If I Could Have Played 12 Songs Week 1

Last Tuesday- Become What You Believe (from Become What You Believe)

A traditional rocking start to the show that lets the listener know that R&S has kicked in. These guys have a great attitude to life and music and ministry. I have seen them lie on floors and give passionate shows to kids who they’ll hang out with for hours after gigs. Pop punk, they live hard, believe hard and play hard. Ghandi said that we need to become the change that we want to see and this is what they are talking about here.

Duke Special - This Could Be My Last Day (from Songs From The Deepest Forest)

Album of the week is Belfast’s Duke Special. We had him doing live sessions on Rhythm and Soul ten years ago… now the world wants to know! This is a quiet and fragile song that actually has been my attitude to life since I was 21. I always think we should not be shocked when friends die young. We should be more surprised that we live so long. I never presume that I have another radio show left or another year of life. Tomorrow is a bonus. This album has that thread running through it. Milk life while we can. Live life and life in all its fullness.

The Frames - Are You Ready (from The Cost)

The Frames dabble with spiritual depth on every album and in every gig. This is one off their new album that speaks of "getting it right" and "setting it alight." A different angle on Duke as they are saying "they have all the time in the world" but it is again about making life count.

Johnny Cash -  The Man In Black (from The Essential Johnny Cash)

Instead of doing the show this week, I was doing an alternative worship service at Fisherwick Presbyterian Church based around the Life and Music of Johnny Cash. Frank Ferguson covered ths ong which was the basis the thoughts I brought out of the songs and movie Walk The Line. Cash wore black for all the marginalize people Jesus reached out to. In the movie when he gets his second chance with Go the first thing he does is play a gig in prison.

Bruce Springsteen – The Ghost of Tom Joad (from Ghost Of Tom Joad)

This song of Springsteen’s takes up the same theme if standing beside the outsider.

Tom Waits – (Misery is the River of The World from Blood Money)

In an essay I was doing this week on the Theology of Art I was looking at how Calvin Seerveld changes his quality of defining art from Beauty to Allusivity. I cited this Waits song as a piece of art that was not beautiful but allusive. Waits was using what can be describe as a growl to allude to the sin that has spoiled the world; allusions to John Calvin indeed! Waits also has a triple album called Orphans due so this would have prepared you!

Brian Houston – Red Badge Of Courage (from Sugar Queen)

Thinking about the new Duke Special album got me thinking about other great albums by Northern Irish boys this year and would have given me an excuse to play a Houstie song from Sugar Queen. I chose this, a song he wrote for his wife Pauline as she fought breast cancer. It would have gone out to too big a number of friends who are battling cancer themselves.

Bebo Norman – The Way We Mend (from Between The Dreaming and The Coming True)

Didn’t play anything off Bebo Norman’s latest album and it would have been about time. This typically acoustic song with clever Bebo lyrics would have followed Badge Of Courage nicely

Iona– Factory Of Magnificent Souls (from Circling Hour)

You are not allowed to play anything that you have anything to do with. You are not allowed to gain from your position. So I couldn’t play a song I had helped write. This song uses a lyric I wrote about Robben Island and Nelson Mandela who was a prisoner there for many years.

Iain Archer– When It Kicks In (from Magnetic North)

I have been playing this most weeks. Again how amazing that 4 of this year’s album were produced by our boys. By the way catch the amazing video to this on his web page

Snow Patrol – (Hands Open From Eyes Open)

And another of those amazing Northern Irish albums of the year. I have said before I love this lyric, "It's got to be more than wishing it all to be right/Got to be more than hoping its right." As Douglas Coupland once wrote in his book Hey Nostradamus "we are judged by our deeds not our wishes. We're the sum of our decisons" with special reference to Christianity in the context he uses it.

Duke Special Salvation Tambourine (from Songs From The Deepest Forest)

Album of the week again. The Duke is a real confessional writer letting us all know how much he falls short. This more upbeat song shakes us clean like a tambourine. Amen!

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