My wife teases me because I don’t notice the lyrics to music. We can be listening to the same song and I’ll have no idea what the songs about. Even when I try really hard to listen to the words in a song I find that I’m barely capable of doing so. What’s my problem? Do you know how many times I listened to Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son” while I worked at Outback? Do you know how much of that song I can sing? Yeah, it’s a bit pathetic.

For some time I’ve written all of this off on the way my brain takes in and stores information. Music does not in any way aid in my learning, in fact I have a hard time learning anything if music is playing in the background. And while I realize that there’s probably a lot of truth in this, I think I’ve discovered the real core issue. Contemporary Christian music.

I grew up listening to Contemporary Christian Music. Have you listened to it? For every song that makes churchgoers weep (due to its powerful lyrics not it’s terrible melody…though both could be true) there are three songs whose lyrics are painfully cheesy, trite, and shallow. The reason I’m not skilled at hearing the lyrics to music is that I learned early on that the lyrics to music was not worth listening to! Contemporary Christian music made me deaf and ignorant!

Dear contemporary Christian music, I will get you back for what you’ve done to me. Do you realize how many times I’ve sang loudly the wrong lyrics to a song in public? Do you realize that you’ve made karaoke that much more difficult? Do you realize how you’ve hurt my future? Just wait, I’ll get you and I’ll get you where it hurts. Michael W. Smith, I’ve got my eyes on you.