Musings

The Fatherless and the Widow was the first compact disc (or "CD," if you remember those) I ever purchased. It was all cassettes before that, and I still remember how I felt walking out of Evangel Books and Gifts that day, the way the sun was shining, the exciting plastic square in my hands, the weirdly liberating feeling. I had just made a decision to pay for a piece of music I liked -- it wasn't a birthday present, it wasn't something my parents listened to, it was mine, and I could play it whenever I wanted.

I was thirteen years old and mostly listened to Christian rock music. Sort of a naive kid, maybe -- to quote Morrissey, "I never even knew what drugs were." Fifteen years later I have still never taken anything stronger than vicodin for back pain, but I will say this: "Musings" sounds like drug music. The way those notes swell and fade (not unlike those mentioned in the previous post), the hazy trance of the essentially one-chord vamp, and the lyrics:

Mysteries unfolding quickly before my eyes

In a way, I saw the world in one night

Without even leaving the room

Golden cymbals catching light

The flowing veils of dancers in the night

Put me in a swoon

Beating drums and violins, so mystical and freeing

These things that I'm seeing

They're so wonderful

The song is about the mystery that God somehow created and sustains all of creation, I think --but isn't it also kind of, like, a psychedelic spirit quest? This song works as either a seriously mystical spritual-ecstacy prayer-trip, or a musical version of those basement scenes from That 70's Show. Also, the song is called "Musings," which is way Livejournal, but they did write this album while they were both still teenagers.