One day in 1978, I think, when I was about 12, I was in the living room of our apartment at Pacific Union College in the Napa Valley and the radio was on and across the airwaves came Sing a Song by The Carpenters.
It’s the first pop song I remember and it immediately changed my mood. Jolts of rhythm surged through me and I felt like singing and dancing even though as the son of a Seventh-Day Adventist evangelist and Bible scholar, I knew that singing pop songs and dancing were sins and forbidden in my home. My older brother and sister had many fights over this with my dad. As the youngest child, and the most passive, I had a more mellow upbringing. My step-mother was 18 years younger than my dad, they married when I was four, after my mom died from cancer, and my step-mum didn’t mind some pop music.
In 1972, the Seventh-Day Adventist church issued the following guidelines about music:
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has come into existence in fulfillment of prophecy to be God’s instrument in a worldwide proclamation of the Good News of salvation… The lives of those who accept this responsibility must be as distinctive as their message. This calls for total commitment by each church member to the ideals and objectives of the Church.
Music should:
1. Bring glory to God and assist us in acceptably worshiping Him (1 Cor 10:31).
2. Ennoble, uplift, and purify the Christian’s thoughts (Phil 4:8; Patri¬archs and Prophets, p. 594).
3. Effectively influence the Christian in the development of Christ’s character in his life and in that of others (MS 57, 1906).
4. Have a text (words, lyric, message) which is in harmony with the scriptural teachings of the Church (Review and Herald. June 6, 1912).
5. Reveal a compatibility between the message conveyed by the words and the music, avoiding a mixture of the sacred and the profane.
6. Shun theatricality and prideful display
…Certain musical forms, such as jazz, rock, and their related hybrid forms, are considered by the Church as incompatible with these principles.
Regarding dancing, the Church held: “In the Bible there is no trace of dancing by men or women in the worship services of the Temple, the synagogue, or the early church. This absence can hardly be attributed to negligence, because the Bible gives clear instructions regarding the ministry of music in the Temple. The Levitical choir was to be accompanied only by stringed instruments, the harp and the lyre (2 Chron 5:13; 1 Chron 16:42). Percussion instruments like drums and tambourines, which were commonly used for making dance music, were clearly omitted. What was true for the Temple was later also true for the synagogue and the early church. No dancing or entertainment music was ever allowed in God’s house.”
I don’t think my dad was home when I first heard Sing a Song or I would not have been able to enjoy it. I could never enjoy anything in his presence of which he did not approve. I’m not sure I can to this day.
I had no problem taking a different position on music and sin than my father, I just didn’t want to fight it out in my own home. I knew that one day, I’d be on my own.
So I guess it was just mum and me when I heard this delicious song float along and I felt glorious. Happy. Surprised. And I realized that there were things in the world outside of the church that could bring me instant comfort. I realized that if I could just find my own space, I could listen to songs I loved and feel everything I wanted to feel and that nobody could tell me that I was sinning.
Until this time, I’m not sure there was anything or anyone in my life I could always count on for comfort. Because of this, I loved to escape into books and fantasy and running and writing, but this music was like nothing else, it spoke to my heart, it was instantly appealing, instantly accessible, and instantly healing. It talked about all the things I wanted such as love and love and love.
It would’ve been unfathomable for me at this stage to purchase any music, anything that was not Christian nor classical was not welcome in my home, but I had my own radio and when my parents moved to Washington D.C. in late 1979 and left me behind for six months with friends to complete eighth grade, I started listening to pop music most every night when I went to bed. In my new home, this was no sin.
I put the radio under my pillow and learned there were millions of people out there like me who suffered from loneliness, dislocation and disconnection.
Three years later, I bought my first cassette tapes (through those eight tapes for 1c offers from Columbia House) such as Air Supply’s Greatest Hits, Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits, Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, and the Mommas and the Poppas Greatest hits. Then I no longer depended on the radio to give me what I needed, now I truly had instant comfort, I could just put on the song I needed to hear in the moment and be swept away to a better world.
I could just sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong, sing of good things not bad, sing of happy not sad. I could sing of love there could be, I could sing for you and for me.
Oh it’s a dirty old shame
When all you get from love is a love song
That’s got you layin’ up nights
Just waitin’ for the music to start
It’s such a dirty old shame
When you got to take the blame for a love song
Because the best love songs are written
With a broken heart
