“How are the lyrics of our worship music forming us?”
“It matters whether those who lead us in song see their task as creating a mood or a memory. If primarily a mood, lyrics can take a back seat …. If primarily a memory, the lyrics are critically important. Like the Psalms, they should be able to stand on their own, combined with music or not.” - CToday
Wilkin hits on the reality that the mnemonic devices in poetry—songs being more or less poetry with a tune—render music uniquely memorable in a way that prose is not. If we posit that a great purpose of music in the church is to convey God’s Word to God’s people in lyric form, then we would want to pay close attention to both the content and the poetry of the lyrics, and whether the tune and other musical devices works with the lyrics.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion