The healing of our songs...

Our wonderful little band, Between the Banks, met tonight after a WAAAAY TOO LONG BREAK - and it was sweet soul music for my tired and cold Berkshire soul. Yes, exercise and Vitamin D are important in this north country, but damn does playing, singing and making music with dear ones bring healing to me. Dobie Grey got it so right...

It made me think of Psalm 30 and Peterson's reworking in The Message:
All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God! Thank God to God's face! God gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter.... I called out to you, Lord; I laid my case before you: "Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead? Or auction me off at a cemetery yard sale? When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs and stories of you won't sell. So listen! and be kind! Help me out of this!" You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can't thank you enough.

And man did we sing and pray with our songs. First we worked on U2's ode to the Holy Spirit, "Mysterious Ways" with wah-wah, congas and great harmonies. Then we tried Sarah MacLachlan's, "World on Fire" which was sweet and sad. Our other guitarist, Brian, has written a new song as a lament and peace prayer for the war breaking out in Gaza - and it is so soulful.

Then a new song by Belle and Sebastian that Liz brought to the mix with the lyric: Do something pretty while you can, don't be a fool, reading the Gospel to yourself is fine but do something pretty while you can! Then we gave Chumbawamba's anti-war, post September 11th, Jacob's Ladder a try and it began to take shape - even with a little of Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" thrown in for good measure.

The lyrics to this song are particularly shocking:
Like the Sermon on the mountain says dumber got dumb
Hellfire and brimstone swapped for oil and guns
When we're pushing up daisies we all look the same
In the name of the Father, maybe, but not in my name...
In the streets down in Whitehall,
Dogs pickin' at the bones
Nine eleven got branded, nine eleven got sold
And there'll be no one left to water all the seeds you sowed
On this Jacob's ladder, the only way up is down

So we're back in the groove and life feels a hellofalot better! St. Sly, who is probably the funkiest mofo in God's creation, gets it right once again: