Greg Laswell’s cd “Three Flights From Alto Nido” was on my emusic.com download list a couple of months ago, musically there’s not much that stands out or offends, it’s fairly nice, soft, easy to listen to and melodic. It wouldn’t surprise you that this is exactly the type of music that gets picked to be played in the background of television shows like Grey’s Anatomy. It’s exactly this type of music, something that fits in the background and doesn’t distract, (but may add to) the emotion or action within the scenes of the show, songs like his are topics of conversations on fansites with people asking things like “that song that was at the end of last night’s episode just as the couple broke up and the scene faded out, what was it and who sang it?!”.
Many artists have found themselves becoming hugely popular after a show like Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Buffy, The OC or Eli Stone have played them, especially if their entire cd of songs fits this type of genre and style as you may find their music being used heavily to create a particular mood, or perhaps to bring back a particular memory of an episode in the past. Greg fits in this category, his melody and lyrics are moody and non-distracting and lyrically his songs are emotional, wordy, picturesque. I can easily fall asleep to this music, but I’d definitely not use it to cheer me up or to create an energetic space, and whether or not I’d use this as a driving cd is still debatable.
I’ve been meaning to add one of his songs to the Hymnal for a while now, but I’ve never had the time up until now, granted I’ve been meaning to add his songs “What A Day” or “Comes and Goes (In Waves)”or “It’s Been a Year” but, since the guys over at Rethinking Youth Ministry have laid out the challenge I thought I’d add the song “How The Day Sounds” with a bit of a reflection.
Have you ever heard a song on the radio, or in a store that just sticks in your head? Have you ever heard a song on a television show or movie that strikes you as remarkable and immediately makes you want to figure out who sang the song, or just to simply figure out the name of the track? Have you ever contemplated phoning up a radio station (say for example triplej radio) and requesting a song that “I don’t remember all the words, or the name of the song but it goes something like la la la boom boom backachoo bing bing, you know the song, it was played once this morning around 8.20am, argh, it’s got a bit of a quick backbeat and reminds me of this other band that I can’t remember the name to?” (believe it or not too many people do exactly that)? Have you ever heard a song that’s so annoyingly catchy that you find yourself humming it, walking to it’s timing, singing the lyrics when you’re alone, using lines of it in conversation accidently or, perhaps using it as your mobile phone ring tone?
Song’s do this type of thing, they capture us, they inspire us, they haunt us, and if you’re the type of person who gets hooked onto music easily there’s nothing quite as annoying as not knowing who sang that song and, what the correct lyrics are or where you can get your hands on it NOW because it’s suddenly captured you.
On the side my iphone’s got that great application Shazam just for the occasion of my hearing a new song and needing to know who sang it and what it’s name is NOW. The program records a small section of a song using the phone’s microphone and then checks the internet to see if it can match it with anything on it’s database. Yes, that’s scary, but extremely handy if you’re a little like me and always listening to new and old music…
These songs are sometimes infectious, you start to whistle to it and others around you start to whistle it, your humming at work or school becomes a chorus of hummers, you add it to your phone’s ringtone and others ask you to share it as well, your marching to it’s tune inspires others to walk with the same timing. A song that is REALLY infectious can hit the top ten for a day or two, but a song that is truly great sneaks into our being, it never really leaves us, causing us to sing it at the drop of a hat in times where we may have thought that the song had been forgotten. A really great song gets respected, it gets covered, other artists pick it up and make it their own, suddenly you find that U2, Radiohead, Jonny Cash, Coldplay, Ani Difranco, Paul Kelly, Sarah Mclachlan or The Dixie Chicks are all covering the song and artists like Moby and Fourtet find themselves remixing the song for people to dance to the same song with a different beat and with different dance movements.
Much of the time I’ll understand my faith in similar terms, it’s a song that I once heard that is so great that it haunts me, so inspiring that it causes me to dance, so thoughtful that it makes me hum, so catchy that I whistle it wherever I go. It’s a song I once heard my parents sing, it’s a song that I’ve heard many others cover and remix as they themselves sing, play, whistle, dance and hum. It’s a song that so many people I know sing that it’s become a part of who I am, always with it playing in the back of my head and infecting everything about me so that sometimes I burst out into complete dance and singing as I cover the song in my own way with my own voice.
And sometimes I hope it’s a song that others find infectious as well, a song that perhaps others may hear me humming and see me dancing to and suddenly find themselves asking “what the heck am I listening to” as they begin to realise just how haunting the melody is.
Sometimes I gather with a whole pile of musical tragics who, like me have been caught up in the same song and, at times like this there can be as little as 2 but as many as a million people in one place singing the same song, dancing to the same tune.
Christmas is coming, and with it is the memory of this song that starts with the words “In the beginning the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” and continues with the memory of the words “For God So Loved the World” this same song has a rip roaring chorus that includes healing the sick and bringing forth the Kingdom of God and it’s the same song that ends with us being invited to join in with the song, to become the ones that continue to cover and remix the track over and over again.
It’s a song that some people sing like a lullaby to sleeping children while others rock it out on the streets of Alice Springs, a song that some people may be singing in choirs in Berlin while others in London may be remixing it in dance clubs full of young and sweaty dancers. This is a song that has so many different versions being sung by so many people around the world that I’m surprised sometimes when people say they’ve not heard it, especially when they are surrounded by people who I thought knew the song fairly well and should be dancing to it everywhere they go. It’s a song that I guess sometimes gets a bit old, or that sometimes we’ve forgotten the tune and need to be reminded about how great it truly is, how catchy it has always been and how we once were able to hear it and be infected by it, and sometimes we need to hear the song again from someone who may only be learning it after having heard it only a day or two ago.
It’s a song that, quite simply and very complicatedly changes the way we see the world, our neighbour, our loved ones, the stranger, the starving, the poor, the imprisoned, those devistated by war, the alcoholic, the priest, the elder, the indigenous community, the mayor, the politician, the musician, the addict, the rich and wealthy and changes the way that we see our loved ones.
It’s a song that Michael Leunig once covered in his poem “Love one another, and you will be happy. It’s as easy, and as difficult as that.”
And it’s a song that we have to learn to sing with our own voices.
And perhaps others may come to learn that they too may like the way the day sounds in this new song that you’re singing. (how’s that for a segway to the song?)
Video:
Lyrics:
How The Day Sounds
By Greg Laswell
Album: Three Flights From Alto Nido
Oh who would have ever known this?
Could be this easy
I was a long, long way off
Then just like that it was over
Everything I knew of love
I was a long, long way off
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
Thank you for opening the window
The sky is clear as my mind is now
I was a long, long way off
Join me in welcoming the sun in
It’s much brighter than the night I hid in
I was a long, long way off
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
From a long way down.
Yeah, it’s well worth the time that its taken to get here now
Yeah, it’s well worth the time that its taken to get here now
Ba da dum…
So go ahead and bang a gong
Nothing can drown out the sound and the whisper of my love
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
Through this new song
Through this new song
And the lines have all been drawn
I know where I belong, where I belong,
Where I belong
And the lines have all been drawn
I know where I belong
Where I belong
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
And I think I like how the day sounds
Like how the day sounds through this new song
Oh, won’t you sing along
Oh, my love won’t you sing along
Oh, won’t you sing along
Oh, my love won’t you sing along
Oh, won’t you sing along
Oh, my love won’t you sing along
Oh, won’t you sing along
Oh, my love won’t you sing along