Here’s Another Story About The Invisible Mice

January 17, 2008, 10:30 am; posted by
Filed under Articles, David, Featured  | 5 Comments

My daughter loaned me The Ringing Bell a while back, the new Derek Webb CD, and after listening to it 30 times or so, I’m ready to review it.

It has everything that makes me both love and hate his newer music — great messages when you can decipher them, but lacking the fantastic vocals and rich varied musical sound that I used to love when he was with Caedmon’s Call. For starters, ever since he was criticized for using language that some find offensive in Christian music on a previous CD, Derek no longer prints his lyrics with his CDs, so it’s a bit of a guessing game.

The lead song, The End, starts out something like:

Here’s another story about the invisible mice
The elephant in the room jumping in the light
I so hate hesitating voices in the night
Here’s another story about the invisible wives

I know elephants are afraid of mice, and I have seen an elephant jump into a chandelier to escape a mouse on a cartoon once, but I don’t understand the invisible thing, or why possibly the farmer’s wives from 3 Blind Mice would get involved, and be invisible, unless it has to do with the fact that the mice are blind and can’t see the wives.

It’s pretty confusing.

After a dozen more times through, I thought it might say this instead:

Here’s another story about the invisible knights (KKK?)
The elephant in the room (taboo subject?) jumping in these lights (making headlines?)
Slow hate, hesitating voices in the night
Here’s another story about the invisible whites

If so, perhaps the song is about racism, but I guess we’ll never know until the song is deciphered.

What I do love about his music is the political stands:

Savior on Capital Hill is a biting commentary on our delusion that somehow selecting the right politician in an election is going to make things right for the Church. I love it. It ends with the line:

So don’t hold your breath or your vote until
you think you’ve finally found a savior up on Capital Hill.

I like Huckabee, but God doesn’t need him to win an election to further the Kingdom. They are two separate things.

Name is another great one.

They call you right
they call you left
they call you names of all your friends:
Baby don’t let ’em
don’t let ’em put a name on you!

My sentiments exactly.

There’s no categories just long stories waiting to be told
Don’t be satisfied when people sum you up with just one word.

I belong to no one but Christ and my allegiance answers only to Him.

This Too Shall Be Made Right is another song that explores some of the inequities that will be set right eventually when Jesus returns, as well as looking at our guilt on some of those issues.

Most of the rest of the CD was bland and unattractive to me, but the way the first song (The End) dovetails into the second (The Very End), switching to a beautiful orchestral piece featuring violins is beautiful and worth listening to.

Yeah, so there you have it.


Comments

5 Comments to “Here’s Another Story About The Invisible Mice”

  1. Steve on January 17th, 2008 10:31 am

    It’s definitely:

    Here’s another story about the invisible knives
    The elephant in the room trumpeting these lines

    From there on out, you’re on your own, and I suppose racism can’t be ruled out!

    My favorites on TRB are Savior on Capitol Hill, This Too Shall Be Made Right, and one you didn’t mention: I Don’t Want To Fight. I like the album in general, as there’s less of the odd straining vocals that made Mockingbird so strange, and I prefer the “live at peace” aspect of his pacifism to the confused moralizing that produced this lyric:

    There are two great lies that I have heard
    The day you eat the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die
    And that Jesus Christ was a white middle-class Republican
    And if you wanna be saved, you have to learn to be like Him

    Really, Derek? You hear that lie AND it’s up there with original sin? Huh?

    Anyway. Savior on Capitol Hill always makes me think of Huckabee, mostly because I don’t think the man himself recognizes much of a distinction, and I highly doubt most of his supporters do.

    Well, you can always trust the devil or a politician
    To be the devil or a politician
    But beyond that, friends, you’d best beware
    ‘Cause at the Pentagon bar, they’re an inseparable pair

    Webb supports Ron Paul, for what it’s worth.

  2. David on January 17th, 2008 1:13 pm

    Yeah, Derek gets a little weird for me with some stuff and sounds like he’s criticizing Bush with “combat boots and ten thousand dollar suits”. I like his other line you quoted though about Jesus not being a white middle class republican. I know it’s overstated but I understand the sentiment behind it. It can feel like Christianity has been co-opted by the Conservative movement and that there’s no room for free thinking Christians who don’t fit that mold.

  3. aaron.guest on January 18th, 2008 11:21 am

    I like the pseudo-love song, I Wanna Marry You All Over Again. Who else has always wanted to “read the Bible” and “make-out”?

  4. Erin on January 21st, 2008 5:23 pm

    Amen to David’s comment, and I also LOVE “I Wanna Marry You All Over Again.” It took a while for me to like this album as much as Mockingbird, though, but then Mockingbird was my first exposure to Derek Webb. The Rich Young Ruler on that album has been in my top 10 songs for quite some time.

  5. Steve on January 21st, 2008 6:02 pm

    I wrote about that song here.

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