T-Bone Burnett is a name that you might never have heard before. He’s a muso and music producer.
For anyone who has known anything about ‘Christian Music’ for a while it may interest you to know that he is married to Sam Phillips – formerly known as Leslie Phillips.
T-Bone Burnett is a well respected professional who has toured in Bob Dylan’s band and produced music for Counting Crows, The Wallflowers, BoDeans, Los Lobos, Bruce Cockburn and others. He is also a Christian. However he doesn’t serve up the usual themes in his music. He releases his music to a secular audience and tackles a huge range of ideas.
I like his music and I like his attitude. His lyrics make me think. He is quoted as saying, “You can sing about the Light, or you can sing about what you see because of the Light. I prefer the latter.”
Maybe we should take a leaf out of his book and make sure that everything we do and say is ‘about what we see because of the Light.’
Here are the lyrics to just one of his songs. It’s not his best or most insightful, but trying to pick which song that would be is a task beyond me.
The Wild Truth
from The Talking Animals
you never said it was a bed of roses
but you never said it was a bed of nails
you never told me ’bout the rubber hoses
or how unsteady were the justice scales
i need the wild truth
on the street there are a billion people
they got no love, they got no hope
they got no youth, they got no beauty
they’re looking backwards through a telescope
they need the wild truth
(Spoken)
whatever happened to the man walking down the street
with his hands in his pockets whistling a tune?
science fiction and nostalgia have become the same thing
i don’t know how to make any choices anymore i mean,
who do i vote for? i get the feeling that as soon as
something appears in the paper it ceases to be true
i have to meet the man who can crack this world of justice
like a safe. someone with the courage to allow room for
good things to run wild
into the wild truth
we don’t need no voodoo stories
from no magic president
who tries to make a dream a fait accompli
by using phantoms for his evidence
we need the wild truth
i tell a hundred thousand lies that twist me
into the noise where i hide my sin
my shame and scandal pull me down and kiss me
i can’t live a life that might have been
i need the wild truth
(Spoken)
are we supposed to take all this greed and fear and hatred
seriously? it’s like watching dust settle it never changes
it’s too consistent
mercy is not consistent it’s like the wind
it goes where it will. mercy is comic, and its the only
thing worth taking seriously
i need the wild truth
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