Tuesday 26 November 2013

'Touch The Air': Explained

I guess my first thought I want to share, is how I am learning to be a song-writer. Yes I can say I have been penning for many years now, but I still have lots to learn.

One has to find the balance, I find, between what certain reviewers are looking for and who I am trying to be. Yes I want to convey a message, but sometimes I do want an air of mystery about some of the lyrics I write so the listener can chew on what perhaps the meaning is.

I do think a storyline is important and whilst I do my best to communicate this properly within a song there may be the odd track which seems disjointed in it's story -such as Touch The Air for example. I realise that most song titles appear in the track itself but Touch The Air, is a concept and on this occasion, does not.
These are the lyrics:

He's tangible, beyond physical
As real as your skin and mine
He's spiritual and material
like the gravity your feet find

The first two lines I think are quite clear, but perhaps not the next two lines as such..
I have linked spiritual and material (another form of invisible and visible) to gravity (another form of the seen and unseen [eg throw an apple, we see it come down]). That which your feet finds -I liken to simply stamping my feet. My foot is in the air -it finds gravity and ends up on the floor. Our feet need to find gravity otherwise we would be floating -like on the moon.

He's oxygen, like the air we breathe
Invisible but known to all
As the source of our existence
Who can deny lest we fall?

"He's Oxygen" yes, this may be a reference one has heard about God many times, but it fits with the whole concept of the reality of the unseen -which is what this song is about. Who can deny oxygen? No one can. If we deny ourselves of it, we fall. We die. This here talks about this life as we know it and the invisible life that lies beyond death of our mortal bodies.

The next part of the song I give special importance to this aspect.

Then you find a slower mid-part of the song which seemingly talks about a completely unrelated topic. The lyrics are:
Show me the way I should go
Your hand will guide me
Not [necessarily] in the way I think
Your ways are higher

This is essentially about faith and faith, according to the book of Hebrews in the Bible (chapter 11 v1) is about believing in the things you hope for, being certain of what you cannot see. So in my mind, this section fits with the theme of Touch The Air, for the person cannot see the way forward. She is experiencing a battle of faith and substance:- "I cannot see -but I will trust your unseen hand to guide me" (which in the end, things become seen as things unfold). This battle we experience in the song when the style changes and the pace quickens, coming to a resolute end -hence come in the trumpets as the sound of victory, as they bring the battle to an end. She has come to a place of peace.


It is a two-fold message this song: One to the unbeliever to reach out and believe and one to the Christian who in a different way, may need to reach out and believe.

I have to learn to let go of my natural ways of thinking and be open to a new thing, a new way, a new mindset and attitude which, coming from God, is higher than mine.

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