TGIFWTA: Salvation Song (update)

This post has been Tweeted by Avett Nation! Woohoo and welcome, Twitter-folk! 

Thank goodness it’s Friday with the Avetts

Heaven help me, sometimes I read the comments posted on YouTube music videos. Some are quite funny and clever, but most are not. This exercise usually serves as a reminder that some people out there seem to have either: 1) way too much time on their hands or else 2) lives fairly devoid of meaning. Which doesn't say much for me, if I'm reading their banal –or profanity laced—ramblings (hint: the phrase “F---- Off” does not constitute an ‘argument’).  But I digress. 

Mrs. Beazly first introduced me to the Avett Brothers last year (eternal thanks) with this post. I merely dabbled for the better part of 18 months (for shame) but this past summer, I delved obsessively with a great deal of enthusiasm into their music. They defy tidy genre categorization, so I won’t even try. Here’s Wikipedia’s attempt:

The Avett Brothers combine bluegrass, country, punk, pop melodies, folk, rock and roll, honky tonk, and ragtime to produce a sound described by the San Francisco Chronicle as having the "heavy sadness of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop concision of Buddy Holly, the tuneful jangle of the Beatles, the raw energy of the Ramones."

They forgot to include grunge and old-timey gospel. I kid you not.

Confused? Good. That actually makes it easier to have an open mind, because most people conclude that they had better just check out the band for themselves instead of taking someone else’s word (or profusion of words) for it. Listening to music is always preferable to reading about it (thanks for bearing with me thus far).

I love these guys. They are so good, they could even make listening to “Peace is Flowing Like a River” bearable--not that they would ever condescend to cover something so dreadfully hackneyed. Their studio albums are amazing, and they are said to be even better live. How I wish I could verify that.

Do you need music to dance/jog to? Check. Do you like soft acoustic guitar ballads that (actually) make people cry? Check. Funny songs? Check. Rollicking old-time sing-along songs? Check. Profound songs? Check. Songs that lift your spirits? Check. Songs that make you want to be a better human being? Check.

Sometimes when I read the comments on the Avetts’ YouTube videos, I'll see some fan say such things as, "Your music changed my life!" Which at first seems a little over the top... until you actually think about it for a bit. 

I believe that C.S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Shakespeare, Tennyson and hundreds of other writers and poets changed my life. To say nothing of Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and many other composers that I love.

Art is supposed to change your life. It's supposed to move you closer to Beauty, Truth, Goodness and Joy--in other words, closer to God. Even if it just nudges you the tiniest bit in that direction, it has, essentially, changed your life. If it doesn't, it's not really doing its job, is it? (Or else it's not really Art). 

Often when I listen to the Avetts’ music, I hear a line that reminds me of a profound truth, or it makes me want to be a better person, or it just makes me very very happy. And like Flannery, they do not produce explicitly “Christian art” (which actually can have such a narrow appeal --or, if it's bad art, no appeal at all-- that the likes of Kevin O’Brien calls it ghetto art), but rather they are Christians who produce art.

So yeah, the Avett Brothers' music changed my life. 

Now for our video, Salvation Song. Some folks have suggested that this is sort of the Avetts’ mission statement. I don't know if that was their intention, but it's a dang good song. Priorities, ultimate purpose, all that jazz. 

P.S. Mrs. Beazly, having gone through this mania some months before I did, assures me that the feverishness does mellow eventually; a point will come when I will no longer consider it necessary to sleep with Avett CDs under my pillow, or incessantly nag my husband to take up the banjo. 

And if you take my heart 

Don't leave the smallest part

I've no need to live if you're to come up gone

And as my life turns to a song

And if and when I treat you wrong

No, I never want to hurt our family

And I would give up everything

No, this is not just about me

And I don't know a plainer way to say it, Babe

And they may pay us off in fame

Though that is not why we came

And I know well and good that won't heal our hearts

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

Now if I'm walkin' through the rain

And I hear you call my name

I will break into a run without a pause

And if your love laughs at your dreams

Well it's not as bad as it seems

Either way one of them has got to go

And if you take of my soul

You can still leave it whole

With the pieces of your own you leave behind

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

And I would give up everything

And if you were to come up clean

And see you shine so bright in a world of woe

And they may pay us off in fame

But that is not why we came

And if it compromises truth then we will go

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

.