So all week I've been gearing up to write about how good the Watson Twins' new album is. And, it truly is quite good. However, I'm one of those people who likes to listen to an album many times. Agreeing with Amanda Palmer's philosophy of music, to really get to know an artist and his or her music, his or her music needs to be listened to many times. So, after listening to Talking to You, Talking to Me a religious amount, I went back to an album I'd purchased a few weeks back, IRM by Charlotte Gainsbourg. For all you musical indie nerds who like to name drop musical artists like your life depended on it, Beck wrote, played, and produced most of the music on IRM along with Charlotte. Check out their handiwork on Heaven Can Wait. Or this sweet performance of Trick Pony on Letterman (note the dude in the werewolf mask).
Now bear with me as I relate what I was thinking about today to Charlotte. First, I was thinking about the fact that graduate school emphasizes gaining knowledge for the sake of knowledge or (to be a bit more generous) for the sake of mankind. As a Christian, this irritates me excessively, as all is to be done to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). This led me to question how I partake in entertainment, including listening to music. I should, at least at some level, engage it from a Christian worldview. Second, I was arguing with friends about the limitations of science. It seems that science can (and does) provide a lot of God-glorifying mechanical explanations of the world. However, there is always a limitation science cannot go beyond because of its mechanistic constraints. For example, I can explain how neurons in the brain fire and synapses work, but how can I, by science, explain WHY something makes me excited? Or WHY and WHEN I have impulsive decisions? This conversation is not by any means a closed book, so please chime in.
Then I came across this song by Charlotte Gainsbourg. I read this wonderful review and learned about the near-death experience that brought Charlotte to write (the song, which can be hear here) IRM (which is the French abbreviation for MRI). First, I could more fully appreciate the song as I understood the musical effects created to give the feeling of experiencing an MRI. Second, the lyrics simply swept me away, especially the last four lines. Science, in the form of an MRI and EKG (more info on what that is here) can only map so much of the brain. But what about the trauma that lies in the shadow of our sin? Without further ado, the lyrics to IRM:
Take a picture, what's inside?
Ghost image in my mind
Neural pattern like a spider
Capillary to the centre
Hold still and press the button
Looking through a glass onion
Following the X-ray eye
From the cortex to medulla
Analyze EKG
Can you see a memory?
Register all my fear
On a flowchart disappear
Leave my head demagnetized
Tell me where the trauma lies
In the scan of pathogen
Or the shadow of my sin
*Image taken from here
**Lyrics can be found on Charlotte's website
