A'ight stop collaborate and listen...

Last week I saw this headline on Yahoo! that these brothers from the UK have done a remix of Ice Ice Baby and Under Pressure.  I’m in one of my distraction modes, so I click on it.  Out comes these twins with these high top hairdos with back up dancer’s straight out of the 90’s.  I’m laughing partly out of thinking it’s funny and partly out of shock.  They’re doing something called a mash-up.  I’m out of the music loop, but apparently, that’s when you mix two songs together.  One stanza or whatever you call it is from Under Pressure and the next one is from  Ice Ice Baby.  These dudes are going at it having a good ol’ time when out pops old VI himself.  I’m tripping.  Oh Snap! “Now that the party is jumping, with the bass kicked in and the vegas are pumping” (still don’t know what a vega is). Seeing this dude brings back memories.  I knew he was still around because I saw him in Jillian’s for $5 dollar back in 2002.  I won’t go into that whole story.

So anyway, after googling Jedward, the name of the twin’s duo, I find out that they are from the X Factor in the UK, which is like American Idol.  It’s another show created by Simon.  I don’t watch TV so you might already know all of this.  Anyway, it turns out that in the UK there is a “civil war” over whether these kids should have won the X Factor Title.  They made it to week 7 and then had to move on.  Fast Forward a couple weeks and they are on The National TV Awards (from the UK) performing in front of at least 20,000 people and guess who pops out?  A wave of shock goes through the crowd. I’m cracking up on many levels asking myself how could this happen, trying some way to put it in a spiritual context because that’s what I do.  Then I see it in VI’s eyes.  It’s humility.

I remember when he came out of nowhere, like a white MC Hammer.  Everybody was listening to that track and then next thing you know he was dropped like Milli Vanilli.  Those were some crazy times.  I heard that he tried to kill himself after all of that.  He was caught up.  I don’t want to get too far into his story.  If you don’t know it, you can look it up.  But all you probably have to do is look inside yourself, because I think we all go through his story in our own way.  Some of us never make it past the first stage when we get knocked down. Some of us barely survive and live life scared to try again.  Some of us learn from our mistakes and try to make up for it.  And some of us make a comeback.   Here’s how it goes:

1. The world makes you a bunch of promises of the happiness to be found in fame, material possessions, and other trappings.  We fall for it and will even sell ourselves out to get whatever it is we think will make us happy.
2. We get a taste and then become material crackheads always looking for the next fix and working and being willing to do almost anything for more–even wearing glittery baggy pants.
3. Life kicks us in the teeth.  We find out one way or the other that all this stuff is temporary.  We get knocked down to the point where we have to decide how we’re living.  We find out who are real friends are and more importantly who our God is.  (That’s really the blessing in all of it.)  Then we have to make a decision.  Will we serve the temporary outer world with corruptible treasures or the inner Spiritual world where the treasures are eternal i.e. cultivating love, compassion, humility, etc.

I pray about everything, so I prayed about the significance of this song coming back.  I found my answer in the words of the original Under Pressure itself.

Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you no man ask for
Under pressure – that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
Chippin’ around – kick my brains around the floor
These are the days it never rains but it pours
It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming ‘Let me out’
Pray tomorrow – gets me higher
Pressure on people – people on streets
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don’t work
Keep coming up with love
but it’s so slashed and torn
Why – why – why ?
Love love love love love
Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

I don’t know about you, but those words hit home with me.  It’s a pretty accurate description of what many of us are experiencing right now. I am an absolute believer that God does not hide from us.  We can find a lesson from God everywhere, in everyone, and in everything in this world if we are willing to look past our own egos and wants.  I am grateful for that.  I took the opportunity with this Jedward thing.  I watched an interview with them and these guys are about as innocent as you can get for 18 year olds.  It would take someone innocent to willingly take on bringing back Ice Ice Baby the way they did, given its history in the music industry.  God bless them.  I hope that through their relationship with VI he will warn them about how short lived that type of attention can be and they can just have fun and stay innocent.  Speaking of innocent, Virgin Mobile has started a campaign to right the wrongs of the music industry and guess who they’ve declared innocent?  Maybe there’s hope for all of us to be innocent again.