“Yeah coward phones, big soup stones, prideless loans/Grill sick crows, motel moans and big fat Jones, woo woo.” What a way to begin an article! What could these eloquent words mean? What masterpiece have I quoted from? Whose words of genius are these? These words are from Twist my Arm by The Tragically Hip, whose lead singer died of brain cancer on October 17th, 2017. Yes, these words form part of an actual pop song. This couplet is so shockingly absurd that I had to listen to the lyrics several times in order to make sure that I had the lines correctly rendered. “Yeah coward phones, big soup stones, prideless loans/Grill sick crows, motel moans and big fat Jones, woo woo.” Yeah, this is what Gord Downie wrote; this is what he sang; this is what he is praised for; this is what sells albums; this is what helps a singer win awards in Canada. Should such a series of words be accorded the status of a lyric? This present generation, for the most part, would answer ‘yes’ to that question. Alarmingly, we are several generations deep into compositional absurdity. In the words of Bob Dylan, though with some license: If our times have been a-changin,’ then they’ve been a-changin’ for the worse. We like to hope; in fact, thoughtful persons do hope, that bêtises like ‘grill sick crows’ will not pass for lyrics much longer. Possibly, however, it might be that the only event that will annihilate this nihilism—this absence of objective meaning—is the literal return of Jesus Christ. As pointed out in a documentary called Egos and Icons, each member of the band made some contribution to what The Tragically Hip produced. Gord Downie, though, was the chief, and maybe only, architect of the lyric anarchy that the band created. Tragically Hip songs are commonly obtuse; in other words, they are indistinct and obscure. It would not be too much to say, perhaps, that the songs are nonsensical. From a song called Little Bones—: “So regal and decadent here/Coffin-cheaters dance on their graves’ music/All it’s delicate fear/Is the only thing that don’t change/Two-fifty for an eyeball/And a buck and a half for an ear, happy hour/Happy hour, happy hour is here.” It is doubtful that anyone knows what lyrics like these are about. When Downie’s admirers refer to his lyrics as ‘obtuse,’ they somehow mean it as a compliment. A songwriter who produces lyrics that are less than perceptible should never be praised for it, however. He should never be listened to unless for the purpose of gathering material for criticism; and he should never be critically bothered with unless his music is exerting some influence, which his still is.
Is it not tragically consistent that the man out of whose mind such lyrics issued ended up dying of brain cancer? It is as if these mentally disordered lyrics formed an immaterial tumor in his mind, which eventually materialized and metastasized, resulting in a terminal case of the now infamous disease that no one is able to outwit. This is not a nice thing to say; but not all things that are less than nice should be left unsaid. To suggest a correlation is natural, if not irresistible. Creatures endowed with understanding have souls, and they are responsible to the Maker of Souls for how they use their minds. When we make a poor use of our mind, and our brain is suddenly stricken so that our mental function begins to swiftly deteriorate, we ought to, with what little reason we have left, turn our attention to the Creator of our mind, and wonder at what might be going on from the divine perspective, and begin to search the word of God for an answer. “You can’t actually predict what your afterworld will be, if in fact there is one,” Downie says in Egos and Icons. He was a young man when he said this. But there is no indication that he ever came to a belief in God, much less to faith in Jesus Christ, through which principle alone; that is to say, through faith or trust in Jesus’ name, a certain hope of heaven may be obtained. Indeed, there is every indication that the man died in unbelief. In 2001 Downie began a solo career. While going solo, he produced an album, receiving help from musicians who go by the name of the words ‘damn’ and ‘God’ together. This collaboration was, by Downie, then, the reception of a violation of the third commandment, which is the command to not take the LORD’s name in vain. In the estimation of most of us, it is a petty sin, if it is a sin at all, to take the name of the LORD in vain. How excessively petty of me to pick on someone for doing it! But, says the word of God: “The wise in heart will receive commandments: but a prating fool shall fall” (Proverbs 10.8.) To prate is to exceed the bounds of useful speech: to chat idly and vainly. It might seem impolite to ask the following rhetorical question. But what are those lyrics that I quoted but something even more stupid than foolish prating or idle chatting? I say ‘worse’ because some idea, though it must be an unimportant one, can be discerned from prating or chatting. For the sake of calling the lyrics something, however, I will be gracious; I will grant them the status of prating. Then I must ask another rhetorical question. What happened on October 17th, 2017 but that a man without regard for a sacred commandment, and who prated foolishly till the end of his life, perished? True, Christians fall by cancer as well. But they don’t go down without receiving and respecting God’s commandments; neither do they leave the world as prating fools.
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