• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Browse all Topics
    • College Ministry
      • Movement Building
        • Large College Ministries
      • Sending
        • Top Sending Campuses
    • Reading Well
    • Understanding the Times
      • Generation Z
      • Technology
      • Music

Tim Casteel

Thoughts on Leadership and College Ministry

  • Understanding the Times
  • College Ministry
  • Reading Well
  • Generation Z
  • Technology

Yahweh’s Unrequited Love

May 7, 2013 By Tim Casteel

The new Vampire Weekend album is streaming for free on iTunes and will be released Tuesday, May 14.vampires of the modern city

“Step” and “Ya Hey” are two of the best songs I’ve heard all year and will definitely be going on my “Top Songs of 2013” list once they’re released (you can watch the videos for these two below).

“Ya Hey” (read: Yahweh) is particularly intriguing.

In “Ya Hey” Ezra Koenig, Vampire Weekend’s Jewish lead singer “flips the script of the old question ‘If God really loves us, why do terrible things happen?’ Ezra seems to be asking ‘How can God love such terrible things?'” (quote)

Pitchfork (the de facto king of indie music blogs) named it a “Best New Track” and said:

Koenig stages a plaintive confrontation with his higher power, listing its non-believers, and shrugging: “America don’t love you/ So I can never love you in spite of everything.” This isn’t a breakup, but an attempt to see the other side in hopes of reconciliation: why should you show such love for the people who go such lengths to deny your existence, when you can’t even get any credit for it?

The scrambled, mutated voices on the hook play off the inpronounceable name of the Lord while flipping the title of perhaps the most beloved pop song of the past two decades. Such is the scope of “Ya Hey,” but Vampire Weekend put it within the grasp of anyone who wants it with another impossibly catchy song that skips along while carrying the weight of the universe.

The lyrics wrestle with God’s unending, unrequited love and grace for a people prone to wander and disregard a God who does not seem to answer:

And I can’t help but feel, that I made some mistake, but I let it go

Through the fire and through the flames, you won’t even say your name,
Only I am that I am.

Oh, good God,
The faithless they don’t love you,
The zealous hearts don’t love you,
And that’s not gonna change.

And I think in your heart, that you see the mistake, but you let it go

Here’s the video for “Ya Hey” with lyrics:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-BznQE6B8U[/youtube]

 

And here’s the phenomenal song “Step” off the new album:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDxcDjg9P4[/youtube]

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: culture, Music

Primary Sidebar

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive insights and updates on Leadership, College Ministry and Generation Z.

  • Twitter

Book Recs

My Top Books of 2021

January 15, 2022 By Tim Casteel

My Top Books of 2020

January 17, 2021 By Tim Casteel

Top 10 Books on Technology

March 3, 2020 By Tim Casteel

Categories

College Ministry Evangelism Featured Large College Ministries Leaders are Readers Leadership Ministry Movement Building Music Reading the Bible Sending Technology Top Sending Campuses Understanding the Times

Footer

Recent Posts

  • My Top Books of 2022
  • The Modified M’Cheyne Method – Read the Bible in a Year
  • Rewarding Beach Reads
  • My Top Books of 2021
  • The Spiritual Effects of Distraction

Categories

  • Understanding the Times
  • College Ministry
  • Reading Well
  • Generation Z
  • Technology