Three Hit Songs that are Actually about God
Do you ever find yourself only half-listening to the music around you? In an industry where sound often supercedes message, it can be difficult to find music that truly speaks to our souls. However, like fingerprints on a crime scene, sometimes God leaves a mark in places we do not expect. The following three songs have found a home on the Top 40 charts, yet the messages contained within are a lagoon of depth in what tends to be shallow waters.
Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars”The newest single from Coldplay featuring Avicii, “A Sky Full of Stars,” marks a new dance-driven sound for the perpetually chart topping band. Although its message of fascination and allure could be understood as speaking about a person, approaching the song while thinking about God creates an opportunity to both reflect and rejoice.
The uniquely cool thing about exploring the various perspectives of this song is that it works equally as well when interpreting the song as us speaking about God, and vice versa. As difficult as it can be to clearly see God’s essence, surely it is also difficult for God to see us—the true, original versions of ourselves—amidst the layers of untruth we have grown accustomed to. Likewise, the lyric “‘cause you get lighter the more it gets dark” can refer to how, as evil pervades a situation, our hope in each other never dies.
John Legend’s “All of Me”In what has rapidly become the top ballad of spring 2014, John Legend’s lyrical love letter to his wife has caught the hearts of many hopeless romantics, but this song’s message of love can be construed as parental love too! Give it a listen, but this time, envision the singer as God.
When listening to it in this way, we discover a poignant expression of a parent’s heart towards us, His and Her wonderfully complicated kids.The parent-child relationship is never simple, and can sometimes drive us crazy, but when we choose to invest in those relationships with a steadfast, unconditional love, we learn to love like God.
A Great Big World’s “Say Something”This song, which became an international hit in its re-release featuring Christina Aguilera, is generally understood as a heart-rending breakup song, taken from the point of view of someone who is ready to end an effort of unrequited love. Breakup songs are an all too familiar subject in songwriting, but what if this song were about a different kind of breakup?
Colorado-based music ministry team WorshipMob found precisely that. In their cover of the song, they reimagined the song as a final plea from someone desperate to hear God`s voice in their lives. Although the original version ends on a somber note, WorshipMob reworks the final verse to be God’s response, tenderly reaching out as a parent embracing a long lost child. After listening to this version, it is impossible to hear this song the same way again.
As these three songs show, so much of what art means to us stems from our interpretation. When we realize this, we can find God everywhere—in the music that flows from our radios, and in the music of our own hearts.