David Gray: Ain't No Love

I've barely even heard of David Gray before a couple of weeks ago, but I'm glad that I found him through his newest CD, Life in Slow Motion.  I'm impressed.  Several good songs, but one of my favorites is Ain't No Love, which is basically an atheistic ballad. 

I was playing it in the car on Monday for my wife to hear, and she asked why I would like and want to listen to a song that is atheistic.  My response was that it is a beautiful song with powerful and thoughtful lyrics.  As art, it's good.  But I also consider it essential to ministry to understand the worldview of those who don't know Christ.  And guys like Gray are writing and singing songs that express something deeper than the glazed over reality most of us admit to.  Though honest struggling, this song is a great place to discuss essential and eternal things.  Notice below especially the last verse, the hopelessness found there.

Here's a very good article on Gray that includes some thoughts on this song.  Colorful language in this excerpt...

Gray has crafted a song called Ain't No Love that really soars, where the denial of God implicit in the chorus line - "ain't no love that's guiding me" - becomes paradoxically uplifting. This is the essential tension at the heart of Gray's work, which has never been as simplistic as some critics imply. Gray deals with dark material, but his singalong melodicism and Celtic spirit imbue it with a rich and ultimately uplifting sense of humanity.

"This sort of mess of illusions that people are clinging to and all the bullshit that it spawns which we're supposed to imbibe without complaint, I find depressing," he says. "I think we'd have a far more constructive society if people were more honest about things. But that's my point of view and music is really an escape from that. You're creating a sort of refuge for yourself first and then for others second, so it's a place to celebrate."

"We've got our lives to live, so nothing's changed there. We've still got to get on with it. But hopefully you can take all the stuff that's whirling around your particular universe and turn it into something that is uplifting."

"I think there's a sense of relief when someone writes a song that you can really connect with."

"That someone else has said something you felt or you've tried to say - that is uplifting in itself, it doesn't matter how sad or bitter it is."

Ain't No Love
by David Gray

Maybe that it would do me good

If I believed there were a God
Out in the starry firmament
But as it is that’s just a lie
And I'm here eating up the boredom
On an island of cement
Give me your ecstasy I'll feel it
Open window and I'll steal it
Baby like it’s heaven sent

This ain’t no love that’s guiding me

Some days I'm bursting at the seams
With all my half remembered dreams
And then it shoots me down again
I feel the dampness as it creeps
I hear you coughing in your sleep
Beneath a broken window pane
Tomorrow girl I'll buy you chips
A lollipop to stain your lips
And it’ll all be right as rain

This ain’t no love that’s guiding me
This ain’t no love that’s guiding me

No it ain’t no love guiding me
No it ain’t no love guiding me
No it ain’t no love guiding me

This ain’t no love that’s guiding me
This ain’t no love that’s guiding me

On winter trees the fruit of rain
Is hanging trembling in the branches
Like a thousand diamond buds
And waiting there in every pause
That old familiar fear that claws you
Tells you nothing ain’t no good
Then pulling back you see it all
Down here so laughable and small
Hardly a quiver in the dirt

This ain’t no love that’s guiding me

Comments

[Lukas McKnight]

Good post, but you've missed David Gray's best work. Check out the album White Ladder...

[Steve McCoy]

I've heard that Lukas. I'm planning to check it out. Thanks.

[iMonk]

> "I think there's a sense of relief when someone writes a song that you can really connect with...That someone else has said something you felt or you've tried to say - that is uplifting in itself, it doesn't matter how sad or bitter it is."

Here's hoping that David Grey discovers that his desire to connect with another person can't be explained by an empty universe....and that there is a Word that connects with us all via Jesus.

[James Paul]

This post made my day. I have three kids: 15, 14, and 12. We're reading through the book of Matthew in the evenings. After tonight's Bible reading I shared parts of your post and played, "Ain't No Love." It was one of the best devotions I remember. The song's atheistic worldview really sank in. They understood.

"...guys like Gray are writing and singing songs that express something deeper than the glazed over reality most of us admit to."

Yes they are. I agree 100%. I'm 38 and feel like I'm just beginning to tap into a paradigm that embraces culture while singlemindedly following Christ. I feel like a kid in a missional candy shop.

[Chris W]

Don't know if I necessarily agree that White Ladder is Gray's best work. It's certainly his most accessible and successful, and it is a very good album. My fave remains his first, A Century Ends. Stripped-down, raw, and edgy. None of this sequencer/keyboard stuff (which I do enjoy) - just acoustic guitar and vocal.

[Lukas McKnight]

I'll have to check that one out! I retract my former statement until I can undergo a thorough listening of A Century Ends.

[Chris W]

And another thing. I recently heard an interview with DG. He's a songwriter that genuinely cares about the honesty of his music. To the point of being frustrated with some of his work. He critiques himself harshly, and strives to represent true emotions and honest concerns. What I gathered is to him, a song he completes for the sake of completing the song is subpar when compared to that is composed with the intent of honestly conveying a feeling he has. Whether he knows it or not, his writing is spiritual, both in process and product.

[Steve McCoy]

Great comments guys, and I guess I'll just have to buy all his CD's to figure it out. His honesty is the greatest impact of his music on me.

[Marcguyver]

Okay, now for something completely different.
Does anyone see anything wrong with purchasing 'secular' albums and supporting them and their careers?
This has always been a conflict for me and thought I could get some good feedback here.

[Steve McCoy]

No. I have some things I'd like to say, but let me first ask, Why would you have a conflict with this?

[Chris W]

If you are concerned with supporting the careers of secular artists, my question would be - where does that stop?

i.e. - if you shouldn't support secular musicians, what about secular actors? secular authors? secular newspapers? Need our entertainment only come from Christian sources?

[Marcguyver]

Wow; just what I was hoping for....now you guys really got me thinking. I'm going to have to get back to you on this after I'm able to come up with the right type of response to your excellent points.
Maybe I'll finally get a bit closer to resolving this 'issue' that I've struggled with for years. Especially music; 'cause it has always seemed to have a greater impact on me than other mediums.

[Marcguyver]

I concede the point that obviously I’m operating on at least a bit of a ‘double standard’ if I am saying that I should abstain from the purchase of ‘secular’ albums and then turn around and purchase ‘secular’ movies; I had really not looked at this from this point of view before.

So If you go to a church picnic and there’s a loud system banging out some George Winston, Kenny G, etc you probably won’t get much ‘feedback’ from those present or attending however, if you were playing Slayer or Metallica I’m sure the response would be very different, would you agree?
That being said, I think that we would probably agree that it is not beneficial, uplifting, or encouraging, to listen to some of these ‘extreme’ artists, so why would it be okay to listen to the ‘lighter’ artists? (Just asking…)

You’re right Chris that by using my dollars to purchase movies, cd’s, theatre tickets, etc I am in fact ‘supporting’ these secular performers, actors, directors, producers, etc. I suppose in that sense I’m doing the same for any and all purchases that I make at the store, from local businesses, and the like.

I guess my final input would be: so where should I draw the line, if in fact we can draw a clear ‘line’, and where do I say, “Okay, this album is bad (sin), and this album is okay (not sin)???

[Nick P.]

The Center for Parent and Youth Understanding talks a lot about culture and discerning value in culture.

These are geared for leaders and parents of youth, but they have guides and things on this topic.
Check out CPYU
and specifically their 3-D Media Guides.

[Marcguyver]

Okay, I'll check it out.

[Marcguyver]

Okay, so this CPYU site tells me about Lindsay Lohan:
"The video should be used with parents, educators and youth workers as a powerful example of marketing and branding pop icons, and how those who are media heroes to the youngest and most impressionable elementary and middle school audience can and will be reinvented in a moment, thereby shaping values, attitudes and behaviors in powerful ways."

Not on your life; I wouldn't buy the 'trash' in the first place let alone watch it with my kids or anyone elses kids for that matter.
There's got to be a better way.