Music is the vehicle to convey experiences and emotions that words are inadequate to express.
Have you ever felt let down by life? Have you ever felt that life, or even God, dealt you a bad hand?
You may not feel comfortable expressing these feelings because people around you cannot handle a person who expresses deep brooding hurt and pain, but you can sing what you are feeling. For instance, when Albert King sang these words,
“Born under a bad sign
Been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
You know I wouldn’t have no luck at all,
Hard luck and trouble been my only friend
I been on my own ever since I was ten,
Born under a bad sign,”
he was expressing feelings of dejection and despondency that many people feel, but don’t feel they can express in words. Because of his song, they can sing how they really feel.
The Psalmist composed a similar song in Psalm 73 that says,
“Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence.”
This Psalmist felt that trying to be a good person was worthless because it had not resulted in a life of joy, peace and hope.
Have you ever felt that way? You won’t say it, but you can sing it.
Music is the vehicle to convey experiences and emotions that words are inadequate to express.
Have you ever been so mad and angry at what someone did to you that you conjured up in your mind how you would like to see harmful things happen to them?
You may not want to admit it, and you certainly may not want to express it in words because there could be some consequences that would exacerbate an already traumatic experience, but a song might allow you to vent your frustrations without engaging in physical harm or dwelling on how you would like the person who did you wrong to experience tragedy because they hurt you.
When Jazmine Sullivan sang,
“I bust the windows out your car
And no, it didn’t mend my broken heart
I’ll probably always have these ugly scars
But right now I don’t care about that part
I bust the windows out your car
After I saw you laying next to her
I didn’t wanna but I took my turn I’m glad I did it cause you had to learn,”
she was expressing what betrayal by someone you gave your heart to can make you want to do something to get back at them, without committing the act.
Someone reading this had a visceral moment where your mind flashed back to a similar experience, and someone else reading this who is religious felt that even acknowledging a feeling like this is contrary to the biblical narrative.
Well, let me walk you to Psalm 137. It is a familiar Psalm because of the beginning of this song composed by one of the members of the Levitical tribe of Israel.
The Psalm opens with these famous words:
“By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our hearts, for there our captors required of us a song, they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
The people had been stolen from their homeland of Jerusalem and carried off into bondage in Babylon and they were hurt, depressed and downtrodden, but that is not all. Most people stop at those first verses.
But allow me to draw your attention to the last few verses that say,
“tear it down [Babylon], tear it down…Happy are those who pay you back for what you have done to us. Happy are those who take your babies by the head and bash their heads against a stone.”
Yes, that is in your Bible. In their anger and bitterness at being forced into bondage, they expressed celebration for someone to take the babies of their captors and bust the babies’ heads against a stone.
These are examples of what the Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann calls “Singing what you cannot say.”
He identifies songs in the Bible where those under oppression could not say how they really felt but they could sing what they really felt. In the biblical example of Psalm 137, the African Jews could not speak their anger but they could sing their anger.
Brueggemann further identifies how the women sang, “Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands.”
The women knew that King Saul was mean and hateful, and they could not say what they felt, but when David killed Goliath, they could sing how they felt, and though Saul was angry, he could not do anything to them because it was a song.
Professor Brueggemann also cites Hannah and Mary who both sang songs not only about their pregnancies but about how God was turning the tide and instituting divine reversals where God was bringing down the wealthy and rich and lifting up the poor.
They too could not say what they really felt, but they could sing what they really felt.
African descended people in America have been “Singing what we could not say,” ever since we too were stolen from our homeland and stuffed into the stinking holds of slave ships and in the words of Queen Mother Maya Angelou, brought to “these yet to be United States.”
Music is ministry because music is the vehicle to convey experiences and expressions that words are too inadequate to express.
That’s what the Negro Spirituals were. That’s what the Blues were. That’s what Gospel was/is. That’s what Ragtime, Jazz, Bebop, Jazz Fusion, Soul, R&B, Funk and Hip Hop have done.
These genres have allowed African descended people to “Sing what we could not say,” and through music convey experiences and emotions that words are too inadequate to express.
Happy Black Music Month, know your story!
Uhuru Sassa!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
