“I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you”

I picked up a new CD from a $10 bargain bin, because it was a band that I’d heard some people talking about and wasn’t sure what they were like. And on this CD were a few fairly corny love songs, but with quite romantic lyrics nonetheless… I just thought I’d share one of them here:

I can’t believe you’re here close to me
It’s getting hard to stand
But I don’t want to leave
Your beauty stands out
Like a bright light shining through the clouds
It’s overwhelming just to be with you now

I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
Your love is in my heart tonight (yes, I know)
I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
I’m in love with you

Sickeningly sweet, yes… but definitely romantic, no one can deny. Later on the album, there’s another song with similarly soppy lyrics:

I’d give myself to find you
Stumble and fall to see you
You’re worth it all
To me you are

I’d swim across the stormy seas
And scream it from the mountain peaks
You’re worth it all
To me you are

(And I said)
Hey! You are the one
That I’ve been looking for
And I found you here
And I found you here

To read the lyrics, it just makes me start humming “Ain’t no mountain high enough” – same sort of feeling with the words.

Now, as you’ve probably noticed, I’m not generally in the habit of posting random love songs… but there’s a reason I’ve posted these ones. They’re two songs by a band called Leeland…

…and they’re about Jesus.

I’ve joked plenty about “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs before, but listening to these songs just absolutely took the cake. How on earth can those lyrics refer to anything other than a romantic love? I would even maybe understand it a little better if it were sung by girls, but by blokes? Singing songs like that to Jesus? It just makes me shudder. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the Bible had in mind when it commands us to “Sing unto the Lord a new song”.

I do have further thoughts about this trend in worship… but I think they’re going to wait for a secondary post. The question I want to ask in this one is this: If you changed the words “Jesus” or “Lord” in songs to “Honey” or “Sweetie”, do the songs work better? If so, is that really what we should be singing?

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