WARNING: Listening to this music doesn't require parental approval. It's a bit of clean rebellion. It keeps your outlook up and your hope alive. It's got strong drums and screaming guitars. It pumps you up and drives your life. It's a hunger for exploration. It chooses the right and returns with honor. It's music you don't have to confess to your bishop.
It was a lot of fun, and I got really creative for a bit. But, the Dutch oven cookbooks kinda took over much of my creative focus, so I never demo’ed those tunes. In addition, I had some struggles with my computers and my music software.
I’ve had a few chances to perform in the meantime. In fact, Brendon and I worked up some tunes for a house concert at my friend Andy’s house. It was really fun performing with my son, and a few of those tunes were premiered that day, from that FAWM batch.
Then, another friend of mine got a monthly open mic going out here in Eagle Mountain, at this fun sandwich/coffee shop called the Little Corner Cafe. I managed to get a couple of good performance videos out of it.
This first one is from the FAWM songs, and it’s called “Messin’ With The Recipe”. Here’s the video:
Here are the lyrics:
Messin’ With the Recipe
By Mark Hansen with Jodi Hansen - 2/19/11
Some people I know when they cook
Double check the recipe and follow the book
They measure every spice They sift and pour
Doing to perfection What’s been done before
No reason to question No reason to doubt
Somebody else already figured it out
So why go
Messin’ with the recipe
Some people I know When they’re in the kitchen
Work fast and free With their imagination
A little of this and A Pinch of that
What should we add? Well, what’ve we got?
No time to wonder No time to waste
Just throw it in And see how it’ll taste
So why bother
Messin’ with a recipe
Is it savory or is it sweet?
Is it dessert or is it meat?
Do you like the smell?
Do you like the flavor?
Do you chomp it down
Or is it a dish to savor?
Now I’m not a chef But when I’m cooking
I’ll have the book open And I’m always looking
But I can’t ever leave Well enough alone
I’m dashing, splashing flavors Stirring all on my own
Sometimes I hit Sometimes I botch
But I always try To kick it up a notch
Seems I’m always
Messin’ with the recipe
Is your life savory or is it sweet?
Is your life dessert or is it meat?
Do you like the smell?
Do you like the flavor?
Do you chomp it down
Or is it a dish to savor?
Seems I’m always
Messin’ with the recipe
Come back often to hear about new songs and shows. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including his Dutch Oven blog: Mark's Black Pot and his LDS pop culture blog: MoBoy blog.
Originally written: Aug 2, 2001 As a part of an ongoing thread in a discussion at LDSMusicians.com
Todd recently sent me a tape of two of his songs, and he wanted me to critique and comment on them in the "Refiner's Fire" list. While that's a great idea, I feel strongly that I need to talk about them in the main list
because for me, listening to the songs, particularly the song about the temple took me back to my feelings when we had some discussions about musical appropriateness a few months ago. Listening to these songs, even in their unfinished demo form, has inspired me to put these thoughts onto "paper" so that we all can understand them and discuss them further.
I know that it's a very emotionally charged issue, and I know that many of us have strong beliefs in what we're saying. I also know that these things that I'm expressing are MY opinions and as such are NOT necessarily revealed truth! :-) Others in the group have divergent opinions that can be just as valid as mine, and my opinions are subject to change as I learn from you all.
But before I get into the "issues", I do want to comment on the songs themselves, very briefly. I like them both very much as songs. I love the riff in the temple song. It has a cool sort of "Offspring-y" feel to it,
just on the verge of being punk, but not hard-core. The melody and the guitar work in the second song is very tasty!
So, the big question is: Can a song about the temple be done in a hard rock style? What about in a hard-core twangy country sound? What about by a rapper? A fiddle jig by a bluegrass band? A bombastic symphony or opera?
Ultimately, what we're asking is this: What is the role of style in conveying meaning?
I believe that music is emotion and thought communicated by sounds. As composers and producers, there are a lot of sounds available to us in our palette to paint with. As Julia D A pointed out in a quote by Lex DeA, a sound is not, in and of itself, evil or good. Ecclesiastes points out that there is a time and season for everything (turn, turn, turn... :-) ). The thing that we need to remember is that sounds, by association, communicate emotion to listeners. They hear a sound, and associate it with an experience in their past and that creates an emotional response. Part of the problem is that many people have had many different experiences with many different sounds, so it's difficult to match them up in everyone.
Still, there are certain emotions that seem to be generally associated with certain styles of music. Because of my own long-term association with the rock sound and genre, I can speak quite clearly for it. I'd welcome people with experiences in other genres to do a similar thing for country and bluegrass, and folk, and... etc...
Rock music, particularly harder rock, in my mind, communicates the following emotions really well (in no particular order of importance):
Power
Strength
Anger
Frustration
Exhilaration
Excitement
Sadness, loss
Fear
Fun and enjoyment
Indignation (righteous or not)
Some ways of expressing love's power and exhilaration
Thoughtfulness
And unfortunately, many have used it to convey spiritually destructive emotions like quick thrills and lust.
This is, by no means, a comprehensive list. I'll probably think of more before I close up this essay.
Some things that Rock, particularly hard rock doesn't handle as well are:
Peace
Tranquility
Other ways of expressing love's calm beauty
Relaxation
Contemplation
This is not to say that some hard rock bands don't on occasion do songs that are peaceful, tranquil, even gentle love songs. But those songs usually are not hard rock in sound.
So, let's get back to my original question: Can a song about the temple be done in a hard rock style? (or any of those other styles I mentioned).
The answer, in my mind is: Yes, with a very big IF.
That should probably be spelled, "IIIIFFFF".
And that if is: IF the treatment of the emotion is correct. Let me draw from two opposite examples of my own life.
ONE: Before I married, I wrote a song about temple marriage called, "Promises, Promises". It dealt with the fact that we make strong promises to each other binding ourselves together in the sealing covenant. It was
written with a rock, even a bit of a hard, rock beat.
The song didn't work. Why? I think a lot of it was that when I wrote it, I had never been through a sealing ceremony, and I had no idea what it was like or about. Yes, the ceremony is powerful, which if you check my list, is there in the rock list, but it's a more contemplative kind of power. Every time I participate in a sealing, either by proxy, or as a watcher, or even in my own wedding, I have come away with a beautiful, uplifting sort of calm, and an expanded mind. The song was kind of up-tempo and energetic. It doesn't fit the emotional treatment of the experience. The result? That song has been permanently mothballed.
TWO: Many times when I do a session in the temple, I come away with the feeling that I have been "quickened by the Spirit." To me, that's an excitement, an exhilaration that grabs me and makes me want to go out and DO something GREAT! It moves my feet and my soul at the same time. For a brief moment in time, the Lord gives me a glimpse of the total awe of the universe.
I can remember once at the MTC, as we came out of our usual P-Day temple session, I was feeling this way, possibly for the fist time. The song in my head as I walked the clouds back to our dorm at the MTC and immersed myself in the work was the ending of "Supper's Ready" by Genesis/Peter Gabriel. It's a huge, slow sound, full of guitars and keyboards and drums in a loud climax of volume. The words, excerpted:
"Can't you feel our souls ignite
Sparking ever changing colors
In the darkness of the fading night...
"...There's an angel standing in the sun
And he's crying in a loud voice,
'This is the supper of the mighty one
Lord of Lords
King of Kings
Has returned to lead His children home
To take them to their New Jerusalem'"
And it matched perfectly the emotion I was feeling. That song helped carry me through the day, and still inspires me even now.
So, my point is, that IF the subject treatment matches the music's emotional message, then the song works. And that's regardless of the style, and regardless of the topic.
For example: A hard rock song about the peace of the temple doesn't work. But-A hard rock song about the frustrating struggle to get one's life cleaned up to be temple worthy DOES work, and they're both about the temple.
Another example: A bluegrass jig about a temple wedding and the deep covenants made there, doesn't work. BUT-A bluegrass jig about the family joy and celebration that comes when a family member is worthily sealed to another, joining two families together, starting a third, in an eternal connection, WORKS.
I could go on and on about all this. Prayer, Faith, Enduring, Priesthood, all are topics that can be treated in any style, IF the emotional treatment matches the style chosen.
I should add another "IF". The song has to be written from a perspective of respect. If I were to write a song mocking the temple, it wouldn't matter what style the song were, it wouldn't work, and ultimately would lead to my condemnation.
It has sure helped me to clarify my thoughts on the subject as I've written this, and I hope it helps many others understand the possibilities that lay open to us in artistic expression.
Come back often to hear about new songs and shows. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including his Dutch Oven blog: Mark's Black Pot and his LDS pop culture blog: MoBoy blog.
I read Matt Walsh's blog about monogamy with interest. I know it's getting pushed around on facebook a lot recently. Once you get past all of the posturing and chest-puffing, it's actually a pretty interesting read. The two of them get pretty full of themselves trying to prove their points. In reality, I've seen monogamous marriages fall apart and some polyamorous ones that, on some level at least, seem to be working. But I've also seen a lot of successful faithful traditional marriages and I've witnessed (second hand) the damage that can come from infidelity, even if it's "approved".
I was intrigued mostly because it reminded me of an incident many years ago and the song it inspired.
It was when Jodi and I were doing foster parenting, and were inlvolved in a lot of social services activities. At one point we went to a training about AIDS prevention. I left very upset. They made many efforts to be careful not to offend those with non-traditional lifestyles. They used gender-neutral words, and words like "partner" instead of "spouse". That's fine. I'm all for not offending people.
But then, in the same moment, they would ridicule and belittle those who had made traditional life choices. Like Jodi and me. At one point, a worker/trainer said to us, "Abstinence and monogamy simply isn't a valid lifestyle in today's society." And this was in the early 1990s.
At the time, I was dealing with my own personal dichotomies. I was a long-haired rocker with a temple recommend, for example. I had grown up and been raised to wait until marriage, and to be faithful afterward. At that moment, I really felt what the scriptures talk about when they refer to us as "a peculiar people". I didn't really fit into either world. In my frustration, I wrote this song:
Long Haired Weirdo
I'm just a long haired wierdo with some strange ideas
I'm in love with my wife and she's the only one I please
I'm just a long haired freak with some weirdness demonstrated
I was fresh when I got married and I'm sure glad that I waited
I'm an old fasioned guy
In a modern world
Don't push me away
I want to be heard
I'm just a long haired stranger I don't always fit in
I think a lie will lead to trouble and a cheater never wins
I have a hard time with grey, I don't think the line is thin
I don't like to justify I like to call a sin a sin
I'm an old fashioned guy
In a modern world
Don't push me away
I want to be heard
I'm just a long haired weirdo and I'm tired of feeling shame
For holding up my standards and carrying His name
You can say that I'm dogmatic and my views are narrow-minded
But I can see to clearly to believe I have been blinded
I'm an old fashioned guy
In a modern world
Don't push me away
I got to be heard
I was relatively new to the marriage game when I wrote that. Now, I'm older, fatter, and with shorter hair. But I tell ya, when I hear things like this, it makes me want to let my rebel flag fly. I can't tell you what will work for you. Myself, I feel like Joshua. Choose ye this day..., as åfor me and my house...
Come back often to hear about new songs and shows. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including his Dutch Oven blog: Mark's Black Pot and his LDS pop culture blog: MoBoy blog.
