Heck yeah, Switchfoot!

Switchfoot - Selling the News
from “Vice Verses”

Welcome to the holy city
A silver screen built with the lens of low self-esteem
A teenager’s plea for meaning and memes
We’re selling the news

See opinions are easier to swallow than facts
The greys instead of the whites and the blacks
If you shoot it too straight they won’t come back
We’re selling the news

But see money speaks volumes louder than words
Or virtues with wings, maybe not quite at first
But salaries are paid with the ads not the verbs
We’re selling the news

See all men are equal, all is for sale
A powerful dog has been chasing his tail
The lowest common denominator prevails
We’re selling the news

I wanna believe you, I wanna believe
But everything is in between
The fact is fiction
The fact is fiction

I wanna believe you, I wanna believe
But everything is in between
The fact is fiction
Suspicion is the new religion

America listens, the story is told
With an eye on the truth as the story unfolds
But the ratings determine if the story was sold
We’re selling the news

Begging the question, mongering fears
Stroking the eyes and tickling ears
The truth is seldom just as it appears
We’re selling the news

I wanna believe you, I wanna believe
But everything is in between
The fact is fiction
The fact is fiction
[x2]

I can see your talking heads
On the television set
On the internet they said
The fact is fiction
Suspicion is the new religion

Substance, oh substance, where’ve you been
You’ve been replaced by the masters of spin
Who make good-looking books and write history in
We’re selling the news

The lines start to blur, I get so confused
I get shiny new models mixed up with the blues
I get binary code mixed up with abuse
The facts are simply one option to choose

When nothing is sacred, there’s nothing to lose
When nothing is sacred, all is consumed
We’re still on the air, it must be the truth
We’re selling the news

I wanna believe you, I wanna believe
But everything is in between
The fact is fiction
The fact is fiction
[x2]

I wanna believe you, I wanna believe
But everything I see is greed
The fact is fiction
Suspicion is the new religion

Switchfoot - “Dark Horses”

“Our first single, “Dark Horses,” is heavily inspired by the homeless kids in our hometown of San Diego. We do an event every year called the Bro-Am. It’s a surf contest and concert on the beach. And it benefits Stand Up For Kids, which is an organization that works with these homeless kids. They are the true dark horses. In [nearby] Seattle there’s a huge culture of homelessness amongst kids on the streets. These aren’t kids who chose homelessness. They’ve been thrust into an adult world as children – from broken homes, from being kicked out of homes, from dysfunctional parents, a variety of situations. They’re the dark horses this society has written off. And you can’t count them out.”

Tim Foreman

“But the beauty of Einstein’s equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who’s experienced it as the beauty of music. We’ve learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.” -Edward Witten

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.” -Viktor Frankl

For me, melody is a constant. I am always buzzing with some hook or rhythm or idea… (for example, I’ve got an idea in my head now from when I went surfing a few hours ago). Sometimes I imagine the entire universe as a song, or an incredibly elaborate symphony- the sun is setting, there’s a kid staring at the evening train going by. People are falling in love. Fathers are apologizing to their sons after years of unspoken silence. Children are looking for the approval that only a mother can give. I think of life as an interwoven and interconnected masterpiece. It’s like Lauren Hill and Kierkegaard say- everything effects everything.

Alongside these beautiful, pure notes there are elements of horrific dissonance. Parts of the symphony where the musicians are not following the score. To our shame, ours is a world of slavery, bigotry, and hate. Of Rwanda. Of Darfur. These atonal catastrophes on our Darkwater Planet would destroy the song if they could. But love is a stronger song. Alongside the dissonance there is hope. There is forgiveness and joy singing alongside of hatred and despair. The song is still being written. Everyday we choose whether we will submit to the score to sing along with love.

When I found out about the string theory it made a lot of sense. I pictured all the universe vibrating. Some instruments are out of tune. Some are not following the conductor. But love conquers a multitude of errors. Your love can cover even the atrocities that I’ve committed in my own life, even the times when my actions are horribly out of tune. Yes, even these have been mercifully forgiven and brought into the song.

There are reoccurring themes in my life. Because I write about the things I’m wrestling, these themes often find themselves in multiple songs. I used fight against this concept. Now I see these songs as interconnected, sequels in a real life documentary. One idea that I’m continually wresting with is the concept that the creator of heavens and earth would love a wreck like myself. This idea has been the seed for a few of my songs, they are a trilogy of sorts: “Let Your Love Be Strong,” “Your Love is Strong,” and “Your Love is a Song.”

I wrote this song with Mike Elizondo the first day we worked together. The pre-chorus hook was the seed for the rest of it. Mike was great about sitting back and letting me chew on something until I got it. It was as though we were looking at the same thing from different vantage points, mine was the micro scope- his the telescope. So he would guide the song from a bird’s eye view away from some of the dangerous places while I was trudging along with the particulars. I love writing with people, you learn so much about who they are in the process. I learned enough from this song that I trusted Mike’s instincts a lot.

Jon Foreman

Innocence Again
from Learning to Breathe

Somehow, all the songs I write to others, I ended up singing to myself sooner or later. This is no different and I end up with the question, “who will it be?” This song is a sister of “I Dare You To Move.” Both songs are really driving at the same point: if God’s redemptive movement is at work around us, we are called to respond. Indeed, whether we act or not, we have made a response either way.

Jon Foreman

‘Grace is high AND low.’ The simplicity of that truth always speaks to me. This is the nature of God’s grace. This is found in the highs and the lows – on the peaks and in the valleys. This truth is so difficult to accept in it’s entirety: that fools like us have been ‘given innocence again.’

Tim Foreman

twloha:

Switchfoot
“This Is Your Life”

This song reminds me to take today for what it’s worth. That today is new. I love the line, “Don’t close your eyes,” because I feel like that reminds us to face today. To face our fears, our struggles, and ourselves every day. At TWLOHA we believe that questions matter, that even if we don’t have a clear answer, there’s something valuable in asking them.

I also love the question, “This is your life, are you who you want to be?” I feel like this is a question that we can never ask ourselves too much. It reminds us to really evaluate who we are and what we are doing. I encourage you to ask yourself this question today.

This is your life. Are you who you want to be?

- Kevin
TWLOHA Intern, Spring 2011

Once upon a time, in a far away land lived a man named Soren Kierkegaard. He believed people around him did not really live life. Rather, he thought most people drifted along like a man driving a covered wagon who had fallen asleep at the reins. Kierkegaard was convinced that real living involved active choices, and that every individual is free to choose at every moment of the day. This freedom can be terrifying when we learn that we are condemned to be free. Sooner of later we all have to deal with the frightening reality that there is much that is wrong in the world. But look! There is the doorway that leads to life more abundantly. Alas, our pride is much too large to fit in this other world. The choice which underlies every choice is this; will I live in God’s kingdom or on my side of the wall? Kierkegaard emphasized that a relationship with an all powerful God is to be taken very seriously. This is Soren’s song… These are his thoughts as best as I understand them.

- Jon Foreman

I wrote this satirical song in the first semester of my freshman year in college. I was studying for a class called “Chem6a” when I decided to take a break. Picking up my acoustic guitar, I noodled around on the fretboard and pondered my apathetic disposition. A couple of minutes later, I had a song. I know how easy lethargy can creep into anyone’s life. However, as a Christian, I believe that every day is a gift from God and that our time on earth is not to be taken lightly. Chem6a attempts to reveal the absurdities in our modern, indifferent culture. All too often, I find that my generation does not care about living life to the fullest. We sit in our living rooms and let the world go by without us, living vicariously through TV and movies. Chem6a is a satirical response to this apathy that dominates modern culture.

- Jon

Overthrow
From “Eastern Hymns for Western Shores”
[purchase]

All our pretty roads
Fairy tales and crowns
Broken on the floor

All our little words
Love and peace and love
Spoken with a sword

We say overthrow the government
Put a new one up instead

If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow your soul
If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow your soul

Tell me how it goes
The one about the war
The war that killed the king

Our hearts are still the same
Stone and ice and steel
Lifeless hollow things

You say overthrow the government
Who will save us from yourself

If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow your soul
If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow yourself, yourself, yourself

Take me down and lock me up
You can’t change my head
You can’t change my heart

When this old life is done
Will we still be the stubborn souls
We always were

Today is our last chance
To turn around
To turn around
Yourself, yourself, yourself

If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow your soul
If you can overthrow then overthrow
If you can overthrow your soul

This is a song about a dream bigger than myself. I’m convinced that both of my grandparents, who fought for this country, fought for bigger dreams than anything you can sell me. Yes, I am proud of America, I’m proud to be an American. And I’m proud that that dream is bigger than racism, is bigger than materialism, is bigger than the black, white, red, and blue thinking. I know it’s politics season. This is a song that’s not political in that sense. This is a song about the politics of the heart. I believe the American Dream’s gotten so small. I wanna see it exploded. I wanna see the American Dream larger than America.

Jon Foreman, on the song “American Dream”