I love songs about Jesus, for some reaso.

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A while ago, my friend Dave, of I love rap fame, challenged his friends to start their own “I love [music]” blogs, and pretty much everyone I know rose to the challenge, first Asif with I love chipmusic, then Ben’s I love girl music, and Adam’s I love country. Yes, you read that right; I know three people.

These are all great great blogs, and people (read: a person) have been asking when I (Raphael) am going to start my own. I’ve been hesitant to throw my hat into the ring because I already feel bad about not updating my regular blog and I’ve started enough projects to know that I gradually lose interest in everything, always. (I used to have a friend who worked for Attorney General of New York Andrew Cuomo and got an email alert every time the man was mentioned online somewhere. I dedicated a blog to him and his press releases to see how long it would take for my friend to find it. I wrote three entries before I got bored.)

I also don’t know if I love any genre of music deeply enough to merit a blog dedicated to that kind of music. I’m more of a shallow love kind of guy: splash around in the tide pools a little, but get out before you have to make any sort of real commitment like meeting her kid or asking her to break up with her boyfriend, and also I think that metaphor kind of got away from me a little bit.

So, instead of picking a wide-reaching genre for me to lose interest in, I decided I would start a blog about a comically specific kind of music with a limited number of examples, so people wouldn’t be too despondent when I give up on it, gradually and then suddenly, as I almost certainly will.

My first idea was “I love Paul Simon’s 1986 greatest hits album Negotiations and Love Songs,” but I could only come up with so many ways to praise “Train in the Distance.” (“Don’t you get it? This song is about life, man!”) Then I thought about writing an entry for every song on the mixtape I made for myself in ninth grade and recently rediscovered in my parents’ garage, but I don’t think the world needs to be reminded of “Are You Jimmy Ray?”

It’s a difficult question, “What do you love?” and “Can you please explain why you love it?” A few years ago, I got really excited by this video I found of Perry Como and Julie Andrews on Sesame Street, and I emailed it to all my friends (yes, all three of them). It was a ten minute clip of them singing a medley of songs featuring the word “song” in them, anchored by the Sesame Street standard “Sing a Song.” The part I really loved happens at about nine minutes in. Como and Andrews are standing next to each other, and Como says, “Sing!” Andrew sings a line of “La la la,” and just when he’s finished, Como shouts, “Again!” Andrews sings the line again with a mock serious expression and Como throws his head back, chuckling. It’s such a charming and genuine interaction— two pros improvising in the moment. But of course it’s been planned and rehearsed— the repetition is built into the score. I loved how easy they made it seem— the rehearsed spontaneity. I really thought there was something beautiful there.

Perry Como And Julie Andrews On Sesame Street
Uploaded by strawberrycurrant.

But, for all the people I shared the video with, I’m not sure I ever really could explain what was so great about it; even now I’m struggling to describe how much it moved me. I have this wackjob theory that the things that are most important aren’t shared; they are important only to us.

The way your mother rolls her eyes at you, your sudden decision to stop drinking, the immediate unexplainable sadness you felt when you saw an old open shirt draped over the back of a chair. You can write it all down, you can post it on the internet, you can breathlessly explain it all over a date with a girl you’ll never see again (ice skating, drinks, and a promise that you’ll call her), but the truth is no one can ever really understand the tangle of experiences and passions that make you who you are. It’s the poetry you write on dollar bills that you’re not sure anyone will read, a pebble you keep in your pocket that you play with when you’re anxious, hard as liquor, smooth as soap.

Even the secret kiss stolen backstage on opening night of your middle school’s The Music Man. Peeking through the curtains, Harold Hill whispered to you, the mayor’s wife, “My dad is here.” And then he said, “I’m not nervous; are you?” And before you could answer, he kissed you quickly and softly on the mouth— he kissed you so gently, as if you were a paper lantern, as if you were a sculpture of sand that would fall apart on his face. And afterwards he looked at you, and then he whispered, “Oh.” Even that shared experience— its true significance anyway, what it really means— that belongs to you alone.

But that isn’t true about religion, and that to me is its most seductive aspect. When you believe in Jesus, when you really believe in capital-H Him Jesus, as opposed to boring old lowercase-h some dude, you belong to something greater. Who hasn’t longed for the sense of community that actually believing in something brings? It’s like in the old days, how you could watch a TV show and be fairly certain that half the country was watching the same thing at the exact same time, before cable and VCRs and the internet ruined everything by giving people options.

So I am fascinated and moved by songs about Jesus, even though I myself am a semi-to-non-observant Jew who considers most atheists annoyingly religious. This blog is a place for me to go off about religion and music, my experiences with both, and where those roads intersect. Most entries won’t be nearly this long, but every entry will feature a song about Jesus (or tangentially related to Jesus). I will probably repost everything I write here in my boring old regular blog, so if you already follow that, you never need to visit this website again. On the other hand, if you just want to read about Jesus music, and don’t care about the rest of me, you can stop following my other blog and just plant yourself here.