​By Jeffrey Alexander Martin Sunday, December 16, 2018

Are you ready for the next installment of my series for 88.9 Hey Radio? Today I think we will go with dark emotion.
I had never heard of Zahna. You probably haven't either. That's because Zahna didn't exist before 2017. Here's how she introduces herself on her website:

Zahna is a female Christian Hard Rock solo artist based out of San Antonio, TX, and is also known as Suzy Martinez, the former front-woman of national touring band "ILIA". After separation with ILIA in 2016, Martinez debuted as Zahna in Mid 2017. Fusing gritty, industrial guitar riffs with technical drum elements, the San Antonio-based vocalist shines her aggressive vocal style, giving birth to the powerful active rock she now claims as her own.

She was also married in late 2018, which means that she now has another name. Zahna is a woman of many names. Her first album was released in 2018 with Rockfest Records, "Red for War". There is one song of hers that has really been climbing the charts and I want to take a look at the lyrics to see what I can see. Here is "Drown".

(Why?)
It was a frail dream now
A beautiful disease
Live or die, right by each other’s sides
Until you brought your gun up to my knife
Here we start the process to divide
Words and music become real life
The broken family, victims of pride

(So just go)
Go ahead find somebody new
Go and look for the love that you blew
(So just go)
Go find whatever you’re looking for
Go ahead and leave me here on the floor
(So just go)
Go take that step you say that you need
Go ahead let the world finally bleed
(So just go)
Go break and let it fall to the ground
Go ahead and just leave me to drown

You know that you’re a Runaway
I know you run from your problems
When you can’t find another way
You’re lost and you can’t resolve them
In your mind you’re satisfied
Exchanging truth for lies and biding time
But I will always be the one to take the blame for this, so remember what I said

(So just go)
Go ahead find somebody new
Go and look for the love that you blew
(So just go)
Go find whatever you’re looking for
Go ahead and leave me here on the floor
(So just go)
Go take that step you say that you need
Go ahead let the world finally bleed
(So just go)
Go break and let it fall to the ground
Go ahead and just leave me to drown

Runaway, Runaway, cut your words carefully
Justify, Justify, ‘cause it’s just like you
It’s so like you
It’s so like you
It’s so like you (justify, justify, you run away)
(Liar!)
It’s so like you (you justify, justify, you run away)
(Liar!)
It’s so like you (justify, justify, you run away)
Justify everything

(So just go)
Go ahead find somebody new
Go and look for the love that you blew
(So just go)
Go find whatever you’re looking for
Go ahead and leave me here on the floor
(So just go)
Go take that step you say that you need
Go ahead let the world finally bleed
(So just go)
Go ahead and just leave me to drown!

- - - - - - -

Well, an emotionally intense and dark song, possibly a bit depressing. In general I get a feeling of working to accept closure and moving on from a broken relationship. I'm not going to dig too deeply here, but I think there is something more here.

Those first four lines set a beautiful picture, a beautiful scene. "(Why?) It was a frail dream now. A beautiful disease. Live or die, right by each other’s sides." I get it. I've been there. Living in a dream relationship that's more of a fantasy than a reality. When it's all falling apart you really are screaming why. I think most people with a bit of life experience probably can see this scene in their memories.

What happens next is a bit different. "Until you brought your gun up to my knife. Here we start the process to divide. Words and music become real life. The broken family, victims of pride." I don't fully get the gun and knife thing. Maybe it's a reference to bringing a knife to a gun fight. I guess it probably is. Those odd little phrases, called idioms, can be quite powerful, and this one is too. Or, it could be a more personal and more literal line. I'm not sure which. I guess we can probably assume it's metaphorical. But, the scene that pops into my mind when I listen to it is of a real gun and real knife. It's an intense moment.

These first eight lines really set the stage for the whole song, this is the substance. She paints this scene and she paints it well. The rest of the song is fallout from that scene.

Why is this connecting so strongly with people? I think it's because the scene is easy to picture, the scene is emotionally intense, a lot of people can relate to this emotionally intense scene, and they like the music too.

There's also something else here, possibly, maybe. It's hidden in the song. It isn't really stated. When you're telling someone to leave you're also telling them you don't need them. There is a secret strength hidden in the song saying "I will recover and be fine on my own. (After I get done temporarily drowning is my sadness)."

Do you see the same things as me? Do you like the song? Let me know.
https://www.zahnaofficial.com/
​
Jeff Martin
JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com
​

​By Jeffrey Alexander Martin Tuesday, December 04, 2018
​
This will probably be an intellectually intense article. The exploration of depth in lyrics.

I am going to predict right now that Amongst the Giants becomes one of the leading Christian rock bands in the United States in the next 5 years. They have the talent, skill, connections, know-how, and (as we will see here) depth. They have a great name, they have a great logo (I saw a picture of someone that already has it as a tattoo), they have excellent merchandise packages on their website, and they have all of their lyrics on their website (which I love) at https://www.amongstthegiants.com/

Amongst the Giants is a metalcore band from South Florida. Metalcore is a mix between heavy metal and hardcore punk, so it's pretty heavy rock. They released their first album, "Obscene", in 2018 with Rockfest Records. My two favorite songs are "Too Late" and "Lost in Translation". Today we will be looking at "Lost in Translation". Here are the lyrics. Then I will have a lot to say about them.

- - - - - - -

(Intro)
Confidence in the dissonance and all my words
get lost in the translation -- translation

(Verse)
Stop throwing your false accusations
When you’re unsure of what’s fact or fiction
Let the truth speak for itself
Listen up and stop dwelling on empty lies, empty lies
When you see the motivation
You’d be inspired in the blink of an eye
All of the things that you’ve said
Would be forgotten if you gave us a chance to speak

(Chorus)
Tonight this ends, I've done all I can do
To prove the weight behind these words
But they're wasted on you
You say that I'm fake and that's alright
I can't make you see inside
When you pretend to know who I am

(Verse)
To all the ones who are capped at zero
To all the young who are silenced now
To all the scared who are ready to speak your minds
Now is the time to rise

Set apart from all the lies
Breaking through to shaded eyes
Comforted amongst the truth
Bring it in, let freedom come
Free to speak your mind
Free to speak

Oh no there’s another offense line
don’t tell me now, is it what I implied?
There’s always gonna be another opinion
But now I see the verdict’s centered on crooked judgement
And maybe we’re just another example of faulty scapegoats
Did you ever stop to recognize the truth I speak, it resonates in your hearts

But at the end of the day there will always be a price on my head

(Chorus)
Tonight this ends, I've done all I can do
To prove the weight behind these words
But they're wasted on you
You say that I'm fake and that's alright
I can't make you see inside
When you pretend to know who I am

(Bridge)
Just hear me out, not all of us are hypocrites
Just hear me out, we’re not all the same

Prove to me I’m a liar
Prove to me I’m what you say

From cycle to cycle I’ve been at my best and my worst
Clenching on to everything I hold dear to my heart
And you come with open mouth and closed mind
Judging abundantly and denied
Ever saying you were the one who scoffed
Who’s the hypocrite now

(Chorus)
Tonight this ends, I've done all I can do
To prove the weight behind these words
But they're wasted on you
You say that I'm fake and that's alright
I can't make you see inside
When you pretend to know who I am

(Outro)
So go and waste away in your shallow thoughts
I won't waste my time on people like you

- - - - - - -
The intro starts off talking about confidence in the dissonance and things lost in translation, which is what the title of the song is referring to. What does all of this mean? Confidence comes from the Latin con fidere and means "with faith". Confidence essentially means not questioning. What is this thing we're not questioning? The dissonance. Dissonance means inconsistency, contradiction, or lack of harmony. Cognitive dissonance is when you realize a contradiction in yourself, usually a contradiction in your beliefs. We can often ignore these, but sometimes we can't. The same thing happens between people, when we're in communication with another.

The meaning of translation here is revealed over the whole song. This is true of all narratives. You have to watch all of the scenes of a movie, or read all of the parts of a book, to understand the meaning of the story in the end. You can only understand the story if you've been through all of the parts, but you can only understand the meaning of the whole thing in the end. This is true in stories and in life. Life is a story, a fully embodied narrative. Anyway, translation here isn't about changing something from one language to another literally. It's about communication in a more general way.

The process of communication starts in an individual when they sense and perceive something. Imagine that as a corner of a triangle. The next point of the triangle is the mental picture, image, or concept that they form of that perception. The last point of the triangle is when the person tries to transmit that concept through speaking, writing, or drawing. Notice that there are three points where communication can go wrong before we even add another person into the equation. The idea of this triangle is called the Semantic Triangle.

When we are in communication we do this process in reverse. Ideally the two triangles come together and reflect each other. I call this squaring the triangle and it forms the Semantic Square. Here's how it works. A person hears a word, or sees a word, or sees a picture. This is the first point of their triangle. This brings up an image, idea, concept, in their mind. This is the second point of the triangle. The last point is when and if they can then compare that concept back to a perception through their senses.

As you can see, even this basic idea of communication is no simple matter. Well, there's the intro. Let's take a look at the first verse.

The first verse starts off talking about false accusations from someone that doesn't know what's fact or fiction. I think this is really pointing to a major social problem that humans have been dealing with for a couple thousand years. We haven't figured out how to solve it and this problem just keeps getting worse. Here's the problem, humans do well at cooperating and interacting when we live in individualized groups where we actually know the people we're interacting with. But, we don't do so great when we're in anonymous communities where we don't know the people we're interacting with. Add to that the idea of Dunbar's Number, which is that we can only really maintain stable relationships with about 150 people (obviously this fluctuates from person to person, but that doesn't matter so much because the basic problem of a low limit still remains). This means that in public we are dealing with people we don't know that don't know us and this causes problems, especially in communication and understanding.

The truth speaking for itself is promoting the idea of not misrepresenting something, which is so easy to do in these anonymous communities that we live in. Lies are empty when there is nothing to back them up. They are problems, but full lies are bigger problems. True dialogue can only happen when we are willing to be genuine and are seeking depth in truth.

Now, when we start talking about seeing someone's motivation and judging them upon it we are getting onto some interesting ground in ethics. This is about intentions versus consequences. Should we judge people based upon their intentions or the consequences? Here the song lyrics are pointing us towards the intentions, the motivations. The basic idea here is that interactions are iterative, they happen over and over. Life is lived across time, not in a moment. We must factor all of these future moments into our judgments. By having good intentions we give ourselves the chance to correct our errors and get better and better over time. That's why we should judge people based upon their intentions. Most people agree with this and act like this, in individualized groups at least.

We are on to the chorus. Tonight this ends is talking about breaking interaction with someone after having tried all that you can try. This only makes sense. We essentially have three possible ways we can interact; we can cooperate, compete, or disengage. If we can't cooperate it's often best to disengage. There is a danger here of closing yourself off from all that you don't understand. Engaging with challenge in all its forms is important to growth, but conflict isn't usually a good thing to seek either.

Weight is interesting here because it means both truth and importance. People cannot look into each other. We can try, we can work to understand each other, and to a large extent we are made to do that. But, you definitely can't make someone else put forth the effort to do that. Experience is singular, it's experienced as an individual. We have autonomy, but not over others. We have to allow for them to use their autonomy to engage in cooperative communication with us. We have a locus of control, and the depths of another person's mind should not be something that you can control.

The second verse contains quite a lot. Being capped at zero is very bad. It's very hard to go from zero to one. It's much easier to get more if you already have some. Peter Thiel talks about this in the context of business in his book "Zero to One" where he's talking about inventing new technology. This is the whole point of the Matthew Effect, which works with money, fame, status, and so much more. Jesus talks about it in the Parable of Talents, "For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." These ideas are sometimes called virtuous circles and vicious cycles. In economics it's called accumulative advantage. In math there are a number of power laws dealing with this like the Pareto distribution (the 80/20 law), Zipf's law, and Price's square root law. The basic idea is that you don't want to be at zero. These are the dispossessed that exist in all societies in all of history.

It's good to address the young, because they own the future. They have the most potential. It's also important that the not young lead the way, but it's good to address the young when you want changes in the future. You can be silenced for two reasons: 1 - you are not allowed to speak, 2 - you don't allow yourself to speak. This silencing of the young is addressed in the next line where it talks about being scared. If you're scared to speak it can be a legitimate fear of reprisals. That's a hard position. Or, it can be a false fear that you should face. The best way to beat fear is exposure. Exposure that is at the right pace so you can adjust to it. The fear won't necessarily go down, but you will develop more courage in the face of fear and gain the ability and capacity to act. Now is the time is usually a good idea, because even if it isn't a great time for something there is a larger danger of falling into procrastination. Which, I don't know about you, but for me it's far too easy to stay there when I fall in.

Seeing the truth is often associated with the metaphor of being exposed to light. The idea of Plato's Cave is about this where a man steps out of the dark cave and can't see anything for a moment while his eyes adjust. I'm not sure about being comforted by the truth. Sometimes the truth is comforting, sometimes it is the opposite. So, I think that's contextual.

There are two very interesting lines here where the song states "Free to speak your mind" followed by "Free to speak". This is important. Thought occurs in words. They are like the software of our minds, or better, one of the software languages that our minds use to think. We develop the ability to speak socially. Lev Vygotsky developed this idea of the social development of the mind. It's about being around a "more knowing other" who exposes you to the right amount of information so that you can learn, this is called the "zone of proximal development." Adults do this with children naturally, we speak to children just above their current level of understanding, that way their skill and ability grows. Jerome Bruner expanded on this idea and called it "scaffolding" in education. If we limit freedom of association, interaction, and speech we not only limit these things, we literally limit the ability to think and the ability to develop the capacity for thought. This is huge! The freedom to speak is the freedom to speak your mind is the freedom to think.

The very next line talks about being offensive in a funny way. Then we jump into the idea of things being implied versus explicit. This is legitimate, it does happen and it does happen often. Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis in psychology, talks about conversations happening on two levels. It's often the problem that foreign language speakers have in the new language. They understand what's being said but not what's not being said, especially through things like half-spoken idioms (weird phrases) where everyone knows what you mean, except the people who don't. The legitimate idea of implied communication can be used in a disingenuous way where you just say that whenever people say something you don't like you tell them that they are implying something else. It's a dangerous version of communication for both sides. It's difficult to correctly balance these scales, especially when you add in the diversity of perspective, experience, and value.

"There's always going to be another opinion" is just a truth. There are so many in today's world, and even yesterday's world, that one of the most important skills in life is the ability to ignore things, to filter your own intake.

A verdict is only legitimate if the judge isn't crooked. If the judge is corrupt or bias then the verdict cannot be the legitimate authority. So, if someone is doing these things in their communication with you then their opinion isn't founded on solid ground anyway.

Rene Girard has written quite a lot about scapegoats. It's a complex phenomenon, and it's also very human. They feature prominently in his theory of society called mimetic theory. A scapegoat is someone that is falsely accused of something and sacrificed. Girard lays this social mechanism as the very foundation of society itself, and the Bible as revealing this process for what it is and denouncing it. The fact that the song says "faulty scapegoats" is interesting, but I'll let us both continue to think about that one in silence.

Recognizing truth is not a simple thing. Knowledge is emergent over time. Endel Tulving talks about the three levels of knowledge and how it develops. First there is procedural knowledge. We can act things out before we can communicate them, or represent them, or think about them. The action comes first. This even applies to complex things. Jaak Panksepp has shown that even rats have a sense of fairness built into their interactions when they play and wrestle. We act out very complex truths. Next is episodic knowledge. We have a memory of a scene, or there is a picture, or a painting, or an image. We remember how the action worked and we can represent this. Finally there is semantic knowledge. This is where we abstract things into words. Now we can speak about them. But there is a danger here. The base of the knowledge in procedure and episode, in action and image, can't be lost or we will end up talking about untrue things. (As an aside, notice how narrative stories use semantic knowledge through words to convey episodic knowledge in scenes of procedural knowledge in the behavior patterns across the story. Amazing! That's why I love stories.)

Truth resonating in the heart is great symbology. I see it as words penetrating the person and having a direct effect on their heart. We need this, and we are built for this. When Adam Smith made his proposal for capitalism most people don't realize that he was a moral philosopher before that. He said that a free society can only work if the people have sympathy (now we would more use the word empathy) for one another. We need this to cooperate. We need ideas, beliefs, and values that we can empathize with in each other. We have something in our brains called mirror neurons. The purpose of these is so that we can feel what another person is feeling. Empathy is built right into us.

"But at the end of the day there will always be a price on my head". I'm still trying to unpack that line. It's right next to scapegoating, so it's obviously talking about that. I will leave this, but I will point this out before I do. Jesus had a price on his head. Jesus was a local scapegoat for Jews and Romans. Jesus was also a scapegoat in a much larger sense.

We will jump over the chorus and end up on the bridge.

It's almost a pleading to be heard, to show that they aren't a hypocrite. This is such a desire to be understood. For someone to understand the structure of their thoughts and beliefs and how they align with their actions. It also points out that the group they identify with aren't all the same. Even when people are part of a group they are still individuals. Groups are groups of something, the individual is the right level of analysis for beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and values when we can do it. Just because someone is involved with a group doesn't mean the group is homogenous. That would be quite a rare circumstance.

"Prove to me I'm a liar", "Prove to me I'm what you say". These are interesting lines back to back. They are asking to be shown their own contradictions, and if you can't show these then you can't show the propositions to be false. And, when the other person proposes something they are asking for proof. These need to be read together otherwise they could be taken as contradictory themselves. What we're talking about here is who has the burden of proof and how you find out if something is wrong. Karl Popper is the greatest philosopher of science in history. His primary idea is that we don't prove and verify a theory, we disprove and refute theories. If we can't refute it, that adds to its force as a theory to work with in the future. Just something to think about.

Life can be seen as a cycle, or even a cycle of cycles. At one point we may be our best selves and at another our worst. This is true of an individual and a society. The Old Testament can be read as the story of the cyclical rise and fall of the state of Israel.

We do clench onto the things we hold dear. This is all about value hierarchies. We all operate off of value hierarchies all of the time, without this it would be completely impossible to act. At the very top of the value hierarchy are the things we love, indeed, this can be seen as a definition of love itself.

Open mouths and closed minds is a bad state to be in. It leads to error. It's not fun to be on the other side either. These errors are themselves cycles. There is a great paper that is starting an in-depth exploration of what many of these error cycles really mean at the biggest level called "Toward a General Theory of Error Cycles" by Jorg Guido Hulsmann. The people that have these open mouths and closed minds are great at judging, but bad at finding the truth, and thus they are often denied in many ways. I'm not sure I'm understanding the scoffed at part quite right. It seems to me that these same people often claim that they are scoffed at, but because of their closed minds they tend to do a lot of scoffing of other people, which is quite hypocritical.

To take another look at the chorus, to waste words on someone has a cost to it. Not just the potential cost of lost energy and the build up of emotional frustration, but also the lost opportunities. The other things that you could have been effective and useful at. In economics this is called opportunity cost and it applies to everything in life. At some point you just have to walk away. If someone is pretending to know who you are but they won't actually engage with you, then you're probably at that point. Now, it's important to realize that we all live in a world that is too complex for us. Ries and Trout talk about the business implications of this in "Positioning". We have to simplify. One of the ways to simplify is to take the group identity of someone and assume that as their whole identity. This is obviously wrong, but to manage the complexity of the world we have to reduce it down. And, it works, somewhat. It's not entirely wrong, it's just not as right as it could be if you engage with someone on a personal level to understand them. To a large extent that's what this whole song is about.

The outro also talks about this idea of wasting time, this opportunity cost. "Shallow thoughts" is interesting because to a large extent depth in thought comes from questioning things. This questioning of ideas, this doubt, is the opposite of confidence, which is where we started in the intro. I really like how they brought that back around. In public speaking I usually refer to this as bracketing, coming back around to your opening statement in your last statement. "Shallow thoughts" can also refer to thoughts that aren't important, thoughts that don't focus on things of value. In this case depth in thought would be something like focusing on the maximal challenge that you can confront and be competent at that has the most value. This is where meaning is found. This meaning orientation is a major part of being human. Psychologists from Viktor Frankl to Jordan Peterson emphasize how important this is. And really, both of these ideas about depth, depth in understanding and meaning, are important.

Wow! Ok, that was a lot of stuff. I think more could be gained from this, but I'm not sure how much more I could really pull from it and articulate well. I think this clearly shows how much depth there can be in lyrics though. I think a lot of people see hard rock, especially this type where there is a lot of screaming and such, as a rather shallow and non-intellectual activity. It can be, but it doesn't have to be, and Amongst the Giants really shows that here in these lyrics. I would love to hear their take on this crazy breakdown I've given, so if you know them or get a chance - shoot them this article and tell them to get back to me. I'm curious what they would say.

Jeff Martin
JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

-

By Jeffrey Alexander Martin Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Welcome to the second edition of my articles for 88.9 Hey Radio. I'm going to focus on a narrative this week, we shall see how that goes.


Last time I inset the article itself, and then inset the lyrics inside of that. I'm going to do that again.

- - - - - - -
Set For The Fall is from North Carolina and you can hear that hard southern rock sound in their music. They released their first album in 2016, and it looks like they do quite a lot of touring, at least their schedule over the next few months is packed. The music is a nice mix of rock sounds, but I'm going to take a look at one song in particular.

3 Nails is from that original 2016 release and the music video has their most views on Youtube. The song has some narrative to it, but the music video has a lot of narrative to it. I like stories, and this is a good one, that's why I like it. Here are the lyrics. Then, I will probably have a few things to say about the story.

- - - - - - -
I cut my teeth on the lies that I built
And I nearly choked to death on my own guilt
Now I said some hurtful things

I can't relieve the pain
I need forgiveness for mistakes I've made

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

He broke the chains that have held my wrist
He gave me strength when I had nothing left
And He rights the wrongs I made
Another chance for me
With every breath I take
His name I'll proclaim

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken
I cut my teeth on the lies that I built
And I nearly choked to death on my own guilt
Now I said some hurtful things
I can't relieve the pain
I need forgiveness for mistakes I've made

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

He broke the chains that have held my wrist
He gave me strength when I had nothing left
And He rights the wrongs I made
Another chance for me
With every breath I take
His name I'll proclaim

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Hide from yourself
Cause you can't hide
From those scales
And when you lie
The hurt is felt
As your body lies broken
By your own three nails

Broken
Broken
As your body lies broken

- - - - - - -
This is extremely interesting, because, if you watch the video it's obvious that they are doing a modern interpretation of the crucifixion and resurrection. But, that's significantly less obvious in just the lyrics.

I have to make an aside here and address the 3 nails part of 3 Nails. The Romans crucified lots and lots of people, but there is still a lot of debate about how exactly they did it. 3 Nails, if we are looking at the crucifixion story, is talking about a nail in each hand and one nail through both feet from the front. It has been depicted like that, but I'm pretty sure the evidence from human remains that have been found show that it's more likely that it was either 2 nails or 4 nails. Either, the arms were only tied to the crossbeam and both heels were nailed on either side of the upright beam, or there were two nails for the hands or wrists, probably while also being tied, and also one for each heel. Alas, that is less important than you think.

Lies, guilt, hurt, pain, breaking, and forgiveness. That's what the song is about. In the song the 3 nails represent things we have done to ourselves, lies we have told, things we have to feel guilty about, and things we want to hide from. These are the things that break us, the things that we bring upon ourselves. Not only do they have the capacity to break our material selves, but more importantly they have the ability to break our spiritual selves. But, redemption is possible.

Now, we are diving into some deep issues here, meaning of life level stuff. Maybe that's too far for song lyrics, maybe songs are just to be enjoyed and then we move on, but I don't think it's too far, I don't think it's possible to go too far.

The song tells us that you can hide from yourself, but not from the scales. These scales are obviously the scales of justice, but not the scales of justice from the court system, these are the holy scales of justice. And, the song tells us that you can find strength even when you have nothing left. This immediately brings to my mind two psychologists.

The first is Jordan Peterson who firmly believes and states that no bad deed goes unpunished. He uses examples like the wedding of Jacob and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. He's talking about these same scales of justice. I'll let you explore that further if you like. (Peterson also talks about the value of taking up your cross and bearing it. That part is skipped in this songs narrative, which I think is a powerful piece. Although, I do believe that some historians believe that crucifixion victims usually only carried the crossbeam and the vertical beams were usually left in place. Which could be viewed as diminishing the symbol, but I think we could view it as an enhancement as well. You bear your piece of the cross to the other piece of the cross that is waiting for you to complete it.)

The second is Viktor Frankl. He talks about how there is meaning in all circumstances, how meaning is unconditional. But, when you've had everything taken away and you don't have any hope of fixing it, what meaning is there? The meaning is within you, in your ability to change, not your outside circumstances, but your ability to change what's inside of you. You can be materially broken and spiritually redeemed and fulfilled at the same time.

I like songs where there are layers of meaning to them, and this song is one of those. Check out SetForTheFall.com, listen to their songs, and let me know what you think.

Jeff Martin

By Jeffrey Alexander Martin Tuesday, November 13, 2018
88.9 Hey Radio is a Christian rock station that broadcasts from North Muskegon, Michigan. I often listen to them. They are a volunteer organization. Last month I reached out to them to see if there is something I can help with. Bill and I worked something out, I am going to work on writing articles about new bands and songs, and such.


I've been pondering how to approach this for the last few days. I'm still not sure how I am coming at this, but nevertheless it is getting approached today.

The band this week is Tetelestai, so let's dive in and see how it goes.

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What is Tetelestai? One, it's a five person metal band from Buffalo, NY. Two, it's the last word spoken by Jesus on the cross meaning, "it is finished." There can be so much contained in a name.
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Tetelestai, the band, describes its mission like this, "With so much hate and despair in the world today, Tetelestai aims to bring the message of hope and love through their music." They released a 6 track EP in 2017 called "Out of This Alive". You can see the videos on their website https://www.tete
lestaiband.com/.

Let's take a look at the lyrics of the title track, "Out of This Alive".

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Run Away Run Away
Try To Stay Alive
Run Away Run Away
Just To Survive
This Isn't A Game
This Is Your Life
Stop Living A Lie
You're Running Out Of Time

Chorus:
You Can Fight
But How Will You Survive
You're Still Blind
It's Killing Killing Killing You Inside
You Can Hide
Salvation Waiting On The Other Side
Hear His Voice
It's The Only Way Out Of This Alive

Run Away Run Away
Get Out Of Sight
Run Away Run Away
Head Towards The Light.
You've Heard The Truth.
Take That Advice
If You Want This To Change
It's Time To Make A Choice

Chorus:

Chorus:  
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You can see that despair, like they say in their mission statement, definitely plays a role. I would probably call it desperation. A being pushed to your only choice, rather than a being drawn towards something. If you are desperate you can move away from that which is making you desperate, you can move away from that which is causing your despair, and there is only one direction to go. That's what I'm pulling from these lyrics. That's not all that it contains, but I think that's the most obvious message.

Let's take a look at the other music video that they have on their website, "Never Alone".

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Go!

Another Day Goes By
I Try To Make It On My Own
Seems Nothing Will Go Right
I Get Back Up To Fall

The Walls Are Closing In
The World Is Crumbling Beneath
The Air Is Growing Thin
With You Were Strong Enough To Stand

The Armor
Defenders
Your Power
To Save Us

We Fight This War
Never Alone
You're By Our Side
You're By Our Side
We Fight This War
Never Alone

The Darkness Taking Over (Covers Me)
Struggling For The Answer (One Last Breath)
My Hands Out To Your Light (Reaching Up)
I'm Forgiven In The End

We Fight This War
Never Alone
You're By Our Side
You're By Our Side
We Fight This War
Never Alone

The Armor
Defenders
Your Power
To Save Us (Soft)

Soft:
We Fight This War
Never Alone
You're By Our Side
You're By Our Side
We Fight This War
Never Alone

We Fight This War
Never Alone
You're By Our Side
You're By Our Side
We Fight This War
Never Alone

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You can hear how the song starts in that same despair and desperation, in this case I would call it frustration, but then pretty quickly the song starts to focus more on that message of hope.

Telestai's bassist Marci tore her achilles tendon in November 2018, so I would guess that they are going to be taking it easy for a couple of months while that heals. It's a perfect time to listen to them, see what you think, and let me know.

Jeff Martin
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We'll see what Bill thinks of that. It doesn't go into depth, but it isn't a short blurb either. I gave it a more personal feel, without making it just about my opinions. Since I'm not a musician I didn't delve into the style of the music other than mentioning that they are a metal band, and I think that's reasonable because many people like talking about riffs, but just as many, and maybe more, like talking about lyrics. The lyrics give a nice intro to the band, and the little personal note about Marci lets people connect with an individual a little more deeply. I'm not sure how Bill is going to want to end it. I ended it by encouraging comments and putting my name like a letter, but it might be better to do that differently depending on where this is going.

I'm not sure if this will end up being a longterm engagement with 88.9 Hey Radio or not, but it certainly is an interesting experience either way.

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