We All Make Melody

If you’re a songwriter..and you’re trying to making things come alive that didn’t exist already, your greatest success in that field would be somebody humming that song on the way to work or listening to that song in the car dropping their kids off.

You want to be able to permeate everyday life with a melody.

Jack White on Seven Nation Army

On one hand, creators have a God-like characteristic: they make things that didn’t exist before…sort of. Jack is right. Seven Nation Army, technically, didn’t exist before he wrote it.

It’s easy to feel nervous talking this way because such statements are only one or two steps away from dethroning God of his ex-nihilo activity.

What White isn’t acknowledging in this clip is all the pre-existing earthly raw materials that he cannot take the credit for.

Guitar strings, the local music shop he bought his first guitar, his fingers, the pentatonic scale he inherited from his Western ancestors, his brain, his imagination, the origin of his desire to play, the divinely placed architecture of his life and up-bringing, his traumatic experiences, the social networks which opened the doors for The White Stripes in their hay-day, the “accidental” connections, major TV networks (MTV, ESPN, etc.), and even his sense of it even being meaningful that someone who hum his song in their car.

White is voicing something explicit though that artists get already: they’re makers. They already recognize their ability to create.

I believe they’re just one step ahead of many “non-artists.” For the non-artist, it’s easy to compartmentalize the “artist” in this god-like cupboard. And because the artist resides “there,” non-artists are “not there.”

Here is the problem though.

God made all of us creators. We all take the raw creation and fashion it to make something of the days of our lives. We all have worldviews, we all use words, we all create moments with those around us, we give (or don’t give) birthday presents, we make food for ourselves and others, we make work and in exchange we receive money.

Art is never the work of mere artists.

We’re all called to bless others, to put a melody of God’s kingdom in someone’s imagination.