Music - Content or Context?

So what is it that makes a song great? You know that song that touches something deep in you and makes you want to sing at the top of your lungs. Is it the melody? The compelling lyrics? Perhaps it has something to do with the person who is singing! Maybe? But the other day I started to wonder if music was as more about the context in which we experience it?!

How many of us could put in an old CD and feel like we were transported back in time? You know, the kind of thing were people go "That's our song!" or "This album reminds me of the time...". We all have albums like that in our CD tower and we most definitely all have at least one those songs.

How about this classic statement - "The first couple of times I heard the album I didn't like it, but now it's one of my favourites!". (For me that album was Radiohead's 'OK Computer').

So what is it that makes those songs come alive? Did we suddenly get the song? Did we finally read the lyric sheet? Probably not - it was more than likely the fact that we lived a significant part of our lives while we were listening to these songs. For a brief time these songs became the soundtrack to our life. They played as we lived, and now whenever we hear those songs we are brought back to that moment in time to relive those experiences.

For me one of those songs is "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt Redman.

I have on occasion the privelage of leading worship with a friend of mine who runs short term missions programs. Invariably he will come to me and say "Jon, do you know the song...?". Most of the time I will have heard of the song but a few years ago he came to me and said "Have you heard the song 'Blessed by Your Name'? We have to do it! It's totally awesome!!". I had not heard of it, and quite frankly had no interest in doing it at the time. My friend kept telling me how this song had gone over so well at the last program they had done, and that I really needed to hear it. I loved his enthusiasm for the song but at the time it had no meaning for me - it lacked context!

Fast forward a few weeks - I'm back at home with our 3 month old daughter listening to Matt Redmans album "Where Angels Fear to Tread". I had listened to 'Blessed by your name' a few times and the lyrics were starting to float around in my head. Then, within a matter of days, this song became a 'life' song. The kind of song that I will never hear the same again. What had changed? Two events had taken place while this acted as my daily soundtrack.

The first event was when we received the news that my wife's best friend had delivered a healthy baby girl. We had just had a baby and we could appreciate the joy that they were experiencing. The second event however was what catapulted this song into a different realm. That event was when we heard the news that another couple in our faith community had suffered the loss of their newborn baby. Needless to say it was quite a week and to top it all off I was scheduled to lead worship at the church we all attended that very week. Suddenly the lyrics of that song had found a brand new context, but not only for me, for our entire community of believers. That sunday we sang these words as we encountered God within the diversity of our lives - and it became the soundtrack for our encounter.


"You give and take away, You give and take away
My heart will choose to say, 'Blessed by your name'."


I believe that as a person who leads others in worship my new challenge is this - to not simply rely on the 'greatness' of a song, or my personal experience with that song to draw people into an encounter with the living God, but to do a better job of creating a context for which the song to take on meaning.

Creating a place were our songs become the soundtrack for each new God encounter and not simply a sing-along concert in his honour.