We don’t want our beliefs.

“You strike the match – why not be utterly changed by fire?
To sacrifice the shadow and the mist of a brief life you never much liked – So if you’d care to come along we’re gonna curb all our never-ending, clever complaining (as who’s ever heard of a singer criticized by his song?)
We hunger, but though all that we eat brings us little relief we don’t know quite what else to do, 
We have all our beliefs but we don’t want our beliefs,
God of peace, we want you.”

 

When I was in in high school I listened to a band called mewithoutYou obsessively and exclusively for about three months.  They changed the way I though about music.  Most people cannot stand mewithoutYou, for whatever reason, but I had them pinned as my favorite band for almost a year.  Today I am reconsidering putting them back in the top three.  

 

It’s not flashy, glamorous, or even catchy music and the lead “singer” yells everything and has no pitch whatsoever.  Heck, the first time I heard them i thought it was awful so I didn’t touch it again until Tyler Goerzen played it for me in the car coming home from school months later.  This was the even that started my love relationship with the band!

 

They are everything a band should be.  The drum work is creative and original.  His drums have a fantastic sound I’ve heard nowhere lese.  The guitar players are freaking genius.  They play messy and dirty, but the lines they come up with are fantastic.  So freaking genius.  The bass player’s revolutionary as well.  Fantastic pocket with the drummer at all times, great round jazz bass sound, and excellent use of fuzz, overdrive, and even delay.  Really freaking good.  Always totally playing out.  

The part that makes them more than just a good band is the lead guy.  He’s a Messianic Jew with a decent case of autism and a truly broken heart for humanity. His lyrics are poetry that sinks your heart, shakes it out of complacency, and then fills it up with hope.  I can seriously quote the band’s whole  album “Catch For Us The Foxes” from cover to cover, because all the lyrics are so freaking poignant and meaningful to me.  Bands who use lots of  ”Nah nah’s”, “La la la’s”, or other useless words should listen to mewithoutYou and be amazed at how powerful words put to music can me.  There is no time for crappy songwriting anymore.  Music is too good for that.

 

This band grew my relationship with God significantly in high school, and even today as I finish up listening through “Catch for us the Foxes” again writing this.  What other bands do that so well?  It’s not even worship music! If I, with my life, could make music half this sensational and moving, I would be complete.  Really.  To write music like this is my dream.

 

Check them out, if you hate them, it’s normal so don’t worry.  But listen to the lyrics, or at least go read them!  Thanks for doing that.

In the Cities, on our Knees…

I’m so excited for the drought to come

I’m gonna open my window and smell the forest fires from my room.

 

Like burning pine and smoldering leaves,

I want to see my self decomposed before you,

Then in a year or two everything will be green and new.

 

I want to see these buildings razed.

Let’s let all of this crumble to pieces.

Dust should discolor the sun.

 

So our pride should be destroyed,

and our foolish, self-preserving, pleasure-whoring hearts can be rebuilt from the ground.

A new start, a beautiful commandeering of destiny.

 

I want this economy to crash.

Let our fortunes be utterly laid waste.

We have so much of what we don’t need and we have nothing of what really matters.

 

So like beggars, let us humbly lift our hands to the God who is mighty to save

and quick to compassion. 

With selfless faith like we always sing about let us run that great race marked out for us

in all humility.

 

I want to see these beautiful homes in our sunny suburbs abandoned and empty,

Possessions left behind,

Landscaped courtyards overgrown.

 

Because we’re busy,

In the cities on our knees,

We’ve been there for years,

asking every minute for another day, cause judgment’s a scary thing.

 

We are soldiers with guns and tanks.

(guitars and vans)

We are painters with acrylic and oil.

(words and actions)

We are models with glamor and poise

(righteousness and confidence!)

 

We are who we are 

singing over and over, again and again,

We won’t give up this one thing,

Revival’s due our generation, and that’s been said, but we are so sincere.