Attack of the 50 Foot Blog – Page 24

Comedy Influence on Religious Songs

I grew up listening to comedy albums. I listened to them enough to have some comedian’s routines memorized. It would be hard to not be influenced by some of these routines even when they weren’t the most spiritual stories. Here are three songs that I can site direct influences from comedy routines.

Writing A Cave in Bethlehem

For many of my songs, I try and go against the grain of normal thinking about familiar Bible Stories. The idea for A Cave in Bethlehem came from the fact that many of the stables in the region where Jesus was born were caves instead of the wooden structures we see in modern nativity scenes. I also thought about the barns and stables that I have been in. They are not clean environments. Just the thought of putting a baby in a manger with hay isn’t something we would want to do today.

Writing Speaking In Tongues

My pastor was preaching a sermon about Pentecost. He was discussing speaking in tongues. My mind tends to drift during some sermons and this was one of those times. I began thinking of how the concept of speaking in tongues is different in the story from Acts than it is in later parts of scripture and even what we typically experience today.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Acts 2:2-13

Writing Crusin’ for a Brusin’ – The Jonah Songs

Several years ago, I wrote a song called The Belly of the Whale. It was based on the familiar story from the first three chapters of the book of Jonah. In the story, Jonah is called to preach to the people of Nineveh, he runs away from God, is swallow by a whale, is spit up after three days and he finally goes to Nineveh to preach where the people turn to God. My song stopped at this point in the story. This is also the point where most people stop when they are telling the story of Jonah. But there is one more chapter in the book.

Writing Neighbor

My song Neighbor is based on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The song has 5 verses and each verse has its own melody. It works like a round. Each verse gives voice to a different person related to the parable.

Writing Mariam’s Song

Miriam sang to them:
“Sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.”
-Exodus 15:21

This verse of scripture is identified at Mariam’s Song in most of my Bibles. The verses prior to it in Exodus 15 are identified as Moses Song. Moses Song is an account of crossing the Red Sea while Mariam’s Song focuses on Pharaoh’s army being destroyed. These songs immediate follow that Exodus account of the crossing of the Red Sea. I was inspired by Mariam’s Song to write a chorus for a song about this story. Here is my chorus:

Oh no! What do I see?
Pharaoh’s chariots coming after me.
Praise the Lord, Mighty is He
The horse and the rider drowned in the Red Sea

Writing Isaiah 11 – The Lion and the Lamb

I decided that I wanted to write a song about the Bible verse, “the lion will lie down with the lamb.” It turns out that this is one of those things everyone thinks is in the Bible but its not. The closest thing to this is in the eleventh chapter of the book of Isaiah. In verse 6 it says,

“The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.”

I didn’t let this discourage me from going ahead and writing a song about this passage of prophesy about a coming Messiah. I wanted to stick with the original groupings of animals in the verses. I decided that whenever I performed this song, I would emphasize the fact that this is different from what everyone thinks is in the Bible. I think it helps people pay more attention to what the scripture and ultimately what the song has to say.

Elvis Week 2018 – The Beginning of the End

I’m going to go with you to Elvis Week this year.” This is what my wife told me moments after I let her know that my jury duty wasn’t going to interfere with my annual trip to Elvis Week at Graceland. She had never expressed much interest in going on this trip until this year. Our visit to Graceland last year during one of her education conferences had gotten her interested. Her conference was held at The Guesthouse at Graceland, the hotel next door to the mansion. We did the tours and she got a small taste of what Elvis Week could be like. But it pales in comparison to the experience you get during Elvis Week.

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Public Flatulence

I don’t claim to be an expert on people’s habits of breaking wind. It’s not something that we talk about that often. Only family and the closest of friends usually discuss it. But as a rule, people don’t usually fart in public. We don’t even talk about it in a lot of situations. The scale of whether we talk about it goes hand in hand with the scale of whether we do it. For formal events, dinners, religious services, and business meetings it is an absolute no-no. Home settings are usually where it is more acceptable but even then, I’m sure the rules vary from family to family. Families with younger kids might be more accepting of a bottom burp that a family with older kids. It really depends on when and to what extent the parents try to instill good manners in the kids.

Naked Pose at the Amusement Park

When my youngest daughter was little, she would run around with no clothes on after she got out of the shower. She would stand in the hallway upstairs outside of her room, raise one arm above her head and the other down by her side and shout “I’m Naked!” She didn’t do it all the time but often enough that it became a family thing that everyone knew about. Actually, she said “I’m Nekkid!” but we are from the South, so I assumed this is what you were thinking anyway.