No New Thing

“…there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 This verse has always puzzled me, how can someone say that there are no new things? Electricity, telephones, radio, and television all sound like new things. But, in fact, they are not. They are different avenues of communication or power. 

Song writers, musicians, preachers, and singers are no exception to this rule. I’ve written two songs, I play the guitar, bass, and piano, I’ve been preaching for twenty-eight years, and I sing often. So, as a member of each of these groups, I can assure that in all of my “original thoughts”, they have all been thought of, spoken, sang, played, or preached before. 

What does this have to do with Southern Gospel music? Simply put, this genre is trying desperately to re-invent itself with “new” shiny, flashy, relevant product design, lyrical hooks, musical loops and all the while, it’s been done before.

I am an eighty year old man trapped in a forty-one year old body. I love old people, old things, and the old ways. Modern music doesn’t move me, modern church gymnastics do nothing for me, and modern bible translations irritate me. Proverbs 22:28 declares “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” From this I have to hold to the right in everything I can. I have failed in the past and in the last two years I’ve been reintroduced to the “Old Time Way”, and might I say, I love it.

In the SG genre, it is quickly becoming more contemporary or at best progressive. Songs written and performed by CCM artists are now recorded by SG artists but put a more country spin on it. Southern Gospel artists now or called Christian artists, they have secular music hooks as their introduction’s to songs or in their bridges. The sound has changed, from the old standard of guitar, piano, and light drums, now there are all types of stringed instruments, heavy drums, and other influences that change the style of music that it was intended to be.

Try as they may, no genre of music will come up with anything that hasn’t already been heard. No writer will pen a lyric that hasn’t already been thought of or spoken. But with all that is within me, I beg or you, as a listener, or artist, find those old paths, those ancient landmarks and walk in those. The message of Christ must be told, and the old way of doing so is still the best way to do it, but that’s just my Southern Gospel Point of View. 

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