Personal Life Update: Flying Colors

Last night as I drove home from work, "Fireflies" by Owl City became my life, for the space of about 5 minutes. 

I remember reading somewhere that Adam had a certain summer night in mind when he wrote it -- whether he was on vacation or if this was in Minnesota, I'm uncertain of, but using the context of his early music's many references to various states that he'd like to visit but never had ("Hello Seattle," "Alaska," "West Coast Friendship" etc), I suspect it was in his home state that he witnessed a swarm of fireflies one night, in the tens of thousands, somewhere in the country.

I run across fireflies on any given summer evening out by the road next to the field opposite my house. But I'd never before seen so many in one place that they resembled elaborate winter holiday decorations. Their rhythmic lighting resulted in what appeared to be waves of strobe lights undulating out from the trees on one side of the road, into the field opposite and back and forth in ways that made it look like the lights were on wires and carrying electric current.

It was really quite spectacular. If you focused on a single light source at once, you could tell that it was a bug, either stationary or slowly flying over the farm field looking for a mate. But when you scanned across the whole landscape, the simplicity of the mating call scaled upward into a much more complex, grander view that provokes you to marvel at how the simple things of earth that God has created can come together in spectacular arrangements so that the big picture of everything is so amazing that the only thing you can do is stand amazed, and give God glory.

It's reminiscent of this:

"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Hebrews 11:3

And in a similar way, the small things make up big things. I've always been fascinated by how the macroscopic, microscopic and telescopic views of the world hang together. Ultimately, the bigger stuff has to be explained, in some way, by the smaller stuff. Economics and politics has to be explained by individual human interactions. Culture shifts have to be explained by psychology. Physiology has to be explained by cell theory. Computers have to be explained by electricity and mechanics. And on it goes. Being able to bridge the divisions between fields of study, in one's mind, does wonders for how one is able to understand the world, and marvel at the interconnected nature of reality. Perhaps that's why I'm in the field I'm in. Biology is the connection between chemistry and physiology. History is the connection between how things happened in the past, and why they are the way they are now. Philosophy is the connection between absolute revealed truth and sincere human questioning.

Rightly understood and pursued, of course.

I hope I'll have the opportunity to see a lightshow like that again, maybe with my bride.

Flying colors today doesn't only refer to the lightning bugs I stopped to stare at, but also to the fact that I checked my spring semester grades today and made straight As. And the journey continues!

~ Rak Chazak

Owl City Commentary Hub

I'm going to fix a link to this page to the sidebar, so that all the different articles I'll eventually end up writing can be reached from one place with ease.

Below are the posts that exist to date:

The Introduction
Owl City Music Isn't "Christian Music" In the Usual Sense
Interpretation of Beautiful Times
Interpretation of Meteor Shower

~ Rak Chazak

Owl City Allegory: Interpretation of Meteor Shower

My take: a blatant praise song sung publicly on stage during Adam's Ocean Eyes tour.

Adam recently posted the following on his Tumblr blog:

I see that the lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence. (Acts 2:25-28)

I recognized a similarity between this passage and two lines in one of his shortest (lyrically speaking) songs.

I can finally see

that you're right there beside me.

I am not my own

for I have been made new.

Please don't let me go.

I desperately need you.

These are the only lines to the song, with the last 4 being repeated once. The song is titled Meteor Shower. 

 

There isn't much in the way of imagery in this song, so a line by line interpretation wouldn't be very effective. I think the song as a whole seems to be, pretty clearly, a unidirectional conversation between the singer and God. What sold it to me, though, was seeing him point up at the sky, emphatically, as he sang it when I saw him in concert. [Here's an example in a video upload--right at the very end] Body language spoke louder than words at that moment.

Quickly:

• Why can he finally see? Because he wasn't certain he could before. Doubt or myopia prevented him from seeing the obvious. A possible reference to Adam's dead-end jobs prior to his discographic success.
• The 'right there beside me' seems to be a reference to the verses I posted above, whether they influenced the song or not.
• That he is not his own echoes 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20.
• That he has been made new echoes 2 Corinthians 5:17

• The final two lines seem more of a sincere emotional plea, rather than a theological statement. God won't let anyone go who belongs to Him (John 6:37), so it would be better to take "please don't let me go" as not referring to salvation in particular. It's a recognition of Adam's dependence on God for every thing. Hardly "me-focused," and better than the average CCM song just by virtue of that alone.

 

Agree with the analysis?

~ Rak Chazak

Owl City Allegory: Interpretation of Beautiful Times

My Take: A reflection on struggling with sin and the loss of assurance that comes right in the midst of, or after, stumbling.

First, here is how Adam introduced his new single on beautifultimes.owlcitymusic.com.

Hi friends,

I am flying home to Minnesota and wanted to write to you. This summer is the five year anniversary of Ocean Eyes and I can't believe how fast time flies. Back home I sometimes drive past the UPS place, the Coke warehouse or the old construction sites I worked at prior to OC and I'm reminded how good I've got it. Six years ago I was bored and uninspired and now every time I drive by the old prisons I never thought I'd escape from, I feel that much more fortunate to get to do what I love. For that, I thank you for your support, and more than anything, I praise God with all I have.

Over the last half year I've been plotting my next moves and deciding how and when I want to imagine the next chapter of Owl City. I've decided to do something I've never done before and release a handful of standalone EPs throughout 2014. I've never released consecutive EPs à la snapshots in a photo album or short stories in a book or a series of paintings in a collection, but I'm excited to release a slow-and-steady stream of music this year.

Thus, it is with tremendous pleasure that I present to you a new Owl City song entitled, "Beautiful Times". Deeply subjective and personal, it has a dark beauty I find compelling and the essence of the track offers the idea that life is wonderful despite the burdens and afflictions that seek us out. It is an anthem for those who search for strength to rise above hardship. I was honored to work with yet another of my favorite artists, Lindsey Stirling, who was kind enough to grant me the honor of featuring her. I hope you enjoy this song as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Finally, I wish to thank you for being so patient as I finish the upcoming chapter in my story. I appreciate your loyalty more than I know how to say.

-Adam

A verse for consideration. I think this may summarize the song pretty well.

 "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."

Psalm 30:5

This is the post on Adam Young's tumblr that gave me the go-ahead, or green light, to proceed with a theological interpretation of the song:

andywestdaydreams:

“In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

-Gospel of John 1:4-5

Basically this what I think the light that Adam Young was referring to in his song Beautiful Times. 

Adam "reblogged" that, which is the tumblr version of a facebook 'like' or a twitter 'retweet.' It represents your agreement with what was said.

Line By Line

Interpretation:

New to Diary of a Single Christian Guy: Post Series

                Today I'd like to introduce you to my very first one, “Owl City Allegory,” and note that while I’ve had themed posts turn up in sequence over time, I have yet to organize them together in a concerted “blog series.” This first one will draw on similar analytical methods as used in Poignant Music, for example, and that article may be interesting to readers who were unaware of it, buried as it is in the middle of a sequential, but unorganized logjam of 150+ posts.

Part I: Lyric Interpretation of Owl City Songs

                As we begin, I want to explain that these are going to be intentionally pigeon-holed at times, after enough lyrical evidence has convinced me of the possibility of an allegorical interpretation, in order to suggest a way for the whole song to cohere together into one thematic message. These are my own interpretation, and I don’t insist that each conclusion must be what Adam Young (the writer, singer and producer behind Owl City) had in mind when writing, but the point will be that, intentionally or unintentionally, he has crafted the lyrics so that they can indeed be validly interpreted as a subtle theological message, without going to interpretive extremes. I believe my analysis will be fair, and I will point out shortcomings where I consider them to be. It must also be noted that Owl City music, especially the early variety, is characterized by whimsicality, and in many cases they are impossible for a bystander to interpret in the sense that they can be at all sure what Adam was thinking when he inserted those lines. However, Adam is a sincere Christian and based on his public expressions of faith on his blog and elsewhere, I don’t believe he would object to people’s attempts to find hidden spiritual meaning in the texts of his songs, so long as the conclusions didn’t amount to doctrinal confusion, of course. And with that preface, this endeavor of mine is primed to begin. 

Side note:

One of the benefits of Adam’s meticulously preserved formlessness (he has said so comparably little about his personal life and views that one article about him online even called him “completely non-political”) is that his fans have the opportunity to see themselves in him, even though they are very different in terms of life experience. There have even been some who claim he's gay--not as an insult to his music, but in a desire to more deeply connect with him in a shared identity. As it turns out, melancholy musings on inexpressible yearnings by an eccentric mind is something many share. We’re all a little bit odd, and the oddities in Adam’s lyrics, combined with their optimism and hope, have in my view given a lot of young people something to connect to and lift them up. They have, in Adam’s music, an alternative to contemporary offers of sympathy for their weirdness and desire to know they’re not alone. Consider Lady Gaga’s fans, affectionately (?) called “Little Monsters” by the artist. There is also a community of the strange and the burdened in her fan base, but I have yet to hear of someone vomiting on Adam during a concert. There is a huge difference in how the base is encouraged: Owl City doesn’t shy from quirkiness but it never encourages listeners to fester in despondency and feed their discouragement. So much of pop culture encourages “acting out” as a way to deal with personal struggles. Adam never has. I’m incredibly grateful to Adam simply for what I know he’s done to the young adult culture. He’s shown that if you’re sad, you don’t have to express it through attention-seeking delinquency or self-abasement. It’s okay to be sad, lonely, afraid and a little bit different from “everybody else.” These are normal things, but they don’t mean that your life is over. Instead, his songs offer a thoughtfully different approach.

It’s almost too easy for me to draw similarities between me and Adam. We’re both tall, though he’s taller. We’re both chronically uninvolved in long-term relationships, though we’ve both had romantic experiences in the past, and clearly think about love a lot. Which may be due to the age factor. He’s roughly 3 years older, so a lot of the things we’re dealing with in life are bound to be similar. We're both introverts and spend a lot of time alone just thinking or working on various projects. Hopeful optimists, but cynical realists. Adam deals frankly with issues like shame, death, depression etc and ‘calls it like it is,’ but he doesn’t wallow in grief, he looks up and always has a positive angle to the calamity around him. Or is it me? I am so passionately a fan of what I call “cynical optimism” (for an example, read the whole book of Ecclesiastes in a straight shot). You can’t ignore the flawed and terrible things in the world, but you can’t submit to the idea that those things will have the last word. In Adam’s lyrics, I see the innocence and childlike glee that I know at times, in my clearer thinking moments. The public face of Adam, and his song persona, is like the very best of me—if I also could sing. In the vein of “meditating on what is good and excellent and pure (Philippians 4:8),” listening to his songs can elevate my mind to dwell more naturally on positive things over negative, and in a very direct yet subtle way, make me a better person. I enjoy the occasional metal-rock song, but I can’t listen to that stuff all the time. Part of the reason is that they nearly never contain any hope. But Adam’s songs contain hope. And there’s a very simple and subliminal reason for that. It’s what I intend to show in this blog series. So let’s get started. :)

~ Rak Chazak

Of June

I wrote another poem. After the last one, I realized how much fun it was. I hadn't written a rhyme in years. Apparently, there's a distinction between "poetry" and "verse," the latter of which must rhyme. The poetry that doesn't rhyme often strikes me as very weird, anyway. Verse is the sort of thing that Rudyard Kipling wrote a lot of.

Here's my work, and I'll put an interpretation below. This dovetails nicely with my earlier entry about work.

Of June

June has brought cascading rains that clean the dusty air

Something tells me farmers will delight

My nose rejoices over that the pollen isn't there

It's getting washed away 'bout every night

Soon the star charts will proclaim that summer's finally come

The heat's already trying to break through

The soil enriched, rain fills the ditch. Our task has now begun

to work the yard again, but we are few.

Upkeep is a full-time task when you're the only ones

who, hands and feet, must daily work, and plan

to work some more until you've made a dent in all the tons

of things to do for each and every man

Seeing the fruit of your labor lets you silently rejoice

-- or loudly, if it happens to be your style

With satisfaction, head turned skyward, prayer lifts your voice

to thank God for another day worthwhile

Working is no curse if what you're doing is infused

with worth according to a divine end

The ability to tell apart bad things from good misused

separates the godly men from men

Rain in this life can at times be undeniably cruel

when instead of falling calmly, it monsoons

Because I don't see work and rain as goods instead of tools

I'm thus disposed to make the most of June.

I don't think it needs much explaining, but here's some background:
* The farmers will delight because it's critical for crops to get rain right now. Last year we had a drought.
* Prior to the rains, I was congested and sneezy. Now I'm nearly completely uncongested. Rain does have a cleaning effect on the atmosphere. It takes the dust particles that the droplets form around, and brings them back to the ground during the storms.
* By 'star charts,' I'm referring to the astronomical definition of summer as beginning June 20, which coincides with the solstice being June 21. We've had a few days of hot summer-like weather already in May, but the rains have cooled the temperatures a bit. It seems that this year, we're going to get the hot weather nearly right "on time."
* Working the yard refers to my immediate family taking time out of our week to maintain the house and property, which takes up nearly all the time left over when you're working full-time. I myself am still unemployed, but for me, looking for employment and otherwise working around the house is my full-time task. Our house is shaded by trees, so we get lots of stick litter to clean up.
* The fifth stanza refers to the article "Leisurely Labor" that I wrote about a week ago. Not all bad things are necessarily inherently bad. The realization helps to get more enjoyment out of work, which isn't being done for no purpose. See the image above. The sixth stanza wraps up this thought and asserts that with the proper perspective, I can enjoy the season. Those who are begrudgingly laboring might benefit from a change of perspective.

As a neat coincidence, the title I chose for the poem (which wrote itself) is the same as the title for Adam Young's (Owl City) first album, one he self-released. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_June) I figured that giving it this name would be a nice homage to Adam's music, which is itself an example of how a different perspective can give you much more enjoyment out of the simple, even mundane, things in life.

~ Rak Chazak