Love is a Verb

This unusual song by John Mayer flies in the face of the romantic poets. Love to Mayer is something you do, not something you can hold on to or something that just magically pop up in your heart. It's not a feeling that you can capture like you could scoop up a butterfly with a net.

CS Lewis captured this idea in his book Mere Christianity. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

About the only iteration of love as a "thang," that I think is accurate, is something the apostle John pointed out in one of his letters. "God," he said, "is love". All love springs from the author of love and is the wellspring of all love in the universe. There are some preachers and romantics who will argue with you that love is a "thang," but I think they miss the point. Love it seems springs from an act. It's not some magical thing that occurs when a pretty girl in a skimpy bathing suit walks by on the beach or a muscled up young man removes his shirt while repairing your porch. I think they're thinking of another "L" word besides love.

Tom King

Grow Old Along With Me

It's kind of ironic that one of the last of John Lennon's songs was this lovely ballad, "Grow Old Along With Me" in which he prays "God bless our love."  This is the same guy who wrote the anti-religion "Imagine".  One hopes John was able to work it all out with his maker at some point. That said, Grow Old is a very beautiful song. This version is by Mary Chapin Carpenter. The only versions we of of Lennon singing it, are some home recordings which suffer a little from the poorer quality of home recording equipment of the day. 

This is a beautiful song. Perfect for weddings. It's sad that Lennon was looking forward to growing old along with his wife and died very soon after he wrote it.

Tom

The Hand Song

My son, Micah introduced me to this Nickel Creek song. The lyrics are beautiful and this song always makes me mist up a little bit. I'm not sure even now, as many times as I've listened to it, that I could sing it all the way through without getting all choked up.  The Hand Song is one of those poignant folk songs that is beyond the typical murder ballad, folk hero song or the "I love her so much I want to lock her up inside a box and not let her out" sort of twisted love songs you find in mountain music.  This song is lyrical and beautiful.

© 2018 by Tom King

The Mississippi Squirrel Revival

This one is one of my favorite Ray Stevens songs and that's saying something given that he also wrote the hilarious Shriner's Convention.  We've all known a Sister-Bertha-Better'n-You in our time and the spectacle of her standing up in meetin' and confessing about her "love life" and "namin' names" is just too appealing an image. This thing is funny right here, I don't care who you are. This is also on my phone.



Tom

Out of His Great Love

The first time I heard this song, my daughter and her friend performed this for a Sabbath morning service in Tyler. It's a driving Southern Gospel Number that makes you want to stand up and shout, "Hallelujah!"  I found out the original version of the song is done by The Martins, a family Southern Gospel group.  I looked them up on Youtube and got an Mp3 of them for my phone.  I only got half of the version my daughter sang on video, so I went with the Martins.

I just love this song.

Tom