Lyrics.

When I get 'stuck' creatively, I know it's time for some new music.  Music fills my heart with a sense of the universal creative within us all.  It's an anthem to humanity--a way of connecting souls.  Well, depending on what you listen to...  It can also be like listening to Rice Krispies jingle if you are in the habit of listening to the radio. 

For a couple years now, I have felt like I've been off my game when it comes to keeping up with artists and music.  When people ask about my musical tastes, I find myself suddenly frozen, as though I don't have tastes.  

Lyrics are very important to me.  I say, if you can guess what word is next in the song during your first listen, you probably need to broaden your tastes.  (This is why I struggle with much of the Christian music scene at times.)

I love when artists subvert expectations or play on expected rhyme...I love the song 'Wait out the Day' by Rocky Votolato, where he sings:

When the memory is a blank page/

And the teeth in your mouth are all cliches

Not only is he playing on the chiche of it all, but he also subverts your expectation that he is going to say your teeth are 'decayed.'

I love to see Christian writers creating beautiful art, that goes outside the cookie cutter.  God is the great creator, the ultimate author of humanity.  Why would music about him conform to trite convention?  I'm really loving the Christian band Kye Kye...

This is from their song 'Knowing This'

perfect father
you have revealed my heart’s cover  (Eph.4:18)(Eze.36:26-27)
under such radiant lights 
perfect lover
you have pierced my fear asunder (1Jo.4:18)
sealed flawless (Eph.1:13)

Dearest you’ve painted me,
what was I waiting for?
the colors are all I see
it was all there before     
this light is all I see
you never lost me, love 
(Ro.6:6)(Eph.2:10)

Fall, how it fell from me
scathed oh so permanently
sunk, how it sank from me
deep, where it once tried taking me (Ro.6:3-9)
words, they were words just to be breath
but now they sing for you (Ro.6:10-14)

I also really enjoy songwriters who take a poetic approach to writing.  For instance, I recently discovered the Bowerbirds.  I really enjoy their lyrics, because they read like a poem.  This song's called Ghost Life.

At the margins of the land, I get to know your skin
Where the sand dunes slope into a wild ocean
Where a great plain heaps into a jagged mountain
Oh, I feel your heart swell with the ghost life here, so magnificent

And yet some days we are stoned, cold and stuck
Whether in time or place or head or heart
But dear, we'll never feel the years with the wind at our backs
And we can live our days in a ghost life here, so magnificent

And yet some days we are stones cold and stuck
Whether in time or place or head or heart
But dear, we'll never feel the years with the wind at our backs
And we can live our days in a ghost life here, so magnificent

Oh, blood, ocean blood
Salty blood
Flows like torrents through our hearts
And knows just what it wants

Love, shapeless love
Wild, tireless love
Fast in the free ether
Ghostly white and seething hot

Sky, ocean sigh
Dark mirror shine
Swift to the backs of our eyes
Deep, wanting eyes

I encourage you, if you don't already, to listen to the lyrics of your favorite songs and dissect them.  This sounds as though it takes the fun out of the music, but in fact, I believe you will find that it makes your love of those songs deeper and your enjoyment more profound.