13 - All the Same 'ole Cliches

The Concept:  Feature a song a day for every day of the most magnificent season of Autumn.  The songs are ones that capture the thoughts/ideas/images/feelings of the season for me. 

It's my "Autumnal Playlist" if you will.

It was November 1998 when I heard this song.  Once again, Evangel days.  I could be found hanging out with my good friends of Sc1N.  Erik, Josh, Brendan, Nate, and Stu.  Good guys.  I had listened to some of this band's music in high school, but had given it up for what would be a long and dis-interesting story for this post.  Suffice it to say, I was well acquainted with the band when I heard this tune.  But this track had a slightly different feel to it.  Possibly because it was a cover.  And to this day, I don't recall ever listening to the original straight through.

I remember going to Best Buy and picking up this intense two-disc set.  Yes, there was no downloading with this song.  Well, not for me.  Much to the band's chagrin there has been lots of downloading...back in those days...thanks to places like Napster.

Song 13/Day13

"Turn the Page," as covered by Metallica from their album, Garage Inc.

Like a lot of the songs in this series, it too has a slow mournful beginning with a steady intense build up the breaking of the song.  Say what you will about Metallica, until St. Anger, they knew how to put an album together.  Garage Inc. has several songs like this cover of Bob Seger's classic, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's, Tuesday's Gone.

While I can't give them the recognition for the lyrics, I do love the delivery of them.  There isn't a voice in metal/hard rock that growls as good as James Hetfield.  Even when I first heard it I knew it was a cover (that was the point of this album,) but it felt like a personal song for him.  As it's about life on the road for touring musicians...it's easy to translate that empathy/sympathy between just about any act.  Well, maybe not Disney Pop acts.

This song works great for the Fall because of the "road" feel of it.  I can visualize a band traveling during the verses and bridge.  The slow times at a lonely hotel in the middle of nowhere.  Bad weather.  Maybe one of the band is leaning over some spiral notebook jotting down lyrics in the tour bus.  The choruses, with the change in music, fits well with images of them performing, giving everything they've got into their music.  Wanting to make a connection with their fans.

That's what I see.

And as stated in previous posts, Autumn really stirs up my wanderlust.  It's difficult to hold it back sometimes, this year in particular, but it's always there.  Waiting for some great tunes, and a road to strike out on.  I really dig these lyrics (the whole 2nd verse):

You walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you, as you're shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode
And most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can
All the same 'ole cliches: is it woman? Is it man?
And you always seem outnumbered, you dare not make a stand, make your stand.

Also, the whole concept of 'turning a page' for whatever reason, conjures up images and feelings of Fall.  It's my favorite time of year to read.  Reading and Road Trips.  Maybe that's a blog series for next year...

But curling up with a good book as the weather starts to cool, the night comes on quicker...imagination gets to run a little freer.  At least mine does...and it's rarely on the leash anyway.  While many people think of Spring as the beginning of new life and all that pastel nonsense, for me it's Autumn.  Yes, the leaves and grass die.  But they are the incubators of the new to come.  If Spring is birth, Autumn is conception.


So, if you're planning any long road trips (maybe we can still catch New England before the leaves are done?) take a listen to Turn the Page.

Here's the link to "Turn the Page" from Metallica.

enjoy!
-Jesse

The Teller of Stories

Where would we be with out stories or the ones who share them with us?

A pale dismal place devoid of hope or dreams I should think.

Stories are the common thread through every human culture. Stories of hope, despair, valiant heroes and cunning villains can be found in every tribe and creed. But what is a story without someone to tell it.

"Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush."
~Robert Moss, Dreamgates

The story teller is a person who chronicles the history of a people. They capture the hopes and fears of their way of life, and embody them in fantastic tales. Sometimes they are colorful retellings of true events. For what story teller can resist making that one moment more dramatic or diabolical?

Other times the stories are complete fabrications of the storyteller's imagination. But in it's telling truths can be found that are more deep than any you'd find in a court of law. Like the stories Walter's uncles tell in "Secondhand Lions."

Sometimes, it's a fabrication of the truth. A clever disguise of real events told in a fictitious way. As in Hamlet's play revealing he knew the truth about his uncle.

Whether the story is factual or fictitious is irrelevant if a truth can be gleaned from it's depths.


Stories are meant to teach.

If we can learn to be compassionate from a tale about a talking bear, so be it. In growing up I heard stories from many places. Whether I believed they were stories of true events or not didn't matter. It was what those stories taught that was important.

While I hold the stories from the Bible to be true, and Aesop's Fables to be clever tales, the lessons I can take from each are as powerful. The Bible taught me not to kill or steal (and many other things) Aesop taught me things like using common sense and perseverance. Both helped me grow.

There are fundamental truths in these stories, and in others I've never read, that if we take the time to understand them, they help us grow into healthy adults. This is what Uncle Hub (from Secondhand Lions) tells Walt this after he was asked if any of the stories were true,

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."

Stories are meant to entertain.

Ancient story tellers would gather their people around a fire in the dark of night and weave incredible tales of might and valor. Today we sit in darkened movie theaters. But the same story told over a fire and projected on a silver screen carries the same lessons, and adventures.

Books, movies, songs and poetry can take us, however briefly, from our daily life to another place. We can escape into an world so unlike our own and disappear for hours at a time. Richard Adams takes us down into the grass with the rabbits of Watership Down and leads us on an amazing journey full of outer trials and inner strength.

JRR Tolkien invents a whole other world and fills it with languages and people that have never been seen before. In this world of Middle Earth, we find that they too have stories of their own. Stories that make their story so much richer and vibrant because

If a story told in whatever form can remove us from a problem for a time, give our mind a chance to disconnect, we can approach it with a fresh innovation. Stories can make us laugh or cry, or they can strike a cord so deep that something will stay with us for ever.

"Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book. ~Christopher Morley

Stories are meant to endure.

Some stories are so specific in time that they may not live out the decade. But real stories. Stories that inspire, teach and entertain last forever. Just look at works like the Iliad, the Odyssey, works of Shakespeare, Poe, and Dickenson. Some stories grow and add new chapters as time goes on, others stand strong on their own.

Some, like the Battle of Thermopylae, become huge retellings of ancient achievement, and modern retelling. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Narnia all continue to pull in young readers and minds, because they are so versatile in their craft. The stories told, while specific, are also universal. Selflessness, right and wrong, trust, friendships, the strength of family...

All these things are in stories. They are also in our everyday lives. Our lives are stories. Sometimes they are too big or close for us to realize what we are experiencing. So step back and listen to a story. If you can't listen to one, then tell one. For without stories we are nothing. 


Stories are Powerful.

Nations rose out of stories. If our nation's stories are hopeful, we can be hopeful. If they are barbarous and depraved...we become likewise. If you need proof of that look at America. But that is a rant for another day.

A story told can not change a life. But what is gleaned or inspired by one can. Look at the greatest storyteller who ever lived. Jesus. He told complicated lessons about God, and life. His lessons weren't 3 point sermons with power point and video inserts. (not that there is anything wrong with that) but he told stories. And if he needed to he explained them.

So what greater thing could we aspire to than to be storytellers ourselves? If you are a follower of Christ, there should be no less than two stories always ready in your mind. His story, and yours.

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
~CS Lewis

My Favorite Reads

In preparation for my next blog, I thought I'd leave a list of my all time favorite books.

Jurassic Park - by Michael Crichton
I read this book when I was in the Dominican Republic on my first youth missions trip. It was amazing to read this amidst the lush island that was so similar to that of the book. The movie was on the verge of coming out and I just could not wait to find out what the story was all about. I've gone on to read many other Crichton books, and at least one other will appear on this list, but JP stands out as the first taste of a more visceral world. A story about the illusion of control, and how we truly have very little of it. Terrifying.

The Lord of the Rings - by JRR Tolkien
Wow. These books have been such an inspiration to me. Even before I'd ever read them. I had older brothers and later friends who had read them and thus impacted me. But I read them the summer before the movies hit. I remember my oldest bro telling me to make sure I read the chapter "The Council of Elrond" in one sitting. The depth and life Tolkien gave to his characters and world will never be outmatched in my opinion. A world and story to exist on it's own. Amazing.

The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Again I waited until adulthood to read the whole series. It was again the summer before "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," hit theaters. Simply yet satisfying on a level that didn't knock me off my feet. The world vibrant and full of life and symbolism. While we all have to grow up at some point, it does not mean we have to loose our innocence. Moving.

Harry Potter - JK Rowling
Read books 1-6 right after I read Narnia, and book 7 two years later the day it came out. Another amazing series full of difficult choices and trials. A hero quest in a "modern" setting. The thing I love about this series is how Rowling incorporates almost every human emotion in the series. Love, hate, fear, vulnerability...all permeate the entire series, and culminates in an amazing climactic battle, hinged on a singular choice. Brilliant.

Eaters of the Dead - Michael Crichton
A very intriguing version of the Beowulf story. Crichton takes an outsiders approach to the ancient world of the vikings. Almost an anthropological study this story is incredible in it's detail of a culture I knew very little other than the typical stereotype. And his spin on Grendel and the overall approach to the Beowulf aspect is incredible. It gave me chills as the images came to life in my mind. Savage.

Hood - Stephen R Lawhead
This is an amazing new interpretation of the classic Robin Hood story. It tells of selfish young Bran and how he must rise above the loss of his father and land to become what his people need him to be. It speaks of responsibility and duty and other concepts lost on many people today. The transformation of Bran is the central theme of Hood, the first of 3 in the "King Raven" Trilogy. I can't wait to read Scarlet and Tuck. Redeeming.

The Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
These five books; The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King, are quite simply my favorite books of all time. This series focuses on the hero quest of Taran, a simple Assistant Pig-Keeper. How he longs to become a hero, and the difficult challenges he faces that lead him to that fate, that curb the desire to doing what must be done. I don't know how many times I've read this series, but it inspries me anew every time. It is full of lessons and truths that I've only encountered in small amounts elsewhere. While this maybe geared towards younger audiences, I think that any adult can enjoy them. Adventureous.

Other Recomendations:
-The Pendragon Cycle:
Taliesn, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, Grail - Stephen R. Lawhead

-Patrick - Stephen R. Lawhead

-The Song of Albion Trilogy:
Paradise War, Silver Hand, The Endless Knott - Stephen R. Lawhead

-Congo, Sphere, Lost World, Prey, State of Fear, and Next - Michael Crichton

-The Hobbit, Silmarillion, Children of Hurin - JRR Tolkien

-Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath - Cornellia Funke

-Watchmen - Allan Moore

-Stardust, Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

-Tales of HP Lovecraft - HP Lovecraft

Well, if you've made it this far I congratulate you. Welcome to the world of my rambling blogs. If you want to know more of what I think on these books, just email me. The address should be somewhere over on the side. Let me know what you think of these books if you've read them!