I love this song by Jónsi. It inspires me.
I see the walls, then see them fall
You break through them all
I see you crawl, now you stand tall
Grow and grow till tall
There’s songs, sounds you bring to us
You pin both the wings on us
I hear, I see you sing for us
You go tie a string around us
I’ve got a lot of half-finished blog ideas and things written, but honestly, the last couple days I’ve felt a bit worn out and needing some inspiration.
Enter “Go”, the new album from Sigùr Ros lead singer Jónsi, which was just released yesterday. I’ve blogged before about my love of Sigùr Ros’ music and how it moves me. I won’t rehash all that, but you if you haven’t read that post yet or heard their music, you are really missing out. Sigùr Ros hails from Iceland and Jonsi sings mostly in an unintelligible, responsive language called “Vonlenska”, which is translated as “hopelandic”. I know, pretty dope, right!? There are actually a lot of English lyrics on “Go”, which is pretty cool when contrast with the “vonlenska”.
“Go” is brilliant and has been infusing me with mad inspiration. The album is stunning! The harmonies, the rhythms, the musical textures… it’s an incredible work of art. The album is vivid, bursting with creativity and teeming with life!
It sounds like beauty.
It sounds like Spring.
It sounds like hope.
It sounds like redemption.
I wanted to share the video for the song “Go Do” with you. I know it won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but for the rest of you, hope you enjoy and are inspired!
Jónsi – Go Do from Jónsi on Vimeo.
For a limited time, you can purchase “Go” at Amazon MP3 for just $6.99. I recommend getting on that. 
Each week I read a lot of blogs and consume a lot of media, and I want to centralize some of my favorite finds of the week and share them. So I’m going to start doing a week in review, or a “weekly recapitulation” rather, of some cool stuff I’ve found online in the previous 7 days that fall under my primary blog topics of faith, life and culture. This will all be stuff that has inspired, challenged, encouraged or in some cases flat out entertained me this week, that i want to share with you. The goal is to do this over the weekend, but this one fell on Monday morning. Should be fun times. Here goes.
“In my regular, daily Bible reading over the past year I read through Proverbs 3, a passage I’ve studied and preached through many times. But during this reading, I realized that in verses 3 through 12 we have all the themes of the rest of the book, and therefore a kind of mini-guide to faithful living. There are five things that comprise a wise, godly life. They function both as means to becoming wise and godly as well as signs that you are growing into such a life.” – Timothy Keller
“At some point I’ve got to come to grips with the fact that my identity is not based on what I earn, what I have, or where I rank. At some point I have to realize this game is doing immense damage to my ultimate goal of Christ being formed in me.” – Pete Wilson
I loved this post and concept. I’ve been thinking a lot about personal goals and being much more intentional in my life, and this concept speaks directly to intentionally surrounding yourself with the right people to help you do life wisely. Love that.
“I didn’t realize the how significant of an impact my job satisfaction had on my family. Had no clue. I want my son to understand that your job matters. Not in the ways that the world thinks, but in terms of your impact. I want him to find what he’s passionate about and do it. He will be better for it. His family will be better for it. The world will be better for it. If that means lower pay, fewer benefits and fewer job security, so be it. Let everybody else be safe and miserable.” – Kevin Deshazo
In part 3 of his series, Randy shares, with great emotion, his gratitude to a few friends who have been very instrumental in shaping his life and who he has become. This is powerful and makes me think of the friends in my life who have played key roles in shaping who I have, and continue to, become.
I watched this show Friday night and loved it! The show was incredible and I hope it serves as a wake up call to people about what we’re putting in our bodies. The whole health/fitness/nutrition thing has become a big focus for me this year, and I’m excited to see this show develop.
These guys released their new album “Miracle” this past week and it is instantly one of my favorite albums of the year. The song “Awaken My Soul” makes me want to run a marathon, go skydiving or something! I love this album and will be doing a blog about it very soon. You can listen to it here, then buy it here.
The lead singer of Sigur Rós, Jónsi, is releasing his solo debut album April 6. In the meantime, he has released four videos of him and Nico Muhly doing undressed versions of songs from the upcoming album. Jónsi’s voice sounds particularly delicate on its own, so he and Muhly stick to just piano, guitar, or ukulele for each song. The sessions were filmed at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in London. AMAZING! Props to Stereogum for this!
I was first introduced to the music of Sigur Rós when I lived in Dallas in 2007 by my friend Brad. I will never forget the first time I heard their music. As I sat there and listened to their album “Takk…”, my heart was completely overwhelmed by the pure beauty of what I was hearing, and I was moved with such emotion, literally to tears. I can count on one or two fingers the times in my life I can remember ever having that kind of response to music.
Sigur Rós hails from Iceland and they don’t even sing in English. In fact, they don’t sing in any particular language at all, but rather in “Vonlenska”, a term used to describe the unintelligible lyrics sung by the band and commonly known by the English translation of its name, “hopelandic.” Nice!
According to the Sigur Rós wikipedia,
Vonlenska is a non-literal language, without fixed syntax, and differs from constructed languages that can be used for communication. It focuses entirely on the sounds of language; lacking grammar, meaning, and even distinct words. Instead, it consists of emotive syllables and phonemes; in effect, Vonlenska uses the melodic and rhythmic elements of singing without the conceptual content of language. In this way, it is similar to the use of scat singing in vocal jazz. The band’s website describes it as “a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music”.
Sounds like “making music in your heart” to me!
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:19-20)
I am learning that the essence of worship is the response of my heart to who I believe God to be. I believe we can tend to over-think so much about what “worship” is and what it isn’t that we fail to just let our hearts respond to who God is. I don’t need scripted lyrics to experience true heart worship. Sometimes, my worship is deeper than any words I could find, so none seem adequate for what I feel in my heart. I can honestly say that I have had quite a few very profound personal moments of worship set to some Sigur Rós music.
So yeah, I have zero clue what they are saying, but there is something very majestic and regal about their music that captivates me and opens my heart in a way that not much else does.
Here is one of their songs, “Glósóli” set to clips of the BBC’s amazing Planet Earth documentary series. Even though I have no clue what they are saying, this makes my heart worship. How great is our God!
