If you think that today’s music does not have enough meaning behind the lyrics, you’re not listening to the right music. If you desire a little more umph behind the words you’re listening to, look no farther than The Oh Hellos.
First off, any band that names one of their albums in reference to C.S. Lewis’ work is a pretty thoughtful Christian group. The theology and philosophy of that great Christian thinker is a wonderful source from which to develop your own ideas, and for a band, some great lyrics.
The album that I want to focus on today is Through the Deep, Dark Valley. Although there is at least one reference to C.S. Lewis on that album as well in the song ‘The Lament of Eustace Scrubb,’ the focus of the album, in my opinion, is on what it’s like to live as a Christian. Like really live as a Christian with every imperfection and mistake and shred of honest disappointment and doubt. I personally prefer the second half of the album, both musically and lyrically, and that is the half from which this review’s song of focus comes – ‘The Truth is a Cave.’
Before I dive into the lyrics, I must say that although I enjoy the band’s music, there are a few songs that get too big for me. I swear they must use 12 different guitars at the same time in some of their songs, and the chorus of yell-singing personally goes a bit too far for me. But not all of their songs are that big, and it is the more reducted songs that I enjoy most. (Addendum. All that noise is a lot of fun in concert)
Although it is clear that The Oh Hellos is a Christian group, they don’t smack you over the head with the Gospel message. Their songs are not specifically praise songs or anything quite that obvious. You can listen to many of their songs without realizing they have much religious connotation, but when you really listen to the lyrics, it becomes very clear. Again, I think that is probably because they are simply honest with their lyrics. They don’t employ trite little one-liners and Christian catch phrases that tip you off as to what you’re listening to.
But on to exploring what makes the song so excellent – or at least makes me think it’s one the best songs I’ve heard in a long time.
Here are the lyrics. Go ahead and listen to the song and read along:
Well I was young
I was young and naive
As I was told
As I was told so I believed
And I was told there’s only one road that leads you home
—
And the truth was a cave
On the mountain side
And I’d seek it out until the day I died
—
I was bound
I was bound and determined
To be the child
To be the child that you wanted
But I was blind to every sign you left for me to find
—
And the truth became a tool
That I held in my hand
And I wielded it but did not understand
—
I was tired
Of giving more than you gave to me
And I desired
A truth I wouldn’t have to seek
But in the silence I heard you calling out to me.
‘The Truth is a Cave’ is a song about faith. It’s as simple as that. But it’s not as simple as that. When is faith ever as simple as that? Never, that’s when. And always, that’s when. And I think this song encapsulates that paradox extremely well.
We see in the first stanza of the first verse what every child who grows up in a religious home experiences. Faith is told to us. It is given to us from our parents and our churches and our religious texts. And we don’t understand the complexities of what we believe, and we believe it because our parents told us about it, and our parents don’t lie to us, so it is truth. And it is the one and only truth, and we subscribe to our parent’s personal ideas about how the world works. And that’s fine for a time. But often we are fed this faith by people who haven’t really experienced it for themselves. Because they’ve never found it, they think it can’t truly be found at all, so they say things like “the truth is a cave.”
And even if they have a real faith of their own, faith is a tricky thing to share. I don’t think it can really be shared until both parties have it. So again, instead of kids sharing faith, they are told faith. And we (as the kids) don’t understand it, though we believe it. So we work at being good people, and following all the rules. We seek to please God but know that we mess up sometimes, and it is extremely frustrating wanting something but never meeting your own standards which must be infinitely lower than God’s standards. And so we don’t think we will ever be the child that God wants.
But we still have some sort of hold on the truth. And we wield it clumsily because it is far bigger than we could expect or understand. We become the people who I was in middle and high school. We are convinced we are right, often because we are, but we club people over the head with that rightness, not understanding how faith works because we still don’t truly have one of our own. We do more damage than good. Once again we become frustrated at how poor we are at being God’s children and sharing his goodness.
Finally, we get to a point where we are so completely exhausted of trying to do God’s will. It feels like God isn’t even trying to help. It’s like he gave us something good, but far bigger than we could handle, and just said, “Good luck!” And we get sick of putting in the effort and not seeing the positive cause and effect that we expect. We give up. We sit down. We stop trying so very hard because we stop trying at all. We’re ashamed that we failed, and we start to doubt if that faith we were told about as kids is real at all. Maybe we doubt if God is real at all. The essence of what we knew as absolute truth crumbles. Perhaps in this disappointment we become deeply depressed. What is real? What is true? What is the point of our lives? We want faith to be easy.
But faith is easy. In that unsettling rest, in that silence, God finally gives us a glimpse into real faith. Only when all of our parental expectations and preconceived notions about God slip away are we able to truly see him. And he is unbearably beautiful. In whispers, God tells us who he is. As he tells, so we believe. We again experience faith like a child. It’s that simple. But often we only realize that simplicity after an extremely difficult and painful journey.
Faith is simple. Getting there is not. Truth is real, objective. Understanding it is supremely personal and uncertain. And from this incredibly honest position was ‘The Truth is a Cave’ written. We as Christians, especially young Christians, should rid ourselves of our expectations of certainty.
Uncertainty is good. Uncertainty is vital. In the words of another Christian group, All Sons and Daughters, “Lord, I find you in the seeking. Lord, I find you in the doubt.” We must wrestle with these things on our own to find a faith that is our own. Let’s be honest. Let’s be real. Let our sincerity be our crown. And don’t think doubt is evidence of God’s absence. Doubt is an essential stepping stone on the path to a real faith. Embrace it.