Music as prayer
Before there was something, there was nothing.
And that nothing continues to permeate our world. From the certain death that is the crescendo of life to the night that ushers in the day, nothing is always with us. Even our bodies are made of nothing — for how else could x-rays pass through us?
From the infinitesimal spaces between orbiting electrons to the seemingly infinite space that separates orbiting planets, in every known and still unknown realm, at the heart of every mystery and in the gaps of every lasting myth, there is nothing.
So it is in music, which is meaningful only because of silence: not only in the accoustical spaces between beats, in the fleeting presence of a note or a chord, but also in the logical spaces between melodies — the distance between point and counterpoint or call and response.
For me, writing music is a matter of wrestling with the nothing underneath every song — of articulating the memory that, somehow, precedes the experience.
So it is that the best songs are ones that are like a thing that needs to be, that probably already existed — if elsewhere or otherwise.
Conversely, the worst songs, the ones that refuse and resist their own birthing, the ones forever marred and scarred, are those that lack sure footing on the stilts that lift up what is from the dark, bottomless depths of what is not.
All of this can be put in much simpler terms: get a good groove going and you can go anywhere with a song. But fail to find the right rhythm and nothing will fit — even the smartest, complementary melodies will forever hang slightly askew.
Given all the above, I can’t help but think that songs are prayers; regardless of the rational framework in which and through which they are understood, be it by the song’s author, performer or audience.
For what else but prayer speaks to the unknown, to the forthcoming, to the unfolding? What human prayer does not lament our constitutive “brokenness” while, nonetheless, daring, daring to address God?
For who else is listening when a song is first sung, as the notes are pulled from and echoed into the void.
for example
1981, Kraftwerk, “Computer World”. Daring in its palette of sounds, elegant in its composition, this German electronic disco record is as close as any artist can get to the basis of order, the edge between note and noise, beat and silence, moan and laugh.
1987, Sonic Youth, “Sister”. Far more earnest than the coy evasions of Kraftwerk, this gritty, brightly lit, rumbling rock opera is a prayer in the mystical tradition. Made by New York City avante-gardists, working in the pop form of rock and roll, this short collection of songs is truly greater than the sum of its parts — an accomplishment of faith more than science, of inspiration rather than formal technique.
1994, Tortoise, “Tortoise”. Hiding under lite jazz instrumentation, this modest record is as quiet as a roaring mouse and as genuine as a poor man’s gift. Pegged on electric basslines and swinging if spare drums, it manages to breathe air into the rock sound. An inhalation awaiting an exhale. “Tin Cans & Twine” (audio).