I'm Not Going To Glory

2 hours ago6 min read

This is the last sermonette we’re writing for Hymns For My Atheist Sister & Her Friends To Sing Along To. Today we’ll be talking about one of our less straightforward songs, “I’m Not Going To Glory.” Thanks for bearing with us as we sermonize our way through these songs. Growing up in 90’s Christian culture we have a tendency to do that. I remember as a young music lover pondering over the lyric books in jewel cases like they were holy texts and searching for the meaning behind the music I loved. I’m afraid I was the way the poet Billy Collins described his students;

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

In some ways art is an act of faith. When we begin a song, there may be inspiration at the start, but it is faith and hope that gets us from the opening line to a finished song and through the hundreds of little choices in between. If there wasn’t a sort of faith in the process, that positive transformation can come out of sound, (which Tom Waits reminds us are “just interesting things to do with the air”) then we would get bogged down in the pointlessness of it all. It’s a transformation not unlike turning water into wine, a miracle each time it happens.

Unfortunately, like the poetry students in the poem, modern religion and culture has taught us that faith is something that we feel, that we keep locked away in our heart, our own personal Jesus. God is up in the clouds and heaven is what comes after we’re done living. And so, because art is an act of faith we have a tendency to see it as needing a deeper meaning, a hidden agenda. We demand a reason for its existence! And we neglect the physical nature of a song, the actual space that it takes up, the realness of a song and the way that it doesn’t need a meaning just to be. That would be like asking “what is the meaning of the grass? What is the point of the sky?” And while those can be fun questions to ask, I imagine the grass and the sky would resent you for thinking they can be distilled into an answer.

And so what does “I’m Not Going to Glory” mean? What is this song about? Well…you tell me…please, because there is much disagreement in the band. Sometimes the lyrics “I’m not going to glory and I’m going right now” means “I’m not dead yet, so let me do something instead.” Sometimes it’s “glory is right here, right now.” But other times we just let it be, because this song just exists, free of meaning. It came to us like that, knocking on the door of the hotel room we were staying at, a little brash, a little playful, pretending at paradox. You will find a meaning in the lyrics, the same way you do with ink blots and clouds, but that’s not the point. The point is the experience. The point is that for whatever reason the lyric “I’m not going to glory and I’m going right now” made us happy when we wrote it. It made sense on a level that we couldn’t express with other words. That’s the thing about dissecting poetry and lyrics, to try and explain what they mean misses the point. The point is experiencing it. The point is the song. The point is the poetry.

We heard a talk last year about mysticism, that helped explain the process we go through when we write music. Every person’s mind is a room and they have that room ordered just the way they like it; books lined up alphabetically on shelves, clothes hung in the closet, bed made up, with a desk looking out the window, their papers neatly stacked on the desk. It’s the mystic’s job to open up a window and let the breeze in, scattering those neat stacks. It’s the poet’s job to open the window and allow the rain to get in and soak the bedsheets. When you allow mysticism into your life, you allow the questions in and those questions force you to make changes. Mysticism isn’t meant to help you get to some afterlife, some heaven. It’s meant to deepen your life and your appreciation for it right here, right now.

We have some friends across the river in Vermont who attend a group for seniors called “Third Act,” whose mission is to “inspire elders to come together to take action on the Climate Crisis and Democracy through education, advocacy, and camaraderie.” This is such a lovely idea, because it’s asking people to invest in a world that they will not see, to sow seeds in a place they can’t harvest. It’s asking elders to have faith and to make the world they wish to see. That’s hard work and often you can think “what’s the point?” But the point is the trying. The art is the struggle to make something good with the time and the resources that you have. That is glory. Right now.

This year we’ve started an action committee that we are lovingly referring to as DOBI, or the Department of Band Inefficiency, where we do some wholly consuming, focused, creative process, that is tedious to the point of no return on investment. Right now, we’re building these limited-edition meditation-hymnals that have the sheet music, some art prints and some creative journal prompts for you to engage with and we’re using mostly recycled/found paper and book covers. But there is a lot of measuring and cutting to size, because nothing is pre-cut. And there’s a lot of gluing and re-gluing and getting the glue off our fingers. It’s a way that we remind ourselves that efficiency is the not the way to make good art and that the point of art is not how much you can sell it for based on how much time you spend on it. In a world where we demand glory right now, or demand it in the future, where glory is synonymous with accolades, it’s important to remind ourselves that the most glorious part is actually doing the work. The glory of a creative process is in the creating, not in the selling or the consuming or the praise. What a shame it would be if we spent our whole lives preparing for glory and we missed enjoying the making of it.

I’m Not Going to Glory

Written by Mallory Graham & Scott Tyler

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now.

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now. (unison)

If I’m fine, I’m fine,

Don’t want to get of mind

That I somehow deserve it.

Hey, hey aren’t we lucky now?

Maybe we don’t even have to earn it.

Hanging on the Long Because

We’re dying every minute–

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now.

I’m on my way to you,

Or passing through,

Unless, of course, I’m leaving.

I’ll share a ride with any kind

So long as you’re still lost and breathing.

I’ve made up my mind–

If I’m fine, I’m fine,

The proof is in believing–

Are you believing?

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now.

Can’t you see it?

You won’t believe it!

If it’s not the wind, it’s the howl.

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going–

Hey, hey aren’t we lucky– don’t you wanna find out how?

Maybe it’s that we’re dying every minute.

Hey, hey aren’t we lucky– don’t you wanna find out how?

Maybe it’s that we’re dying every minute.

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now.

Can’t you see it?

You won’t believe it!

If it’s not the wind, it’s the howl.

I’m not going to Glory, and I’m going right now.

I'm Not Going To Glory

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