The election season discussion of community and how we might, to quote Rodney King, “just all get along” takes a detour here into the world of the arts, specifically today’s popular music.1 Completing a triumvirate of AUJ reviews of Taylor Swift as she concludes her global Eras tour, she is cast in an imaginary conversation with Christian singer Lauren Daigle as well as the first twenty-first century-born chart-topping vocalist, Billie Eilish (Swift hails from the previous century, 1989 her fans will remember, with Daigle two years younger). This approach continues the venerable genre of imagined meetings, such as Socrates with Jesus, Paul with Muhammed, a bevy of 1960s scientists, theologians, and philosophers, and William “Bill” S. Preston and Theodore “Ted” Logan with not just Socrates but also Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, Napoleon, Sigmund Freud, Abraham Lincoln, and Billy the Kid. It is hoped that this imaginary dialogue, though akin to attempting Scotty’s feat in Star Trek — “I’ve never beamed three people from targets onto one pad before” — is just as excellent [air guitar playing “too-da-loo”], and helps to build not just community amidst chaos but universal harmony, to rival that bequeathed by the music of Bill and Ted’s Wyld Stallyns to future generations.2 3 4 5 6
Following Tim Muehlhoff’s I Beg to Differ: Navigating DIfficult Conversations in Love, it is perhaps in the arts in which one most clearly detect an artist’s “poetic moment,” a moment which “will not only resemble poetry but also offer a deep glimpse into the person’s soul.”7 Thus in this article we seek to better understand all three pop music artists, in accord with Muehlhoff’s quoting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that “If we could read the secret history of our enemies [not that the term applies here, “fellow musicians” is sufficient], we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”8 While all three do seek to elevate humanity in their own ways (Swift’s Christian faith is rarely explicit, Eilish is agnostic), we focus on how Daigle’s faith enables her to do a little more heavy lifting and achieve the heights to which all three aspire, in the spirit of the ancient proverb, “whoever heeds life-giving advice will be at home among the wise.”9
The career of Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell (Eilish was to be her first name, Pirate the middle; b. 2001) is a product of the homeschooling decision to allow her and brother and bandmate Finneas O’Connell to pursue such interests as music.10 She is the first 21st century-born artist with a top-charting single; her first studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), features her first #1 hit “Bad Guy.” Other notable hits include the James Bond theme song “No Time to Die” and the Barbie movie’s “What Was I Made For?” Happier Than Ever (2021), her second album and born of covid era self-reflection, focuses on her rise to fame and its drawbacks, while Hit Me Hard and Soft (2024) has received critical acclaim for its emotional artistry. Eilish has performed at Global CItizen 2023 promoting environmental awareness, as she has done for mental health issues; her performance of “Birds of a Feather” at the 2024 Olympics closing ceremony topped the global Billboard charts.11 Eilish prefers a cool demeanor to one expressing the turbulence of emotions, a posture that seems to endear the musical swashbuckler to her GenZ audience.12 The causes for which she advocates likewise reflect GenZ values, including mental health, women’s rights, climate action, plant-based diet, and sustainable business practices.13
Taylor Swift: billionairess, Chiefs fan, global Eras tour, you know since you are from planet Earth, right? This focuses on her eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department and companion release The Anthology (2024). AUJ has explored her music twice previously.14 15 Swift is generous with her finances, including supporting food banks in each city in which she tours (often supplying a full year’s worth of meals), and numerous other emergency relief and philanthropic causes.16
Lauren Daigle is two-time American Idol contestant (2010, 2012), whose two Grammys pale next to Eilish’s nine and Swift’s fourteen, but humbly and cheerfully boasts seven GMA Dove Awards. Her hit single “You Say” from Look Up Child album (2017) set the record for any song at the top of the charts with 129 weeks atop the Billboard “Hot Christian Songs” chart. Daigle spent much of 2024 on her Kaleidoscope Tour featuring works from her self-titled album Lauren Daigle (2023) as well as Look Up Child (2019). Daigle’s songs one may hear on Christian radio include “You Say,” “Rescue,” “These Are The Days,” and of course “Kaleidoscope Jesus.” Born in 1991 (rather than, say, Swift’s 1989), she is this trio’s older yet middle child. A Christian version of Adele perhaps given the similarity of voice, Daigle finds herself chasing more than pavements.17 Daigle has established The Price Fund to care for children, the elderly, and others in need globally including clean water projects.18
Intros
Billie: Well, “hi” group. It’s like I fell asleep, and found you had all gone . . . here!19
Lauren: This is the day I’ve been waiting for, to be sure (and remember, if it’s not good, it’s not yet over!).20
Taylor: Where are my Swifties? Billie’s so young, I feel like I’m in my fifties, you’re all just so nifty.
Lauren: Down in Cajun country, we would say it’s time to fry up some crawfish, get out our banjos, look out on the bayou, and get at it!
Taylor: Fish and chips used to be my thing, now it’s more like chiefly hunting buffalo and stuff; but BW3, and all sorts of eggs, works for me too.
Billie: Right, whatever your ‘bad guys’ tell you to eat, right Taylor? Haha!21
Taylor: Good one, Billie. Nah, I’d be the man. Even so, enjoy your humor, it’s nice to have a friend.22 23
Billie: No problem; I’m good, you’re good.
Lauren: Food is good, as long as it gives me energy to . . . dance. I do like to move around on stage.24 And in videos I like to wander through houses actually, houses filled with lots of friends, of course. These are the days, the great jubilation, this is what we came for. And let me emphasize: if it’s not good, it’s not over! Hope, Faith; hang in there!25
Taylor: Right, Lauren, you are so joyful when you do that, I enjoy your shows nearly as much as my own.
Lauren: You all have such interesting music, not to mention what you are saying. Billie, where do we start? The dreamy “Ocean Eyes” of course (your very first), your genre of “mid-tempo, melancholy pop” influenced by (among others) Lana Del Ray’s “bleakness” and hip hop style . . . the James Bond No Time To Die title song, and of course, the Barbie movie’s soundtrack song “What Was I Made For?” a work critics praised as both melancholic and hopeful, one of the best songs of 2023, and just maybe captures the mood of all your twenty-something crowd.26 27 28
Billie: “No Time to Die” sums up my, um, ‘façade of nonchalance:’
I should have known / I’d leave alone . . .
You were my life, but life is far away from fair . . .
I’d fallen for a lie, you were never on my side
Are you death or paradise?
Now you’ll never see me cry, there’s just no time to die.29
Taylor: Right. You are, we all are, real people. Respect.
Billie: Yeah, like that’s about what it’s all about, people, our friends, our family. Like I say, about Finneas, “I had a dream, I got everything I wanted, but when I wake, I see You with me.”30
Billie: But thanks Taylor and Lauren. Lauren, I’m not so familiar with your crowd and music, but your whole raspy Cajun voice thing, it just works. I mean, sometimes I think of the froggy voice of the football coach from Louisiana in Adam Sandler’s Waterboy, and how he sounds a lot like LSU’s real life football coach, but your voice is so much more lyrical. Kind of captures my mood in a way, I do like your “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” cadence like a solemn, reflective procession, but persistent, hopeful.31
Lauren: Well, thank you so much Billie! You have your own tune that deals with procession-type events . . . in “ilomilo” (you do like your video games I see!), you admit the “friends I’ve had to bury keep me up at night” and you don’t want to be lonely. Though it follows up your own somber “bury a friend.”32
BIllie: Yes; “bury a friend” is where the thought (and album title) “when we fall asleep, where do we all go?” comes from. Sung from the perspective of a monster under the bed, any sort of monster (an obsessive love, or some horrific evil, it’s really up to one’s own imagination). Probably a little like Taylor’s Midnights album, what keeps us up at night, but also can get out of control, “gotta sell my soul, cuz I can’t say no . . . I wanna end me.”33 34
Lauren: Yes, sad, dark, if we don’t take care. We can get into “Rescue” and how “I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough . . . You Say I am loved” a little later, still the intros here!35
Billie: I’ll be all ears. I mean, a voice too, dreamy ocean eyes . . . but you get the point.
Lauren: But Taylor has so many fun tunes, just how does one come up with the music for torturing poets? And “Fortnight,” the beat just goes on, you keep going on, to escape endless, frigid February to find (hopefully anyway) a warm, loving touch. But the most fun I think (besides a song about “Florida!”) has to be “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” where you playfully haunt those who deserve it, as you “leap from the gallows then levitate down [their] street” (emphasis in bold italic), asking “Who’s afraid of little old me?” (and they should be!).36 37 38
Taylor: Well, I’m just so excited to be included in Seth’s third review of little old me (and my music).
Billie: Sure, whatever. Who is this guy?
Taylor: Oh, he liked my Cats performance, so figured it was time to rank me next to famous poets like (original Cats’ poems author) Nobel Prize winning T.S. Eliot, and Oxford and Cambridge’s own London Boy, C.S. Lewis, commemorated in Westminster Abbey’s Poets Corner along with the likes of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Or rank them next to me, I don’t see any of their stuff near mine in the store aisles, so . . .
Lauren: Can’t say I’ve delved into Eliot much, but Lewis is one of my homies, he tried his hand at poetry, if only he could sing or play the guitar, imagine that. But his Chronicles of Narnia — who hasn’t grown up with those wonderful stories? Plus, my church is like any other, when the pastor’s material starts to get weak, just toss in a Lewis quote — instant credibility, instant profundity! Of course we musical artists are naturally profound, no need for us to do that, ha!
Taylor: How can a church girl avoid Lewis? Right. I loved when my grandma sang in church, grew up on a Christmas tree farm in PA, and as I like to say, “I’m not only from Tennessee (sort of) but I’m a Christian” (so I’m a little wary of people claiming they own “Tennessee Christian values”).
Billie: I’m a bit agnostic at this point. Of course, you have all had much more time to figure that stuff out, ya bunch of oldies (sorry; 1989 of course, and 1991, like you’re not ancient). In the world of Logan’s Run (where you get terminated once you hit 30), since I’m still in my 20s, I’d be the last woman standing here (giggle).
Billie: But wait a minute first, Taylor. Are we just going to be talking about your old (or new) flames here?
Taylor: Why Billie, what kind of boy-chaser (or boy-trasher) do you take me for? You know my “So High School,” right?
Billie: Ok . . .
Taylor: “You know how to [play] ball, I know Aristotle” . . . sound familiar? (and I’m sort of partial to football players, chiefly, by the way).39
Billie: Of course, I was (ahem) home-schooled. Your point?
Taylor: So, for Aristotle, he would say just like the lyrics for what they are, don’t try to read every detail of my life into them, and that poetry is more universal than the history that produced it.40
Lauren: Interesting. So all those boys . . . just like those little Bible story flannel-graph figures, focus on the story, not the actor details.
Taylor: Right. Of course, when asked once to not write a song about a breakup, I did decide to just make an entire album about it all (giggles).41
Kaleidoscope Jesus and All the Colors of the Rainbow
Lauren: Aristotle Arischmottle, I like a fast car with a good throttle . . . after football, of course. I got to sing the national anthem when LSU won the championship: yup, God really must be Cajun. So, anyway: Christian values. Yes Taylor, sometimes those need defined, or some charity applied, to them. Should we just have this discussion now and get it over with?
Billie: What do you mean? Oh, ok, you probably mean about who can like who, right? Well, I haven’t dated much, but I do like everyone. Please don’t read a lot into that.42
Billie: Also, I do like my brother Finneas, I mean, family is like everything, right? A lot. He produces my music, you might say my “Birds of a Feather” song I sang at the Summer Olympic closing ceremony, from a lifeguard station in L.A., city hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics, which hit #1 in the world, is about that. Even though I tell him he’s “full of it” at times (tee hee).43
Taylor: I like boys myself (it’s sort of what I sing about, that and, of course, girls, girls with boys, girls without boys, you get the drift), but I have to say that people really need to calm down, it’s all good.44
Lauren: I just ask people to figure it out for themselves from their own Bibles; I do have a lot of friends from all sides, they are lovely people.45 Some people have looked into it more than I have though.46
Taylor: Right. And people can disagree, they just need to do it respectfully. I claim Tennessee (I’m sort of from there) Christian values myself, but do disagree with others about them.47 Plus I just don’t like hate-y signs at parades, tweet battles, you know what I mean. I like to celebrate everyone. You can see it in my colorful “you need to calm down” video — we celebrate all the colors there, literally and otherwise.
Lauren: Right, I get the “all the colors of the rainbow” thing. And I’m not really talking about how “God made the rainbow for Noah” as a promise, so much, but, well, have you seen my recent Kaleidoscope tour?
Taylor: Well that’s interesting. I do sing that “I pray to Jesus too” and “Christmas must mean something more . . . Jesus came to save us all.” But no, I’ve been a little busy lately Lauren.48 49
Lauren: Oh, you northern (and California) girls just don’t have the flare, don’t have the hair! for my wild kaleidoscopic Jesus thing.50 Let me explain, I can’t help myself here . . .
How colorful the many ways you meet us
Can’t believe the places that we see Ya
All your revelations are so genius . . .
There’s a joy I feel
When You reveal . . .51
It’s not just birds and flowers my raspy Cajun voice is celebrating, but strangers and neighbors and how all sorts of folk act out the love of God in the many ways that He shows Himself, here, now. A little like that Michael McDonald (of Doobie Brothers fame) / James Ingram song, “Yah Mo B There” song, “Heavenly Father [“Yah” short for Yahweh] watchin’ us fall, we take from each other and give nothing at all . . . so if your luck runs low, just reach out and call His Name:” He’s everywhere.52 Enough said here I think. How about that Barbie theme song, Billie?
What Was I Made For? Poetry? You Say Something (or SomeOne) More?
Billie: “I used to know but I’m not sure now, What I was made for, What was I made for?” Sums it up pretty well. Still sort of looking, tbh, “I don’t know how to feel, but someday I might,” it’s “Something I wait for,” to know the “Something I’m made for.”53
Taylor: Right, sometimes it gets so meaningless, it seems easiest to just . . . head off to “Florida!” . . . “I need to forget . . . it’s one hell of a drug.” But, that’s what love does to you, too often. But “the years pass” then “the only thing that’s left is the manuscript,” a souvenir of it all. It’s a ride. One that needs a few stops, every now and then.54 55
Lauren: Yeah, I keep my private life private, but you’re such a poet about it all, Taylor.
Taylor: Thanks for getting me started! As Chair*man* (remember, I would be the man!) of the Tortured Poets Department I summarized it like this:56
I had been struck with a case of a restricted humanity
Which explains my plea here today of temporary i n s a n i t y . . . 57
Well quoting myself is a little pretentious, let me paraphrase at least anyway:
As Lovers (see what I did there?) we create galaxies only to tear them down, and my beaus never even scratch the surface of me. It’s mutual panic, house arrest, even cardiac arrest.
But, a smirk creeps onto this poet’s face . . . and I present as evidence the good and the bad, “muses acquired like bruises,” to declare that, indeed, “All’s fair in love and poetry.”58
Billie: Let me tell you about it. No, really: love is both “Bittersuite,” (paraphrasing):
No matter how bad I want, I can’t fall in love, we only ever make it to somewhere in between what we dream.59
and it also makes me “Blue.” I can’t really get over love, but I wonder what we really were made for — kind of hard to just throw romance in there and say “that’s it.” As I put it,
I don’t blame you
But I can’t change you
Don’t hate you
But we can’t save you.60
Lauren: Right, romantic love can so often end up sadly. As they say, “nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen,” I get it. My songs don’t usually end up so gloomy though.
Taylor: Have you met the species known as “men?” Big men, small men, smallest men you might ever know?61
Lauren: Haha right. Well they do show up in my videos, not so much in my lyrics. But I get it, as I say, “I’ve seen love come and / I’ve seen love walk away.”62 Then people tell me “the right one’s gonna come along someday” and stuff like that.63
Billie: So? . . .
Lauren: “Waiting for you [You]” I say, I “give up all the cares that I could give, I’m throwing caution to the wind.”64
Taylor: How’s that workin’ for ya?
Lauren: Well, we’re back in “Kaleidoscope Jesus” territory now . . . my praises hit paydirt,
You go out of Your way
To make me feel like I’m the one You love.65
Then, as I said at the start, ‘He’ “takes on a different shape, Every time I see [Him] in someone,” “heart of a neighbor,” “spirit of a little girl’s eyes”66
Billie: Girl, you’re getting a little weird here. Not that I don’t like it, nor don’t not like it . . .
Lauren: Well, as I just love to say, “To know me you would have to know my Friend.” It’s why I can cry at sunsets, smile at every little thing, and why my heart takes some time to mend — it’s my Friend, makes it all possible: It’s why I’m grateful every single minute.67
Taylor: So, no drama, really? Just how do you sell records, this girl wonders (tee hee)?
Lauren: Um, no shortage of that, really. But . . . well let me just list a few thoughts:
The drama is there: “Out of the shadows / bound for the gallows / A dead man walking . . . I thought it was over / the voice of a Savior / Rise up, rise up / All at once / I come alive” I say.68
But I don’t raise myself, as if . . . I need some help, I hear “I will send out an army / to find you in the middle of the darkest night / It’s true / I will rescue you”69
Taylor: Well, a girl’s got to feel — any girl, all girls — something like how when he puts my ring on the wedding finger, heart exploding, finally, someone’s gonna know me, someone’s gonna hold me.70 This is my rescue . . .
Lauren: Rings, holding tight, really knowing me . . . as I say, “You give me everything, everything I need.”71 Can’t think of anything better; to ask that of, like what, a guy??? — that’s maybe a little too much, right?
Taylor: As if . . .
Billie: Sing it, sister.
Lauren: Ok. Actually I did, but here’s a little more, empower yo’selves, sisters!
I keep fighting voices in my head that say I’m not enough . . .
Remind me once again who I am, because I need to know
You say I am loved, when I can’t feel a thing
You say I am strong . . .You say I am Yours . . .
The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me.72
Taylor: Nice
Lauren: Did I say I was finished??
In You I find my worth
in You I find my identity.(Ok, done now).73
Billie: So, that’s what you were made for, you might say?
Lauren: I think we’re finished here, right?
More Music, Religion, and Rescue
Taylor: Yes, a good, and respectful, discussion. I still have some issues, and more songs. In fact, two hours after anyone finishes reading this article, I will release a companion article. Ok, just joking.
Billie: So, can the rest of us have a chance first, Taylor, before we get into, like, your 89th album?
Lauren: How kind! Taylor, as she always is so kind, is letting us just go ahead . . .
Billie: Thanks. I do have some kind of playful stuff too. In “The Diner” I fantasize about being a delusional stalker and breaking into some guys house so he’ll marry me (like when I imagined toting bodies around in my car once), or the funky “Chihiro” named after Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away anime, with a sort of video game aura to it (yeah, that’s how we Gen Z’ers exercise, socialize), then the rom-com-ready “Birds of a Feather.”74 75 76
Taylor: So you are not a “down with love girl” after all? Huzzah and hey nonny nonny (I picked up some Shakespeare before I said “So Long, London”).77
Billie: No, not that, um, cynical, yet. But I feel your pain, I feel my pain, hey it sells records. And helps like people and stuff, of course. Like taking stock of the price of fame in the Happier Than Ever album, like in “Skinny” where I’m still the same person as before I shed weight for fame.78 But maybe my favorites, from Hit Me Hard and Soft, are “The Greatest” and “Wildflower.” “The Greatest” — right up there with Don McLean’s “Everybody loves me baby, what’s the matter with you?” in its way, or of course Taylor’s “Me!”79 80 Every Era (Taylor?) needs one of those songs; I try my best to be the greatest for someone, they do not requite my effort, as it were.81 And “Wildflower:” melancholic, jealousy, final words say it all:
I know you didn’t mean to hurt me
So I kept it to myself.82
Lauren: Those hurts, the disappointment, so well put, though sad. But on to the Kaleidoscope Tour! “Ego” is my own self-reflection song:
we’re all afraid to be fully seen
feel like we’re the only ones
Covering our insecurity
Have we lost who we are to the pressure? . . .
I’m done wrestling with my ego . . .
Can we save our society?
If there’s a way . . . its humility.83
And “Saint Ferdinand” is sort of whimsical, “Saint Ferdinand, my wonderland, wild and strange, where vagabonds play” — it’s home, the Louisiana I loved but had to move on from (to Nashville, Taylor should we do some lattes sometime, maybe text Seth some?).84 We’re “stars,” but everyone needs their home.
Taylor: Great point. Yes, there are a lot of substitutes that just never really cut it. The other three songs from my TTPD release (“The Manuscript” was on the one Seth bought), “Albatross,” “The Black Dog,” and “The Bolter” all describe such, I guess I would say, fakers, poor substitutes. At The Black Dog café I thought I had found someone who might heal my “heart broken, my longing state unspoken” — didn’t work out. “The Bolter” — same story, trophy-hunter guy, bolts (ok she does) when she realizes “there’s escape in the escaping.” “Albatross” — right I picked up some Coleridge in the lakes — this albatross is simply alcohol, “she is here to destroy you,” until I become the albatross and destroy myself.85
Lauren: Those are NOT the days you’ve been waiting for! These are mine though: I let go of my cares, cries turn to hallelujahs, the great jubilation, it’s what my Man came for.
Billie: That is deep, cosmic. and happy. I can see why you dance so much.
Taylor: I know that Man, have sung about Him, as you know. But, I get the disillusionment out there about religion. Organized religion anyway . . . I don’t know, would unorganized religion look any better? any worse?
Lauren: Yes, it made me a little sad when I heard your “Cassandra” — titled after the Greek priestess of Apollo, destined to prophesy the truth but remain unbelieved. You obviously feel burned by things, your “cell filled with snakes” though you tried to “tell the town,” say the truth.86
Taylor: Yes, I try to be kind, but as I say, “never be so kind you forget to be clever, never be so clever you forget to be kind.”87 So I claim that “the family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line, they all said nothing . . . never spared a prayer for my soul.”88
Billie: Yup, that kind of stuff, my radar just avoids it. I do think even God gets a little (a lot) peeved about some stuff, since “all the good girls go to hell, cuz even god herself has enemies . . . man is such a fool, why are we saving him? Poisoning themselves . . .”89
Seth: Well, I thought I’d just pop in for a minute. Good point Billie, one of my favorite passages from Lewis was when he was trying to figure out how even our brains could work in a random universe, where everything might have come from nothing, in his essay on the possible futility of it all (“De Futilitate,” Latin, such a snob . . . well when you’re from Oxford. And Cambridge). But, he slips into why we should thus have any sense of morality, and rips this zinger:
The more seriously we take our charge of futility the more we are committed to the
implication that reality in the last resort is not futile at all. The defiance of the good
atheist hurled at an apparently ruthless and idiotic cosmos is really an unconscious
homage to something in or behind that cosmos which he recognizes as infinitely
valuable and authoritative . . . I cannot and never could persuade myself that such defiance is displeasing to the supreme mind. There is something holier about the atheism of a
Shelley than about the theism of a Paley . . . apparently the way to advance from our
Imperfect apprehension of justice to absolute justice is not to throw our imperfect
apprehensions aside but boldly to go on applying them.9
Billie: I like it. I mean, justice is what my crowd is all about. Marginalized people, intersectionality, the environment. I kind of personalize it in “Your Power,” but as Meg Ryan put it in You’ve Got Mail “if it’s not personal, what is it? If anything, it should start with being personal!” 91 92 But, Seth, please don’t go on about Lord of the Rings and the one ring of power, I don’t have like an extra thirteen hours to go through all that! But, power, my/our causes, world watch out what we can do! Sort of like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady singing “Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait!”93 Ok, so what was the part about math? we home-schoolers . . .
Seth: Ok, right: he adds that it’s like how we advance in math: not by tossing out things like the multiplication tables, but applying them more thoroughly.94 Well, he wasn’t great at maths, as those Brits put it, but he tried.
Billie: Speaking my language . . .
Seth: While we’re in the theology section here, I noticed your other, um, protest: “pearly gates look more like a picket fence, once you get inside ‘em; got friends but can’t invite them.”95 Ouch!
Billie: Right.
Seth: Good point. I’ll let Lauren take over in a second, but yeah, the “H” word . . . I don’t think it’s like all the nonconservative people will be there, it’s different than just politics. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, story of an imaginary bus ride between Hell and Heaven, maybe illustrates best. Heaven and Hell result from our choices, in a way; when we choose what is truly good, we move toward Heaven, and become more substantial ourselves; when we choose the distortions of good, we end up less human on the way to ultimate insignificance, Hell. As he describes,
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being
put back on the right road. . . Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into ‘good.’ The
spell must be unwound, bit by bit. . . It is still ‘either-or.’ If we insist on keeping Hell (or
even Earth) we shall not see heaven. If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain
even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. . . I think earth, if chosen instead
of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region of Hell [I think we can all
agree!]: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of
Heaven itself.96
Billie: So, it’s like just a state of mind then, right?
Seth: Sort of: Lewis is describing the state of mind anyway; he’s not a theologian, he likes to remind us, just trying to enlighten some issues with his imagination. He does get a bit theological, though, when he cites Milton (Paradise Lost, you homeschoolers know all this), who claimed the motto of the damned to be “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven;” or as Lewis put it,
There are only two kinds of people in the end:
those who say to God, “Thy will be done,”
and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”
All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.
No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.
Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.97
Seth: But, enough with theology now. Authors interjecting themselves into their creations (see what I did there?) . . . it’s part of why Lewis came to faith. He figured that just as Shakespeare would need to write himself into a script if he wanted the audience to know what he really thought, so would God, whoever He might be, want to do the same.98 But where were we? injustice, bad religion . . .
Billie: Something to think about; eternity is like our choice it seems. anyway, appreciate your sincerity, that and our honesty are about all we really have.
Lauren: Oh, yes, a real problem ladies, all the, um, crap (it’s a Cajun word). This is why I say we should all be “Losing [Our] Religion!” No more roles to play, or masquerades, “performing out of fear, all so insincere . . . I’d trade it all to meet You here!” Lose your religion, find something new, and it looks like . . . You!99
Taylor: Hmm, wow. I’m always trying to find myself, it seems, but as you say, “In you I find my worth, in you I find my identity.”100
Lauren: Right, I’m done wrestling with my ego . . . and “Thank God I Do!” “I don’t know who I’d be, if I didn’t know You.”101
Taylor: Seems almost anticlimactic to ramble through so many other songs . . . “The Prophecy” where I beg on my knees to change it, my curse to not find someone who wants my company . . . or how “I Look in People’s Windows” to find the same, or “Peter” who could never quite live up to my childhood fantasy of that, or toddling Robin, who will soon enough learn of the cruel and the mean, but learn, like myself, to bounce back on that trampoline.102
Billie: Don’t let my nonchalance fool anyone, it’s what we all want.
Lauren: Exactly. Love. like this: when I’m a wasteland, He is the water. When I’m the winter, He is the fire. That burns.103
Taylor: Are you honing in on my T.S. Eliot oeuvre? I was in Cats you know . . .
Lauren: Yes Taylor, we were both good students. How did you put it, you know how to [play] ball, I know Aristotle? Anyway you might say I channeled my inner T.S. Eliot when I used “wasteland” . . . “The Waste Land” famous poem, you all remember?104 105
BIllie: Just how many times do I have to remind you I was home-schooled?
Lauren: But the best part: He is the water to my Waste Land . . . then in his follow up to “The Waste Land,” once he had found the Eternal spring as it were, in “The Four Quartets,” he also moves on to the consuming, divine fire, more than just love songs about fire, but how “The dove descending (allusion to the Spirit of God) breaks the air, with flame of incandescent fire (similar to the fiery warplanes of Eliot’s WW2 era) . . . our only hope . . . to be redeemed by fire.”106
Taylor: Cerebral, I admit.
Lauren: Just gettin’ started (giggles) . . . when I’m the long night, He is the sunrise (ok, standard, but exciting! stuff) . . . when I’m a desert, He is the river that bends . . . to find me!107
Billie: Ok, what . . . ?
Lauren: Ok, our being dry and God as the living water . . . yes, it’s everywhere . . . I am the living water straight from (guess who — Jesus) . . . dry bones reviving: Ezekiel . . . but my homey, Lewis.
Taylor: (groans) Ok, spill it, as it were
Lauren: Ok it’s a little dry (sorry, puns . . .) but the famous Lewis line . . . about students, or anyone . . . we are not so much jungles that need cut down, but deserts that need irrigated.108
Billie: That’s it?
Lauren: Ok, sorry, I had to work in C.S. Lewis somehow, sort of a requirement for An Unexpected Journal articles.
Lauren: But, the point is, well, Him. We all sing about love, but this is Love. Gives us all we need, when our hearts are waste lands, He gives water; when winter, fire; when night, sunrise; when deserts, a river, that bends to find. What have I done, have we done, to deserve this? And, we don’t find it . . . it . . . It . . . He! . . . finds us.
Billie: Nice. That’s some kind of love. Love like that. Or as you say, “Love like this.”
Billie: impressive.
Taylor: Right, it’s not about Me! It’s not about You! It’s about Him (finding Me! finding You!).109
Lauren: Yes. And “find” He does . . . rescue . . . sends out an army in the darkest of night .. and when even ten thousand arrows take flight . . .110 111
Taylor: I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey. Know a little bit about this . . .112
Lauren: He is my armor . . . He gives me everything, oceans push and pull at His command . . . so I trust Him when it hurts.113 114
Billie and Taylor: So much hurt, we agree
Lauren: Yes, I’ve searched the world for it to stop, just to find my heart in His. I was a dead [wo]man walking, till I found . . . He is still rolling stones away . . . rise up, yourselves and whoever you love, by looking up, child[ren]!115 116
Notes:
1 Rodney King, May 1, 1992. Cited in Deb Kenner, May 1, 2019, “On this day in 1992 Rodney King asked ‘Can’t we all just get along?’” PennLive Patriot News, https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2019/05/on-this-day-in-1992-rodney-king-asked-cant-we-all-just-get-along.html.
2 Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams, featuring Simon Pegg as Scotty, Paramount, 2009.
3 Peter Kreeft, Socrates Meets Jesus: History’s Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ (IVP, 2002).
4 Michael R. Licona, Muhammed Meets Paul: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection (Baker Books, 2006).
5 Owen Barfield, Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960s (UK: Barfield Press, 2010).
6 Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, directed by Stephen Herek featuring Alex Winter as William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq., Keanu Reeves as Theodore “Ted” Logan, two dim-witted students, and George Carlin as the sage Rufus (Orion Pictures, 1989).
7 Tim Muehlhoff, I Beg to Differ: Navigating Difficult Conversations with Truth and Love (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 86. Digital Edition. Muehlhoff cites Anna Deavere in her work on listening and performance.
8 Muehlhoff, I Beg to Differ, 183, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-mer and Driftwood, vol. 1 (London: Routledge and Sons, 1836), 405.
9 Proverbs 15:31. Sterner translations like “correction” and “rebukes” seem neither relevant nor helpful here; cited in Muehlhoff, I Beg to Differ, 103.
10 Jasmine Gomez, “Here’s Everything You Need to Know About BIllie Eilish’s Parents and Brother, Finneas,” Seventeen, September 16, 2019, https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a29073914/billie-eilish-parents-family-siblings/.
11 Hugh McIntyre, “Billie Eilish Lands The No. 1 Song In The World For The First Time In Her Career,” Forbes, August 13, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2024/08/13/billie-eilish-lands-the-no-1-song-in-the-world-for-the-first-time-in-her-career/.
12 Matthew Rodriguez, “Billie Eilish Says She Might Just Be ‘Obsessed With the Idea of Nonchalance’,” Them, June 13, 2024, https://www.them.us/story/billie-eilish-lana-del-rey-lunch-nonchalance-interview.
13 Nadya Sharfine, ‘How Billie Eilish Became Gen Z’s Role Model,” Curio, August 20, 2024, https://curio.sg/2960-how-billie-eilish-became-gen-zs-role-model/.
14 Seth Myers, “Taylor Swift, T.S. Eliot, and C.S. Lewis: Eras for the Ages,” An Unexpected Journal 6, no. 3 (2023), https://anunexpectedjournal.com/taylor-swift-t-s-eliot-and-c-s-lewis-eras-for-the-ages/.
15 Seth Myers, “Dostoevsky in Midnights’ Metropolis: Midnights’ Anti-Hero and Marvel-ous Heroes,” An Unexpected Journal 6, no. 4 (2023), https://anunexpectedjournal.com/dostoevsky-in-midnights-metropolis-midnights-anti-hero-and-marvel-ous-heroes/.
16 Glenn Rowley, “Taylor Swift Donated Enough Food to Feed ‘Over 125,000’ at Tampa Food Bank Ahead of the Eras Tour Stop,” Billboard, April 13, 2023, https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-donate-florida-food-bank-the-eras-tour-1235302525/.
17 Adele, “Chasing Pavements,” 19, written by Adele Adkins and Eg White, XL Recordings, 2018. The phrase originated from a breakup, and has come to signify pursuing things which don’t pursue you back or give you value; the hit single is considered to have launched Adele’s career.
18 www.laurendaigle.com.
19 Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Darkroom/Interscope Records, 2019.
20 Lauren Daigle, “These Are The Days” on Lauren Daigle, Atlantic Records, 2023.
21 Billie Eilish, “bad guy” on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Darkroom/Interscope Records, 2019.
22 Taylor Swift and Joel Little, “The Man” on Lovers, Republic Records, 2019.
23 Taylor Swift, Louis Bell and Adam King Feeney, “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” on Lovers, Republic Records, 2019.
24 Daigle explains that dancing, by all generations, was very much part of the community culture growing up, in Emma John, “‘It’s in my blood to see barriers break’: Christian pop star Lauren Daigle on Trump, trolling and abortion,” The Guardian, May 10, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/10/its-in-my-blood-to-see-barriers-break-christian-pop-star-lauren-daigle-on-trump-trolling-and-abortion.
25 Lauren Daigle, “These Are The Days” on Lauren Daigle.
26 Billie Eilish, “Ocean Eyes” on don’t smile on me, Darkroom/Interscope Records, 2019.
27 Billie Eilish, “No Time To Die” in No Time to Die, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2021).
28 Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For?” in Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig (Heyday Films, 2023).
29 Eilish, “No Time To Die.”
30 Billie Eilish, “everything I wanted,” 2019. The song relates to a dream in which no one (music industry executives, fans) cared that she had died, but she finds solace in her brother’s love, as discussed at billieeilish.fandom.com.
31 Lauren Daigle, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” on Look Up Child, Centricity Music, 2019.
32 Billie EIlish, “Ilomilo,” “bury a friend,” when we fall asleep where do we all go? Universal Music, 2019.
33 Taylor Swift, Midnights, Republic Records, 2022. The discerning reader will of course want to trace its Dostoevskian comparison, songs like “Anti-Hero” with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, in Seth Myers, “Dostoevsky in Midnight’s Metropolis: Midnights’ Anti-Hero and Marvel-ous Heroes,” An Unexpected Journal 6, no. 4 (2023): https://anunexpectedjournal.com/dostoevsky-in-midnights-metropolis-midnights-anti-hero-and-marvel-ous-heroes/.
34 BIllie Eilish, “bury a friend,” when we fall asleep where do we all go?
35 Lauren Daigle, “Rescue” and “You Say,” Look Up Child.
36 Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, Austin Post and featuring Post Malone, “Fortnight” on The Tortured Poets Department, Republic Records, 2024.
37 Taylor Swift, Florence Welch featuring Florence + The Machine, “Florida!!!” on TTPD.
38 Taylor Swift, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” on TTPD.
39 Taylor Swift, “So High School” on The Anthology, Republic Records, 2024.
40 Aristotle, “On Poetics” in Great Books of the Western World: Aristotle II, vol. 8., Mortimer J. Adler Editor in Chief (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2003), 1451 a,b (Ch. 9, p. 686).
“The distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose and the other verse — you might put the work of Herodotus into verse, and it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.” Quoting Aristotle, T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis about pop music, priceless. Aristotle also noted that to know something (someone), one must first learn to love it; the author’s appreciation of each artist’s contributions hopefully comes through. An more in-depth discussion of Aristotle and Swift is given by “doctor-gigibanana” Gaylor Swift, “Unpacking ‘You know how to ball I know aristotle’” https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1cqriqr/unpacking_you_know_how_to_ball_i_know_aristotle/.
41 Daily Beast, July 14, 2017, as found in Taylor Swift, The Little Guide to Taylor Swift: Words to Shake It Off (London: OH!, 2022), 82.
42 In Rodriguez, 2024 (see footnote 1) Eilish’s preference is to keep her life private, rebuffing much of the questioning of her sexuality; “wish you were gay” (When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? 2019) merely refers to her discomfort at being the object of someone’s attraction; “Lunch” (Hit Me Hard and Soft , 2024) does depict gay sex, one of a growing number of such songs by various artists.
43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_uBbDkiAIA.
44 Taylor Swift and Joel Little, “You Need To Calm Down” on Lover. The song is directed at (a parody of?) angry, poster-waving demonstrators at a gay rally or march; otherwise, Swift has stated that “We don’t’ need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful” and “when you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them” (Seventeen, March 1, 2009 and Huffington Post, August 11, 2017 respectively, in The Little Guide of Taylor Swift: Words To Shake It Off (OH!: London, 2022), 178, 180.
45 Daigle has said of homosexuality “I can’t say one way or the other. I’m not God . . . I have too many people that I love that are homosexual . . . I just say read the Bible and find out for yourself. And when you find out, let me know, because I’m learning too” after appearing on fellow Lousianian and friend Ellen Degeneres’ tv show. Daigle followed up with “Everything just got clearer as to why it is that we go and love people who are outside of the walls of our church, outside the walls that we are comfortable with.” Warren, Steve. 2018. Christian Broadcasting Network, December 3, 2018. “Christian Singer Lauren Daigle on Homosexuality: ‘I Can’t Say One Way or The Other. I’m Not God.” https://www2.cbn.com/news/news/christian-singer-lauren-daigle-homosexuality-i-cant-say-one-way-or-other-im-not-god.
46 Jackie Hill Perry (jackiehillperry.com) poet, rapper, and author of Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been (Brentwood: B&H Books, 2018) describes her journey through the reality of same-sex attraction to better understanding beauty as God intended as well as obedience; Perry’s story is similar to that of Rachel Gilson (rachelgilson.com) author of Born again This Way: Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Happens Next (The Good Book Company, 2020), Digital Edition.
47 Stephanie Martin, “‘I Am Christian. That’s Not What We Stand For’ — Taylor Swift’s Political Comments Resurface as She Returns to Tennessee,” ChurchLeaders, May 2, 2023, https://churchleaders.com/news/450290-christian-taylor-swift-political-tennessee.html.
48 Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff featuring The Dixie Chicks, “Soon You’ll Get Better” on Lover.
49 Taylor Swift, “Christmas Must Be Something More” on Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, Big Machine Records, 2009.
50 One needs to see the cover of Daigle’s Kaleidoscope Tour album, Lauren Daigle, to appreciate the hair comment.
51 Lauren Daigle, “Kaleidoscope Jesus” on Lauren Daigle.
52 Michael McDonald andJames Ingram, “Yah Mo B There,” It’s Your Night, Qwest Records, 1983. Yes Seth attended a Doobie Brothers concert recently, intrigued to discover this song; the theological angle is highlighted in Velmadunkin, “Ya Mo B There,” Fiercefabulousfunny, March 6, 2021, https://fiercefabulousfunny.com/2021/03/07/ya-mo-b-there-3-6-21/.
53 Billie Eilish, ““What Was I Made For?” in Barbie.
54 Taylor Swift, Florence Welch featuring Florence + The Machine, “Florida!!!” on TTPD.
55 Taylor Swift, “The Manuscript” on TTPD.
56 Taylor Swift and Joel Little, “The Man” on Lover.
57 Taylor Swift, “The Manuscript” on TTPD.
58 Taylor Swift, “In Summation” on TTPD.
59 Billie Eilish, “Bittersuite” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
60 Billie Eilish, “Blue,” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
61 Taylor Swift and Aaron Dressner, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” on TTPD.
62 Lauren Daigle, “Thank God I Do” on Lauren Daigle.
63 Lauren Daigle, “Waiting” on Lauren Daigle.
64 Ibid.
65 Lauren Daigle, “Kaleidoscope Jesus” on Lauren Daigle.
66 Ibid.
67 Lauren Daigle, “To Know Me” on Lauren Daigle.
68 Lauren Daigle, “Still Rolling Stones” on Look Up Child.
69 Lauren Daigle, “Rescue” on Look Up Child.
70 Taylor Swift, “The Tortured Poets Department” on TTPD.
71 Lauren Daigle, “Everything” on Look Up Child.
72 Lauren Daigle, “You Say” on Look Up Child.
73 Ibid.
74 Billie Eilish, “The Diner” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
75 Billie Eilish, “Chihiro” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
76 Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
77 Taylor Swift, “So Long, London” on TTPD.
78 Billie Eilish, “Skinny” on Happier Than Ever, Darkroom/Interscope Records, 2021.
79 Don McLean, “Everybody Loves Me” on American Pie, Record Plant Studios, 1971.
80 Taylor Swift, “Me!” on Lover.
81 Billie Eilish, “The Greatest” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
82 Billie Eilish, “Wildflower” on Hit Me Hard And Soft.
83 Lauren Daigle, “Ego” on Lauren Daigle.
84 Lauren Daigle, “Saint Ferdinand” on Lauren Daigle.
85 Taylor Swift, “Albatross,” “The Black Dog,” “The Bolter,” on TTPD.
86 Taylor Swift, “Cassandra” on The Anthology.
87 Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner, “Marjorie” on evermore, Republic Records, 2020.
88 Taylor Swift, “Cassandra” on The Anthology.
89 Billie Eilish, “all the good girls go to hell,” When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? (Universal, 2019).
90 C.S. Lewis, “De Futilitate” in Christian Reflections, edited by Walter Hooper (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI, 1967), 70.
91 Billie Eilish, “Your Power,” Happier Than Ever.
92 You’ve Got Mail, directed by Nora Ephron featuring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (Warner Brothers, 1998).
93 My Fair Lady, directed by George Cukor, featuring AUdrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, Warner Brothers, 1964. The Play is based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 stage play, Pygmalion, named after Ovid’s character Pygmalion from The Metamorphosis, who fell in love with a statue he had carved.
94 C.S. Lewis, “De Futilitate,” Christian Reflections, 70.
95 Billie Eilish, “all the good girls go to hell,” When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?
96 C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: HarperOne, 2001), viii-ix.
97 Ibid., 71, 75.
98 C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 272. The point is also made in the film version, The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis featuring Max McLean and Michael “Planet Narnia” Ward (1A Productions Fellowship for Performing Arts, 2021).
99 Lauren Daigle, “Losing My Religion” on Look Up Child.
100 Lauren Daigle, “You Say” on Look Up Child.
101 Lauren Daigle, “Thank God I Do” on Lauren Daigle.
102 Taylor Swift, “The Prophecy,” “I Look In People’s Windows,” and “Peter” on The Anthology.
103 Lauren Daigle, “Love Like This” on Look Up Child.
104 T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” in T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1971).
105 Eliot’s Waste Land is discussed more in AUJ’S King Arthur issue, Seth Myers, “Arthur in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: The Search for Regeneration,” 6, no. 2 (2023): https://anunexpectedjournal.com/arthur-in-t-s-eliots-the-waste-land-the-search-for-regeneration/.
106 T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” in T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950, 143.
107 Lauren Daigle, “Love Like This” on Look Up Child.
108 C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Collier Books, 1978), 24.
109 Taylor Swift, Joel Little, and Brendon Urie, “Me!” on Lover.
110 Lauren Daigle, “Rescue” on Look up Child.
111 Lauren Daigle, “Your Wings” on Look up Child.
112 Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff, “The Archer” on Lover.
113 Lauren Daigle, “Your Wings” on Look up Child.
114 Lauren Daigle, “Everything” on Look up Child.
115 Lauren Daigle, “This Girl” on Look up Child.
116 Lauren Daigle, “Still Rolling Stones” on Look up Child.
