Smelling the Color 9
Chris Rice is coming to both Chapel Hill and Winston Salem. While I have no idea who he is, apparently he's both talented and famous, at least among my friends. So at Crystal's prompting I downloaded some of his songs and I have to say, I'm impressed. I rarely take to music quickly, so that says something about his stuff.
One song of his in particular stuck out for me. It's called Smell the Color 9; the title refers to the singer's attempts to find God being as hard as "smelling the color 9." A few goofy lines aside (including an especially painful explanation of the metaphor at the end of the song) notwithstanding, I really like this song. It's full of lines about feeling left out in a crowd where everyone else seems to be so sure of their faith and not knowing what to believe except that there's Someone to believe in; these sentiments, to borrow a phrase from Chuck Klosterman, have never stopped making sense to me.
Of course, the overriding sentiment in the song is one of, if this makes any sense, optimistic impotence. This does a nice job of describing my life right now. I won't go into the details, but I've been sniffing and sniffing this last month or two and just can't quite locate the color 9.
But the upshot is that I'm finding more and more people who share and help me express this reality I'm experiencing. If nothing else, this helps ease the loneliness and at least make more sense out of the world. That's a good start.
One song of his in particular stuck out for me. It's called Smell the Color 9; the title refers to the singer's attempts to find God being as hard as "smelling the color 9." A few goofy lines aside (including an especially painful explanation of the metaphor at the end of the song) notwithstanding, I really like this song. It's full of lines about feeling left out in a crowd where everyone else seems to be so sure of their faith and not knowing what to believe except that there's Someone to believe in; these sentiments, to borrow a phrase from Chuck Klosterman, have never stopped making sense to me.
Of course, the overriding sentiment in the song is one of, if this makes any sense, optimistic impotence. This does a nice job of describing my life right now. I won't go into the details, but I've been sniffing and sniffing this last month or two and just can't quite locate the color 9.
But the upshot is that I'm finding more and more people who share and help me express this reality I'm experiencing. If nothing else, this helps ease the loneliness and at least make more sense out of the world. That's a good start.
posted by Nialator at 10:46 PM
1 Comments:
That an interesting way to put it, smelling the color 9, that is. I can certainly relate to those sentiments.
From my own experience I can say that finding and maintaing faith requires work on my part. When I tend to "coast" I notice than I tend to doubt more and ignore the divine, as it were.
Anyway, good post, I enjoyed it.
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