Right after Al Gore invented the internet, he wrote the song “Asking Myself.”
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About the Song
So the opening sentence of this post isn’t completely accurate, but I would say that he did have a bit of influence on the song. In the Summer of 2006 Al Gore made big waves in the popular conscience of America with the release of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” It seems like everyone was talking about things like global climate change and human over-consumption.
Fast forward 6 months and we were messing around with this slinky little R&B riff that I had come up with and started trying to write a love song around the music. I remember Russ coming up with the line, “I keep asking myself, have we gone too far,” referring to the way that our heart can pull us into unhealthy places in relationships. That’s about as far as we got on the song before we got stuck.
A few weeks later Russ and I were having a discussion related to the topic of over consumption in America and what our responsibility as people of faith should be. That conversation led me to rethink the direction of the song we were trying to write, because in a way the same emotions that get us stuck in unhealthy relationships with people can also get us stuck in unhealthy relationships with the stuff we consume (e.g. food, clothing, houses, toys, etc). You see, I’ve never met anyone who started into a love-type relationship with another person thinking, “I really hope this ends badly and I get my heart broken.” Similarly, I don’t think that any of us make our purchasing decisions by first thinking through the full implications that our mass-consumer mentality has on the world when it comes to issues of environmentalism and social justice. However, the truth of the matter is that our consumption does have many negative effects on the world around us that we need to consider.
It was that line of thinking that led me to rewrite the verses of the song to include lyrics like:
Stop the music I need your attention before the skies turn gray,
I don’t think it was ever our intention for things to end up this way.
We just took till we had our fill, and never thought we’d have to pay the bill
So get your head straight before it’s too late
It’s hard to look in the mirror and ask ourselves tough questions like these, but I think it’s important for us to stop and reflect occasionally so that we don’t end up several years down the road wishing that we’d been more content with the things that we had.
Excellent post and excellent points. Thanks for making me think. And on a Monday that’s no small feat.
One of the things that always grabs me about the lyric is the final thought really hits close to home:
“But we can’t stop and we won’t look back,
Until we found out we’d be better off with what we had”
It’s a sort of slap-in-the-face moment – the reality is our behavior and consumption is addictive and far too often leads to learning the hard way. It’s just no good, just no good….
p.s. I love that this is always the song that couples slow dance to. Sure it sounds like a slow jam, but there’s something odd about taking a spin on the dance floor with the one you love during a song that talks about how shallow and empty the world can be.
@Ron – Glad I could provide your mental work out for the week
@Russ – Welcome back…remind me to teach you how to edit comments some time ;)
This one is definitely one of my favorite live tunes.
It’s one of my favorites too. And not just because of the instrumental bridge (though, as Russ always says, it does make an important statement :) …