I am in the emergency room when Jeff Tweedy speaks to me through my headphones.
I expect my Spotify playlist of liked songs to soothe my aching tooth. Instead, alone in this hospital bed on a Saturday night, I listen as Jeff Tweedy reads love letters to songs that matter.
The premise of Tweedy’s book World Within a Song is that music creates unique worlds between the artist and the listener, and these worlds matter. Put differently, I am the Walrus is a world between the Beatles and me in a different way than it is a world between the Beatles and you. Tweedy writes about how we build these worlds when we are open to a song. Who we are when we hear a song matters. Who we are becoming matters too. Tweedy writes that moving through worlds within songs can open our capacity to love and be loved.
I laugh out loud as Tweedy talks about traumatizing his son by listening to Suicide’s Frankie Teardrop after picking him up early from a sleepover in the middle of the night.
I nod in affirmation as Tweedy describes Bon Jovi’s Dead or Alive as the summation of all that sucks.
I’m moved to tears as Tweedy talks about listening to Balancing Act by Volcano Suns with his mother to explain to her what matters.
Here in this emergency room, waiting to find out that my excruciating pain is a tooth infection, I am swept into a different world by listening to Tweedy read his book much as I’m swept into a different world by listening to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot twenty years earlier. I’m still an American aquarium drinker, I guess, and I am reminded there is a world between Jeff and me that matters. I love Jeff. I love the world between us, and it loves me back, even if Jeff doesn’t know me from Adam. Or Bon Jovi.
It occurs to me that parables, like songs, create unique worlds between Jesus and the listener that matter. Put differently, the parable of the lost sheep is a world between Jesus and me in a different way than it is a world between Jesus and you. Who we are when we hear a parable matters. Who we are becoming matters too. The worlds within parables can open up our capacity to love and be loved.
It occurs to me that the song Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens is a world that matters. The song is a parable. Seven Swans is with me as I move through different worlds, learning how to love and be loved.
I am in my late twenties listening to the album Seven Swans play from computer speakers in my house in Northeast Minneapolis. Sufjan sings from the office off the dining room that the realtor tries to convince me is a bedroom. It’s not a bedroom. I am drinking Summitt and standing over a pot of crab legs. My girlfriend Katie works in the living room, my cat Yara sits near the window, and Northeast Minneapolis Northeast Minneapolis’s around me. The title track, Seven Swans, starts to play. I put down my Summitt and am swept into a different world.
He will chase you if you run.
It is 6am and I’m sitting in my classroom at Roseville High School on Monday morning. I am working on my dissertation before the students arrive. I am a high school teacher and a doctoral student. I teach all day and have class at the U all night. Everything is so overwhelming. I play Seven Swans on my computer and am swept into a different world.
He will chase you if you run.
I am in North Memorial Hospital in December. It is -40 degrees in Minneapolis. It is two in the morning. My wife Katie and our newborn Solomon are finally asleep in a hospital bed. I lay on a foldout bed beside them. I don’t know if I’ll ever fall asleep again. I don’t know how to be a dad. I’m so tired. Seven Swans plays quietly from my laptop.
Because He is the Lord.
Caleb is a student in the online seminary program I’m in with Katie at Woodland Hills Church. He mentions a screamo song he wrote. Caleb sends it to me. The screamo song is good. I tell Caleb it rocks. I ask Caleb if he’ll help me record a version of Seven Swans for my parable project.
We meet on Zoom. Caleb shows me how to use GarageBand. He tells me what to order from Guitar Center. A couple hundred dollars later, I have a microphone and pop filter hooked up to my Laptop through a Midi controller.
A string on the Spanish guitar Dad gave me breaks. I don’t know how to string the guitar and haven’t taken it in to have somebody who does. I go upstairs and grab the ukulele we bought Solomon. I don’t know how to the play the ukulele, but I don’t not know how to play the ukulele.
I can’t sing but I can’t not sing.
I pluck some chords, try to keep time, and record myself whispering into a microphone.
We didn’t sleep too late.
I tell Samson and Solomon I want to play the song with them. I tell Solomon about listening to the song in the hospital after he is born. He learns a part on the viola. And the piano. Samson learns to play the song on his tuba. His tuba is bigger than me.
We jam in Solomon’s bedroom. We don’t know how to play together but we don’t not know how to play together. Say that seven times fast.
I smile at Solomon as I shout into Samson’s tuba at the end of the song.
Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans.
***
I’m not a music producer and recording songs is new to me. Still, I come up with two versions of the world between Seven Swans and me.
Here is an acoustic version of the song with me and a ukulele.
***
During our Zoom call, Caleb asks me what Seven Swans has to do with Jesus’ parables. I laugh. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
The live performances of Seven Swans available on YouTube are apocalyptic and epic. I suggest you go watch them. I’ve watched them a million times. Maybe a billion. I’m not a reliable narrator, and math isn’t important. Sufjan isn’t a reliable narrator either, and neither are you. In one of the versions on YouTube, Sufjan Stevens opens the song by telling a story about his house burning down that is real and not real. The story is the song, the song is the story, and both are a parable. The parable Sufjan tells builds a world between him and me, even if he doesn’t know me from Adam. Or Bon Jovi.
The speaker of the song is a child. His house is burning down. His mother and father don’t do anything to stop the fire. Neither do his siblings.
The speaker sees a sign in the sky. Seven swans. The speaker hears a voice in his mind. I will try, I will try, I will try.
What a courageous choice to try as he watches his house burn down.
Then the world explodes in piano and sound. In the live version, there are horns and guitars and a million other instruments. A billion.
Then a dragon turns Dad into coal. Mom hides from what is happening in the bedroom. The speaker sees a sign in the sky. Seven swans. Seven horns begin playing in the sky. The speaker hears a voice in his mind. The voice is both male and female. The voice tells the speaker that I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord.
This is the end of all things. The dragon destroys the house. But then something else happens. The Lord appears in a terrifying chord change. The Lord says this to the speaker:
“I will chase you, if you run, I will take you, because I am the Lord.”
And then the repeating chorus overwhelms the world. How terrifying that the Lord chases us. How wonderful that the Lord chases us. The Lord loves lost sheep. I am lost. I am being found. I can’t not get goosebumps when I hear this part of the song.
Everything is destroyed and, at the end of everything, the Lord is there and there is nothing more wonderful, amazing, glorious, and words can’t capture it. And a song can’t capture it. But a song gets closer than words.
The world between Seven Swans and me is the story of my childhood.
The world between Seven Swans and me is the story of Revelation.
The world between Seven Swans and me is the parable of the lost sheep.
The world between Seven Swans and me matters. He will chase you, if you run, because he is the Lord.
***
I send Caleb the two versions of Seven Swans after finishing them. I send Caleb this writing.
Caleb writes back. Caleb tells me the Kingdom of Heaven is like a father learning to produce and record music while inviting his kids to join in.
Caleb is right.
***
Here are the lyrics to Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens:
We didn’t sleep too late
There was a fire in the yard
All of the tress were in light
They had no faces to show
I saw a sign in the sky
Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
I heard a voice in my mind
“I will try, I will try, I will try
I will try, I will try, I will try”
We saw the dragon move down
My father burned into coal
My mother saw it from far
She took her purse to the bed
I saw a sign in the sky
Seven horns, seven horns, seven horns
I heard a voice in my mind
“I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord”
He said, “I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord”
He said, “I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord”
He will take you
If you run, He will chase you
He will take you
If you run, He will chase you
‘Cause He is the Lord
‘Cause He is the Lord
‘Cause He is the Lord
‘Cause He is the Lord
seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
(‘Cause He is the Lord) seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
(‘Cause He is the Lord) seven swans, seven swans, seven swans
Seven swans, seven swans
Samuel Jaye Tanner 