oh! gravity where are you?

So, I decided to take a look at a Switchfoot song to review. Switchfoot, which is my favorite band, are rooted in rock and deep lyrics. Their latest album came out in December 2006 and was titled Oh! Gravity. The band sits on the fence as a non-Christian or Christian band. Not because the band chooses to: because neither Christians nor non-Christians will take the band for themselves. The band is in the fuzzy grey area and I think they like it that way. A “Christian” band or not, their lyrics lead only to one thing – God.

Or so I thought as I wondered around a review on the title track ‘Oh! Gravity’. On the website Jesus Freak Hideout, a Christian music website, their review of the album and song Oh! Gravity was anything but good. They insult the album for “dwelling too much on materialism and consumerism”, and “ambiguous political leanings”. In the end the album was deemed forgettable.

Forgettable is exactly what has happened: forgetting the poor, the hurting, our enemies, and the ‘sinners’ of this world.

The political left, bent on pointing out the world’s (especially the United States’) problems with materialism and consumerism reminds us that a song like ‘Oh! Gravity’ is exactly what we should not be forgetting. Composer, Jon Foreman points to God’s love and what Christians should be striving for in these lyrics.

“There's a fracture in a corner bar
In the back seat of a parked car
By the liquor store where the streetlights
Keep you company till the next night
In the same town there's the same scar
In the same glow of the liquor store
By the freeway where the headlights
Keep you company till the next night”

You can feel the pain and anguish in the lives that are being forgotten in the lonely and hurting in the bar. You can see the innocence being lost in the back of the car.

“In the back room of the Pentagon
There's a thin man with a line drawn
With a red jaw and the red bite
Watch the headline on the next night”

Politics or love? The review thinks it is politics. Maybe it is just a case of love. A love for one’s enemies, and an idea of life for everyone beyond war, violence, and murder. The album does dwell a little on materialism and consumerism. Is that such a bad thing? Did not the prophets of old warn of false idols? Did not Jesus speak about not being able to love both God and money?

Just look at today’s global economic crisis and see what materialism and consumerism has done to the world, to the poor, to the sick. Although the album and song received some poor reviews the band was right on where both Christians and non-Christians lives and love for God should be.

Full song lyrics here.