Flow From The Pen, Bow And Brush

There really are few things I love more than making a personal discovery. Being behind-the-times when it comes to popular music, I only just now stumbled across a gem from rock group Sixpence None the Richer, titled 'Melody of You,' with music and lyrics by guitarist Matt Slocum. While not as ubiquitous as 'Kiss Me' or their cover of 'There She Goes' (or 'Dancing Queen'), it was apparently no trade secret a couple of years ago. Why did no-one tell me about this? The chorus is straightforward...

This is my call, I belong to you
This is my call, to sing the melodies of you
This is my call, I can do nothing else
I can do nothing else

But look at this first stanza...

You're a painting with symbols deep
A symphony, soft as it shifts from dark beneath
A poem that flows, caressing my skin
In all of these things you reside and I
Want to flow from the pen, bow and brush
Then paper and string and canvas touch
With ink and the air to dust your light
From morning 'til the black of night

And the second...

You're the scent of an unfound bloom
A simple tune I only write variations to
A drink that will knock me down on the floor
A key that will unlock the door where I
Hear a voice sing familiar themes
Then beckons me weave notes in between
A bow and a string, a tap and glass
You pour me 'til the day has passed

This isn't pop lyricism. It is poetry.

Plus, the music is charming.

And where does the band's name come from? My favorite author, C.S. Lewis, in a passage from "Mere Christianity":

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given to you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

Sixpence None the Richer has another listener in Memphis.