Some of my songs of the year 2017

Some of my songs of the year 2017 - part 1

- December 31, 2017

When I listen to so much music (mainly Christian songs… for myself and for use in school) and end up with 3 iTunes playlists of favourite songs of the year, containing about 110 songs in total, it’s hard to choose my favourites, but here I go....

Lyric Of The Year and Song Of the Year:

“I Won’t Let You Go” - Switchfoot

"When your fear is currency
And you feel that urgency
You want peace but there's war in your head
Maybe that's where life is born
When our façades are torn
Pain gives birth to the promise ahead"

See previous posts about Switchfoot. They take me from darkness to light...

Bridge Section Of The Year + Pre-Chorus Of The Year:

“Hypnotised” - Coldplay

This band is my guilty pleasure. Their first album, “Parachutes”, won me over, and although they have at times frustrated me over the years, they’ve always been capable of songs that somehow defy cynicism and touch the heart in a way that very few “secular” bands manage to do to me nowadays. When such songs do touch my heart, it’s always through a kind of alchemical combination of music, lyrics and performance that defies explanation in rational terms. I wrote recently about a song that was the first to really do this for me when I was a teenager: “Hollow Horse” by The Icicle Works. The first Coldplay song to do this to me was from their second album: “The Scientist” back in 2002. The piano intro from this song has been my ringtone for as long as I’ve had a phone capable of taking a personalised ringtone. I remember playing the song to my Dad - a semi-professional drummer and family butcher - over in Ireland (c. 2003) over 10 years after my parents had retired back to their home country. I remember his ears picking up when he heard the drums come in… “THAT’S good drumming,” he said. I asked him why. He replied, “Listen to how he’s holding back.” When I listen to it now I always think of him. My Dad was a brilliant drummer, but what made him special wasn’t his vituosity (although he had it in spades - he was offered a job with the Joe Loss Orchestra when he was in his early 20s… look them up). It was his sensitivity. He knew that a drummer’s role was to provide a foundation and to let the others in the band shine.

Oh, and the aforementioned Coldplay drummer, Will Champion, happens to be from Southampton, was in primary school in Portswood, Southampton about a mile away from where I was in secondary school at that time and, like me, is a lifelong Southampton FC supporter!

Get past the cheesy keyboard intro in “Hypnotised” and you end up with a song to rival “The Scientist” as one of their best ever. During the intervening period Chris Martin’s lyrics have improved considerably. I love the following lines. They contain what I consider to be a spiritual truth, expressed in a simple, elegant manner.

“It’s the very same steeple people want to choose,
They just see it from different views”.

Best Drumming from 2002:
“The Scientist” - Coldplay

For Dad.

Also the best backwards video ever.

Favourite New Song To Perform With The Manic Street Teachers (staff/pupils worship band) In School Masses:
“Everything Comes Alive” - We Are Messengers

Like Rend Collective, these are from Northern Ireland and have taken the US by storm. One can see why. Like Rend C. they write infectious, heartfelt, sprititually sincere sing-along songs. I thoroughly recommend their eponymous debut album. Check out, for example, the song “Magnify”. You see something of the lead singer/songwriter’s (Darren Mulligan) sincerity in the below video: