Welcome to Tuesday's Musical Notes! It is Tuesday, May 5th. If you celebrate it, Happy Cinco de Mayo!!! If you don't, Happy Tuesday!!!
Today The Notes takes a departure from its normally enthusiastic, bubbly, encouraging demeanor and explores a darker side. We live in dark times, but realistically, they are no more dark than what we read about in history books or hear our grandparents tell us about, they are just different. How we choose to face this darkness determines how we live our lives. Today we explore the darkest of all topics and it is masked in the Sound of Silence...
or for a more modern take
Simon and Garfunkel (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" (Simon and Garfunkel)) were signed by Columbia Records after a studio audition where they used an acoustic version of "The Sound of Silence". However, upon the initial poor performance of their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., Paul and Art called it quits. Paul actually moved to London. Art stayed with his mom in New York.
Nearly a year later, "The Sound of Silence" began a heavy rotation in college markets on the East Coast. With Paul out of the country and Art safely tucked away at Columbia University, Tom Wilson, the Columbia record producer who had worked with Bob Dylan and other folk artists of the time, remixed the album adding percussion and other rock instrumentation. Since the group had disbanded, Wilson was not contractually obligated to get Simon and Garfunkel's permission to do the remix. Nope, they didn't know about it.
The rest, as they say, is history. "The Sound of Silence" went all the way to #1 in January 1966 and battled back and forth with The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" for the #1 spot all through that month. (We haven't done "We Can Work it Out" but here's a few other Beatle's tunes that have been Notesified: Tuesday's Musical Notes - The Beatles' Archive) 2004's Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of all Time" list placed "The Sound of Silence" at #157. BMI, the recording industry royalties, copyright, and publishing group has "The Sound of Silence" as the #18th most performed song of the 20th Century. And the above cover of the song by the band Disturbed has, as of September 2014, had 1.5 million downloads and as of today, the music video on youtube has been viewed over 600 million times. You read that right. 600 million. Not too bad for a band that broke up after their first album. Good thing they didn't enjoy the sound of silence...
You've probably heard that the most deafening sound that can be produced is that of silence. While there is much that one can learn by the Psalm 46:10 New American Standard Bible/The Message paraphrase of the Bible/King James Version of the Bible parallel admonition to "be still and know" that He is God, rarely do we want complete silence surrounding us. Many folks do their best work/life with ambient noise in the background, even if its just the appliances of the home running or the soft hum of the computer. I shudder to think what being in a place where there was no noise at all would be like. Yet history provides us with a few examples of attempts to make silence more prevalent.
In Exodus 1 NASB/The Message/KJV we find an attempt to silence a generation of male children. One would imagine the cacophony of screams as babies were taken from their mothers to be thrown into the Nile River by a dictator whose only goal was to keep insurrection at a minimum. The edict from Pharoah was first met with disobedience by midwives but their efforts would eventually be overrun by their government's overreach. This is a very dark time in mankind's history and it seems somewhat ironic that Pharoah would intentionally hamstring his country's future by eliminating an entire generation of workers. The fear of losing control, however, outweighed the economic benefits and an entire generation of Hebrew children were lost. Imagine the sound of silence in those homes after there was no more strength to grieve.
Another saying with merit is that history tends to repeat itself. We find truth in that saying by examing a New Testament truth where 2-year-old boys in Bethlehem were the target of another paranoid leader who wanted no threat to his kingship's power and authority. The Gospel of Jesus according to the disciple Matthew, Chapter 2 NASB/The Message/KJV Imagine the sound of silence in those homes after the reality that there was no recourse for the citizens of Bethlehem settled in.
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that pregnant women have the right to abort their babies without excessive government interference. Since that time, 61,628,584 children have been killed. Obviously, Pharoah and King Herod have nothing on the United States of America. The difference between those 47 years and the excerpts from Bible history? THE 20TH CENTURY WOMEN CHOSE TO HAVE THEIR CHILDREN KILLED. "Hello, darkness my old friend..." Imagine the sound of silence that exists where laughter, artistic endeavor, and love could have existed.
Just like the times of the Pharoah and King Herod, there have been costs to the decisions that have been made in the last 47 years. The Notes ponders what losses have truly incurred on mankind due to the total deprivation of a generation of folks. Imagine the economic contributions that 61,628,584 citizens could have made. Ponder the idea that the person made in God's image that was eliminated could have been the next Beethoven, Marie Curie, Einstein, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin. Imagine the love that could have been expressed if only a fraction of that massive number would have lived! "In restless dreams, I walked alone..."
Yes, the call rings loudly, "Thou Shall Not Kill", yet morality seems to have been flung into the Nile River. Yes, there could have been equally tragic ramifications from one or more of these individuals because we live in a fallen world, yet why would we remove a generation of influencers for the sake of one so insidious? Yes, Tuesday's Musical Notes believes a woman has a right to choose, yet the choice should be made in the act not the results of the act, and allow God to work in instances that are tragedies. That's what faith is about.
61,628,584 voices that never share, does anyone care to stop this sound of silence...
Yet, there is hope. Even in the face of the unspeakable. If we believe what we say we believe here at Tuesday's Musical Notes, we must shout in the silence that Jesus Loves Everyone, even those of us who have made poor decisions. There is hope, there is recovery, there is peace, there is love waiting to flood the sound of silence and bring resolution to the broken soul. It is only too late if when you pass from this life into eternity future, you haven't believed that Jesus is the only way to get to God's love and restoration.
No matter what you have done. He said on the cross as He was dying, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing." That not only applied to those who were crucifying Jesus, but to you and me today. The Apostle Paul put believers struggle the best way ever when he said in his letter to the Roman church, " ...I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. " ( Romans 7:15-16 NASB/The Message/KJV) If the great apostle can make this claim, there is hope for you and me. Jesus loves you and we here at Tuesday's Musical Notes do as well.
Trends tell us that abortions in the United States are at the lowest they have been since 1973. Hope shines light in the darkness. In and through this hope, we can continue to make the difference needed to dispel...the sound of silence...
'Til Tuesday,
Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
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