15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) -- #1 The Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby"

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to. 

These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs

#1 - "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles

There has always been a sort of profound sadness in this song to me. So many people go unnoticed all the time. How can I dare say I'm being salt and light in the world if I let them continue to go by unnoticed and unloved. 

Some people say I'm too friendly, that I treat total strangers as if I've known them all my life when I strike up conversations in grocery store lines, at the coffee house, or in a waiting room while my car is being fixed. I just ignore them and think of this song again. 

==================

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby

Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been

Lives in a dream

Waits at the window

Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door

Who is it for?

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people

Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie

Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear

No one comes near

Look at him working

Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there

What does he care?

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people

Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby

Died in the church and was buried along with her name

Nobody came

Father McKenzie

Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave

No one was saved

All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)

Where do they all belong?

15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) -- #2 Bob Dylan, "With God on Our Side"

 As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to. 

These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs

#2 - "With God on Our Side" by Bob Dylan

I too was taught that the country I grew up in had God on its side. I too learned that you never ask questions when God's on your side. What I failed to learn until I was older was that, even in a historic religious understanding, God doesn't get on anyone's side. God calls people to join his/her/its (God is spirit, not human) side. 

I grew up believing that as long as I went to church and didn't do the actions that the grown-ups told me to avoid that God would be on my side. It had nothing to do with the attitudes of my heart or my actual love for others. It was all about not smoking, dancing, drinking, being gay, or hanging out with with people who did those things. 

I learned later that most everything I had learned as a child was garbage. True religion, I learned, was taking care of widows and orphans. Real Christian character came from exemplifying the fruit of the spirit. And I learned that the whole of religious law can be summed up as love God and love your fellow humans. 

And most of all, I learned that I never have God on my side. God doesn't get behind me and support my goals. Nor does God support the goals of the USA or the church or the conservative PACs or the goals of Republican or Democrats or Libertarians or anyone. God supports his/her/its own plan... period. 

The sooner I got over thinking God had my back the soon I realized I no longer had carte blanche to pursue every selfish whim I had and try to cover it in some kind of religious version of Manifest Destiny. We can ignore a lot of evils if we persist with this notion that God is on our side. 

==================

Oh my name it ain't nothin'

My age it means less

The country I come from

Is called the Midwest

I was taught and brought up there

The laws to abide

And that land that I live in

Has God on its side

Oh, the history books tell it

They tell it so well

The cavalries charged

The Indians fell

The cavalries charged

The Indians died

Oh, the country was young

With God on its side

The Spanish-American

War had its day

And the Civil War, too

Was soon laid away

And the names of the heroes

I was made to memorize

With guns in their hands

And God on their side

The First World War, boys

It came and it went

The reason for fighting

I never did get

But I learned to accept it

Accept it with pride

For you don't count the dead

When God's on your side

The Second World War

Came to an end

We forgave the Germans

And then we were friends

Though they murdered six million

In the ovens they fried

The Germans now, too

Have God on their side

I've learned to hate the Russians

All through my whole life

If another war comes

It's them we must fight

To hate them and fear them

To run and to hide

And accept it all bravely

With God on my side

But now we got weapons

Of chemical dust

If fire them, we're forced to

Then fire them, we must

One push of the button

And a shot the world wide

And you never ask questions

When God's on your side

Through many a dark hour

I've been thinkin' about this

That Jesus Christ was

Betrayed by a kiss

But I can't think for you

You'll have to decide

Whether Judas Iscariot

Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'

I'm weary as Hell

The confusion I'm feelin'

Ain't no tongue can tell

The words fill my head

And fall to the floor

That if God's on our side

He'll stop the next war