Lyrics: Oh My Son
Your first act was unholy retribution,
You followed it up by following your blind ambition,
You used deceit to get the nations on your side,
And though you hated me for you I would have died, Oh my son...
You had it all the looks, no blemish, your perfect hair,
But underneath it all you proved an unworthy heir,
Oh will this sword from my house ever take its leave?
And though I love you son they say I mustn't grieve! Oh my son!
My son, my son, oh my son,
You died in vain for your own childish rebellion,
What did you feel while you were hanging from that tree?
The pride of your life became your ultimate defeat, oh my son!
You were born to humble means,
The line of kings You came from was a distant memory,
They wouldn't believe Your teaching, they couldn't accept Your signs,
And though I loved You, Son, I knew You'd have to die, oh My Son...
You had no stately form that men should look upon,
But underneath You were the only Holy One,
You asked Me to take this cup, but surrendered to My will,
And that obedience is what led You to be killed, oh My Son!
My Son, My Son, oh My Son,
Your death was not in vain, it saved this world's rebellion,
I know You felt forsaken, hanging from that tree,
Your final breath dealt death it's ultimate defeat, oh My Son!
Oh My Son, You paid the ransom,
Oh My Son, You conquered death,
Oh My Son, You brought fulfillment,
Oh My Son, the shadows have left,
Oh My Son, soon I will send You,
Oh My Son, to bring them back, Oh My Son!
Music: I am not what you would call a classically trained musician. I took guitar lessons first from my dad, who taught me everything he knows, quite literally, and then from Mr. Malloy, who was not so much a guitar teacher as a general music teacher, and sounded like Napoleon Dynamite, and then from my brother Jordan, who promptly got married and stopped teaching guitar. All that to say, I don't always know what I'm doing, musically speaking, but I can tell when something sounds good. In this case, it was keeping an E in the bass while moving from a B to a C# to a D to an E on the second string, and adding a G# to an A# to a B to a C# on the high E string, which roughly translates to "This song sounds dagstinkin' awesome," to borrow a phrase from Beethoven... And then for the "chorus sort of thing" I used open chords, where you just take the E formation and move it up and down the neck, which are a staple for my father, who has never touched a bar chord with a ten-foot pole, and just sound sensational... If all my songs were made up of open chords, I'd be fine with that... Anyways, for fear of boring you with unnecessary details, suffice it to say that my musical style is "whatever comes into my head," and "whatever sounds good to me," and we can move on to the deep and well-textured meaning behind this song...
Explanation: So a while back I was reading through II Samuel, which tells the story of David once he finally becomes king, and naturally I was drawn to the character of David's son, Absalom, who had hair that weighed 200 shekels when he cut it every year. Now that's something I could relate to... A once a year haircut... My middle school self would have killed for a once a year haircut, free from the evil cutters, and ending with a hair weigh-in that would show the sheer volume of my incredible locks... But anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, so I kept reading about this man Absalom, and it turns out he was kind of a major dirtbag. Even the good things about him: his handsome appearance and propensity for leadership, went straight to his head and were used for his own selfish gain. The first major story we read about him he is murdering his brother for revenge, later he fake apologizes to his all-too-merciful father and then gets people on his side by acting like he's a man of the people, and after that he did some not so nice things with several women on top of the king's house, and by that time I was totally not on board with Absalom, no matter how much his hair weighed.
So he uses his sneaky, sniveling, conniving ways to become King of Israel for a short time, there's a war, and eventually his army has been defeated, and while he's riding through the woods his hair gets caught in a tree (which, again, I can relate to...) and so he's a sitting duck for Joab, who puts a spear through him. But the thing that got me was after all that, after all the back-stabbing and public shame and just general awfulness of pride that defined Absalom, David was still completely broken up when he heard of his death. This son who had disgraced him, had been the complete opposite of a man after God's own heart, was a son David still loved, and would have died to save. And even then, David was told he couldn't grieve. And so the heart of this song really comes out of David's cries, "Oh my son, my son Absalom, oh my son! If only I had died in your place! Oh Absalom my son!"
And so I started writing this song about a man weeping for his son who had been wretched and spiteful and generally just not a nice person. But then I started to think, "If David as a father wept and wished he could have died in the place of his imperfect and disrespectful son, how did God the Father feel about His One and Only Son, Who was perfect, Who was holy, Who willingly laid His own life down?" If anyone deserved to die, it was definitely Absalom, and yet Jesus died for sins He didn't even commit. And so the song about one father-son relationship turned into a song of parallels between that and the Father-Son relationship that is the basis of our entire faith. I do tend to bring most of my songs back to the gospel, which is probably a function of how I was raised, to see God's entire plan of salvation in the smaller stories that make up the bigger picture, but this one seemed like a no-brainer.
Absalom was basically the antithesis of everything Christ embodied. He was prideful, hated his father, couldn't wait to be king, was impure, died for his own selfishness, and was ultimately done in by the hair he took so much pride in. On the other hand, Christ was humble, even though He had every right to be over all things, He humbled Himself to the point of death, not for selfish ambition or trying to become an Earthly king, but to save rebellious sinners such as Absalom from their sins. He wasn't flashy, or overbearing, or even handsome, He was simply God in the flesh, loving people who were lost like sheep without a shepherd, and He is coming back to be King finally. And that is something to sing about.
YouTube Version: I do apologize that it's so shaky, my bed isn't as steady as a tripod apparently... But I did tie a belt around my forehead! Jason wasn't around to record it with me, unfortunately, but you can just imagine the banjo...
Album Version: Here's the link that hopefully works to the version from my latest album, Quite Plainly. I actually really like how it came out, with simple percussion and banjo. Hopefully it'll be on all the radio stations when I die and become immensely popular like Michael Jackson or whatever.
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| Banjos make everything better.... |
Singing off for now,
Justin Samuel Manry
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