How copying “The Boss” led to copying the Bible.
Taming a runaway American dream
Growing up in the UK in the ’80s, like most of my friends, I had an awkward relationship with American culture, films, and music. At once frustrated by Hollywood’s ongoing re-writing of history and yet delighted by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Back To The Future.
Musically, we loved Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson (the 80’s version) but were left cold by pretty much everything else.
America-centric songs, in particular, made little sense to us as we had no common cultural reference point, whether it be “A Little Ditty ‘bout Jack and Diane” or Springsteen mourning the end of his “Glory Days.”
We weren’t “Born in the USA!” and couldn’t imagine a triumphant, confident British equivalent.
Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days”
Even as I emigrated to the USA and my understanding of my adopted country grew this historic indifference followed me. I had no time for middle-of-the-road rock in general and Springsteen in particular.
Until one afternoon, while driving and listening absent-mindedly to a mix on Spotify, Springsteen’s “Born to Run” struck up, and I actually listened to the lyrics.
They are extraordinary.
So extraordinary, in fact, that when I got home, I immediately “googled” them to try to make sense of them.
“In the day we sweat it out on the streets
Of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory
In suicide machines”
The whole song was a revelation and not the celebration of America that I had anticipated. It’s intense, fast-moving, desperate, and a little confusing. So, for some reason unknown to me, I grabbed a notepad and paper and wrote the lyrics out by hand to try and get a better sense of what it all meant.
…and had one of the revelations that ultimately led to Bible Copy Club.
Copying out the lyrics by hand was strangely exciting and, at the same time, helped me make sense of them. Unlike mindlessly singing along to them, karaoke-style, I had a sense of their meaning and an understanding of just how hard it must be to put the ideas and the words together in a way that is both dramatic, rhythmic, and compelling.
Springsteen's own hand-written lyrics sold for $197,000 at auction
By copying out “Born to Run” by hand, I developed a huge respect for Bruce Springsteen the writer and a deeper understanding of how he touches his audience by putting to words and belting guitar the things they sense about the world they inhabit.
Getting on the same page with God
Obviously, that is why people sing along to songs with passion. But if you only sing along you are still an outsider, a consumer. You perhaps have a sense of the performer.
But, if you hand copy the words out, you get a very intimate sense of the author. You are, if you’ll excuse the pun, on the same page. There’s a richness to the thoughtful, meditative act of hand-copying the words that move you that brings you into a relationship with them that you won’t experience any other way.
This week we copied out Proverbs 3, and as we did so I hope you had a growing sense, not simply that Wisdom is a desirable thing to attain. But rather an essential element of life. Something that is sewn into the fabric of the universe. Something that inhabits us, and preserves us if we will only submit to it.
It’s a given and a gift literally of God. It is of Him. His essence is Wisdom and it is overflowing with goodness.
Before copying out the Proverb, I might have “thought so.” But after copying it out diligently I feel it and know it more deeply and richly.
P.S. Try copying out a favorite song, poem, or hymn in your own hand today. I promise you’ll experience it in a new way that will deepen your appreciation of it.
