on and on and on
'Cause we're all chained to the rhythm

Blue Rodeo

Last Sunday night my wife and I went to see Blue Rodeo in concert at the Calgary Jubilee Auditorium. It was a great show filled with new music from the 1000 Arms album and old music from just about every one of their 15 studio albums. This is a band that has been playing since 1984 – 33 years ago. The entire band is precise, talented, and professional. Jim Cuddy could be called Canada’s Gentleman Musician, humble – giving each person in the band their fair share of the stage lights. He and Greg Keelor have made a great team over the years with each of them contributing their unique fingerprint to the band craft. They are like a finely aged bottle of wine that finds flavour from each of its components. I am sad to see that Greg Keelor can no longer play electric guitar on stage. He has hearing deficits which mean that the band must rely on relative newcomer Colin Cripps to play the blistering licks such as those at the end of “5 Days in May.” But Cripps is phenomenal and contributes much instrumentally and vocally. Their keyboardist, Mike Boguski is a tremendous player and makes the most of all those Hammond B and keyboard sounds. Glenn Milchem on drums, and Bazil Donovan on bass (vocals on one encore song - Little Old Wine-Drinker Me) fill out the rest of the incredible sound.

Jim Cuddy is sometimes melancholy as he considers his future and the future of the band. In an interview with The Star.com, given a few years ago, he lamented growing older and said, “The thought of turning 60 scares me more than anything else ever has before."[1] Now at 61, he has surpassed that barrier and has perhaps grown accustomed to it. Seeing his energy, hearing his amazing vocals, and his continually growing guitar skills, one would be hard-pressed to guess that he is 61 years old. He still is one of the greatest gifts of music Canada has ever seen.

---

[1]https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2009/02/14/jim_cuddy_finds_pain_a_clarifying_thing.html

Where to Now St. Peter?

“Where to Now St. Peter?” is a song that I have been listening to for about 4 decades. There is much I like about the song and its meaning continues to intrigue me. It is a song about death and what comes after death, written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John. Taupin provided the evocative lyrics while John wrote the music and contributed to the overall mood of the song with his arrangement. It was first published on Elton John’s album, “Tumbleweed Connection.”

This is Elton John at his best and Bernie Taupin’s lyrics are filled with American Civil War allusions. In “Where to Now St. Peter?” Taupin was likely thinking of the fate of a soldier who died on the battlefield. Of course, any song about what comes after death will be filled with imagination; and Taupin draws on Christian and non-Christian influences as he seems to be wrestling with his own mortality and destination beyond this life.

I wonder who Taupin had to speak to as he pondered such ultimate questions. Certainly, his study of American Civil war history would have informed his consciousness regarding the religious beliefs held by both Confederate and Union soldiers. Many of those men would have been Christians or would have understood the basic teachings of the church in their day. Does he have a friend who could explain this route at a deeper level?

Listening to the words of a song like this and trying to understand their meaning can be beneficial for anyone. The lyrics bring us to terms with our own understanding about the themes the author is addressing. The lyrics of “Where to Now St. Peter?” follow with a few of my own thoughts afterward.

Where to Now St. Peter?
(Words and music by Bernie Taupin and Elton John; copyright 1970)

(Listen while you read)

I took myself a blue canoe
And I floated like a leaf
Dazzling, dancing
Half enchanted
In my Merlin sleep

Crazy was the feeling
Restless were my eyes
Insane they took the paddles
My arms they paralysed

So where to now St. Peter
If it's true I'm in your hands
I may not be a Christian
But I've done all one man can
I understand I'm on the road
Where all that was is gone
So where to now St. Peter
Show me which road I'm on

Which road I'm on

It took a sweet young foreign gun
This lazy life is short
Something for nothing always ending
With a bad report

Dirty was the daybreak
Sudden was the change
In such a silent place as this
Beyond the rifle range

So where to now St. Peter
If it's true I'm in your hands
I may not be a Christian
But I've done all one man can
I understand I'm on the road
Where all that was is gone
So where to now St. Peter
Show me which road I'm on
Which road I'm on

I took myself a blue canoe

With such an epic song as this I do want to be careful with my interpretations, and so I will offer a few minimal insights. The reader may certainly listen and make their own interpretations as it interacts with ideas already in the mind of the listener.

Death is represented by taking a “blue canoe” on a slow-moving river. This could be a reference to the River Styx or just a metaphor for the moments between life and death? Does “blue” indicate an emotion or death at the hands of a Union Soldier wearing the blue coat? Most of the songs on the album represent the perspective of the Confederate Soldiers and so this latter explanation is certainly a possibility.

The singer asks St. Peter to tell him which road he is on. Is he on the road to heaven or to hell? The soldier knows that he has not lived his life as a Christian but rather as a man who tried to do the right thing. He did what was humanly possible. He is now asking where that will lead him and where his blue canoe will land. For the listener and for Taupin, the answer lies in the words of St. Peter himself found in the third chapter of Second Peter in the Bible: an answer for all who have ears to hear.

The soldier understands that he is on the road “where all else is gone.” There is no turning back at this point; there are no mulligans. In this silent space, things move slow, but flow only in the direction of the final decision for this man’s life. “Where to now St. Peter?” will be answered. The soldier will discover which road he is on.

(You may also enjoy the Ann Wilson and Elton John recording posted here.)