Swan Silvertones

After the previous post someone asked if I was punishing the readers again, well I actually like 'Love Lifted Me' by the Swan Silvertones, so allow me to explain why I like that, but I dislike 'Jesus is Your Friend' and 'I Walked Through the Garden Alone' and Anglicans dressed up in trendy vestments.



It is always difficult for to explain one's taste, but I think I would sum up mine by saying I have a taste for the authentic. The genuine appeals to me while the artificial, hypocritical, sentimental and saccharine does not.



There is an authenticity to the Swan Silvertones. They are themselves. Their music is unpretentious and un-self conscious. They sing from the heart, and they sing well.  They are not trying to be anyone else, and their music is not all tarted up with technological fakery and stagey legerdemain. Their ingenuity and musicianship is totally genuine and like all great artists, they blended styles and talent into a new synthesis--creating something new out of the old.



Furthermore, if you like the Swan Silvertones you like them exactly for who they are. Too often our 'taste' is developed because someone classy or educated or rich told us we should like something. So we try to like it long enough and then we think we do, when in fact we don't really like it and are only pretending in order to think ourselves classier or more educated than we really are. Even worse, our 'taste' is often determined by a fear of not liking what everyone else likes. We don't want to be thought unusual. We want to fit in with the 'tasteful' set. Worst of all, our 'taste' is determined by the cult of celebrity--so we 'like' something because it's famous. Thus all the tourists who troop through the Louvre missing everything on the way in order to stand in front of the Mona Lisa for two minutes before yawning and getting back on the bus.



So that's the first explanation of my taste in things. The second is that the music of the Swan Silvertones is not immediately attractive to me. I don't want to pretend to like something I don't like, but I do want to try new things. That's an adventure. If I end up not liking something new, (or have good reasons for not trying something new--like I really do not want to try the new jalapeno cheeseburger on a pizza biscuit at Jack in the Box) then I will either figure out why I don't like the new thing or maybe I will develop a taste for it, and my life is richer.



So I like Swan Silvertones because they surprised me with something I hadn't experienced before--something authentic and cool and heart felt. I made an effort and learned to like something worthwhile. I have had the same experience with curry, opera, Bourbon and the Catholic faith.



Finally, I like Swan Silvertones singing Love Lifted Me because it is heartfelt, but not sentimental. The words are simple, homely and sweet words of a devotional hymn that focus on the love of Christ--not on me and my walk through the garden or along the beach.



That doesn't mean you have to like the Swan Silvertones.



But you could try...