#255. The song "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield
May 27th by JonEight years ago, while we were dating, my wife and I went to a Y2k gun show. I know, I know ladies, I’m a real catch. But I didn’t go because I own guns or hunt boar or needed a brochure on how to make squirrel jerky. (Although I did get that brochure.) I went because I’m really fascinated by people and I had the sense there would be some interesting people there. I was not disappointed.
In addition to hearing people say things like, “when the banks collapse, bullets will be currency,” I was able to get a pretty fantastic shirt. On the front it says, “If you can’t get out …” and on the back it says, wait for it, “… you better get ready.” I’m not sure where “out” technically is and to tell you the truth I always thought it was about getting “off” the gird, not “out” of anything. But that’s not the point. The point is, that place was awesome and until recently it was on my list of top ten most awesomest places. (If you listen closely you can almost hear the readers that hate my grammar printing out my profile photo, taping it to a pillow and punching it.)
Why was it pushed off the list? Because a new contender has arrived. I am of course talking about the room in which Christian radio stations decide which secular songs should be played.
I don’t know what you envision, but I believe this room has serious chairs in it, a long dark wooden table and one of those reversible mirrors they have at police stations. Behind that mirror, watching in silence sits a triad of the most powerful people in Christian culture. One of the members is Thomas Kinkade and the others are, well I’ve said too much already. Let’s get back to the room.
Based on an Atlanta Christian station’s decision to play Natasha Bedingfield’s song “Unwritten” 194 times a day, here is a recent conversation that probably happened in that room:
Man:
“Man oh man, that Daughtry is killing on the station. Just awesome. Who knew an American Idol star could be so big. After Fantasia, Ruben, Taylor, Katherine and everyone else had disappeared from that show I was a little worried. And I had no idea he was a Christian.”
Woman:
“Well, most people don’t, but he thanks ‘his Lord and Savior’ in his album liner notes which according to Stuff Christians Like is a sure sign. Better yet, he hasn’t Evanescenced us yet, which apparently Jon is going to write about at some point.
Man:
“I understand only 14% of the things you’re saying right now. Stuff Christians Like?”
Woman:
“Don’t worry about it, it’s just some sassmouth site about God and Christianity. But we do need to worry about finding a new song.”
Man:
“What about that song ‘Amen’ by Kid Rock?”
Woman:
“Can’t, it violates the station’s rule, ‘never play music by someone who got married to Pamela Anderson on a boat.’”
Man:
“What about that Nickelback song, ‘If everyone cared,’ it also prominently features the word ‘amen’ in the chorus.”
Woman:
“True, but their other song out right now is about strippers and leading the rock star life. They’re using the word ‘amen’ like people say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes. Wait, I’ve got it. Natasha Bedingfield’s song ‘Unwritten’ is perfect.”
Man:
“Whoa, I don’t know, she’s got the word ‘bed’ in her last name, sounds a bit scandalous to me.”
Woman:
“Oh stop, no listen, she was part of a Christian pop group a while ago. Her brother Daniel got a little famous with his song ‘gotta get through this,’ with an acoustic version which was great. But ‘Unwritten’ has all the signs of a secular song we can use on our Christian radio station.”
Man:
“Really? Isn’t Natasha Bedingfield the one that had that song, ‘I wanna have your babies?’”
Woman:
“Yeah but that’s about fidelity and commitment. Listen, secular stations have been playing ‘unwritten’ for two years which is about as long a head start as we like to give them. Unwritten has really upbeat lyrics like, ‘today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten.’ That feels like chewing bubble gum made of rainbows and sunshine. And last but not least, a church in Atlanta used the title ‘Unwritten’ for a sermon series. It’s a perfect storm.
Man:
“Awesome. If we could just figure out if recent American Idol winner David Cook used to have a Christian band called, ‘this Cook won’t burn’ we’d be all set!”
I’m not sure that’s exactly how it happens but that’s my guess.
p.s. If you missed it over the weekend, make sure you check out, “the everyone is on vacation, anything goes church service” post. The comments about how churches do things differently on the Sundays before holidays are great.
Comments
Our Christian station doesn’t play that, but they do play Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take The Wheel”.
Our Christian radio station, by the way, is boring me to death. I swear, they have a repertoire of 100 songs and they never play anything else. After a while, all the songs sound the same. Turning on the radio is like listening to the same CD. You can stand it maybe once per week, but not all the time.
Jon-
You are a nut ball in a parallel universe. It’s like the Wizard of Oz. Some tornado hit your computer and all of a sudden there’s techincolor scarecrows, flying monkeys, and tankinis all over the place. My family would like to meet your family in cyber space for cyber coffee and cyber crumb cake. We could talk NASCAR and make up mock conversations and turn them into cyber plays for everyone at SCL. Then we could kick….oh, wait, nevermind.
Jon and Stacy – I really don’t want to miss that afternoon cyberchat. Please invite me. I don’t get out much.
you also forgot…”Waiting for the World to Change” by John Mayer.
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it…blah blah blah blah!!!
Team-
Please come to the parallel universe. Bring a Bundt cake. We’ll all be wearing WWJD bracelets and sniffing hymnals like greedy mildew mongers. Also kids are invited but they have to be tagged like whales.
I love the word sassmouth. I hope I get a chance to use it this week.
You raise a very interesting point. Is it more “wrong” to play songs that are vaguely Christian or songs that are clearly Christian, but by an artist with major integrity issues (not that I’m trying to “rank” sins or anything)?
My cousin worked at a gospel station in D.C. that wouldn’t play Fantasia’s I Believe because it was too vague, but had no problem playing anything from R. Kelly’s Christian album. Does it really matter if you said Jesus Christ if your other single out right now is about feeling on somebody’s booty?
Natasha Beddingfield used to since with the Hillsong church in London. It doesn’t get much more officially CCM than that.
Oh wow, you all’s CCM stations are REALLY contemporary. I can’t imagine the one out here in Phoenix to play any song that wasn’t clearly Christian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it went a little like this considering that a large number of execs at Christian record labels – and thus, I’m assuming radio stations – aren’t Christian. They are in the market for it’s growth potential. It’s all about the Benjamins baby! And I ain’t talking about Jacob’s son.
never fear. i keep my kids taggeds so i don’t lose them when i get sidetracked at wal-mart.
I love my Christian radio station, when I can get the Wiggles CD out of the car stereo long enough to be able to listen to it. That said though, I’ve had to stop listening to the station the last few days when I am in the car alone because they’ve been playing a little more Steven Curtis Chapman than usual – I think every other song has been “Cinderella”. I love SCC and his music and I’ve been praying for the family this last week but I’m weeping every time one of his songs comes on the radio. I’d be completely wrecked every time I got to where I was going. So it’s been “traffic on the 5s” for me the last few days.
I’m sort of pop-culture tone deaf these days so I’m not sure I’d know Natasha Bedingfield if she gave me a roundhouse to the head in the name of the Holy Spirit. I’m sure it’s a lovely song though.
And I can handle the goofy grammar without indulging the need to punch something, but I do believe the T-shirt was about getting off the grid. Getting off the gird is probably too strange even for that crew… I had to read that sentence a few times to figure out what it meant
Am I the only one who thought Christian stations should play Lenny Kravitz’s Fly Away – especially since he’s all openly Christian now and everything.
i dont know what this makes us, but when my wife and I got married a year and a half ago, we exited the church to “Unwritten”.
We love how many of the items you point out apply to us. and we laugh a little about how silly we are too.
by the way, you mentioned it earlier inn your Bono post, but you should do something about how Christian Radio Stations play covered songs like “If I ever lose my faith” and “still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. They play these versions by some christian group (which are usually vastly inferior to the originals) but refuse to play the original versions because you will get thrown to the lake of fire for having “the edge” play guitar on your station.
Sorry that comment was long and random. keep on keepin on brotha!
(not intended to be published)
Hi. I don’t read 100% of your posts on Stuff Christians Like, but what I read I like. You may have already posted something on this topic, but if you haven’t here’s a suggestion -
Christians are quicker to say they had a good quiet time with the Lord or they had a good retreat or they had a good holiday time with the in-laws, but why do they not mention anything about a godly, holy and healthy activity between two people. Why is it that during a Wednesday night bible study or a “popcorn” praise time on Sunday morning does no pastor, board member or deacon stand up and say, “I had great sex with my wife this week, EVEN TWICE!!” ?
Just a suggestion and I apologize if this has already been discussed.
-Shawn Hicks
bahahaha!
We went like "HALLELLUJA! Praise your name Jesus!!!" (dont know how many Ls there are in the word).
Team-
Really? I try to lose mine at Wal-Mart.
What gets me is that they’ll play songs by secular bands, but covered by christian bands.
For instance “how far is heaven” by Los Lonely Boys, but done by (gag) Salvador.
Sometimes, looking in the credits can give you a good hint as to the person’s spiritual leanings. I’m curious about “Hanging By a Moment” by Lifehouse. It may come across as a little vague, but “I’ll take your invitation, you take all of me” sure sounds like he’s talking to Jesus.
it is a very riveting song… can you somehow find a way to make acdc copacetic… i enjoy some of their music… i’d like for it to be “guilt free” and have the SCL stamp of approval…
ok so i tinkled in my pants a little bit on this one…for real that was amazing… you sir are a delight and yet again confirming my belief that Sarcasm is a gift of the Spirit and only a select few have been blessed with it in fullest. (the girl of juno…well juno man oh man)
anyways thanks again
and ps i know you know this i’m sure but almost every single christian lable is owned by the secular media, zondervan is as is most christian companies.
they released a stat a few years ago showing that christian book stores were the number 5 money makers in 06…cool stuff aye
All the Christian stations I listen to (and have ever listened to) have not played very many secular songs at all. Daughtry is the exception, quite possibly because his pre-AI band, Absent Element, was actually a Christian rock band. They did go overboard on the “Jesus, Take the Wheel” bandwagon, but IMO, playing that song more than once is overkill.
Thanks again for the laugh! I’ve been to 5 different states in the past 5 days (including a whirlwind 20-minute tour of Washington, DC) and I’ve gotten behind on my juicy SCL goodness.
oh ah ha ha ha ha – this week is Youth Sunday at our place and what is our youth band singing?????
oh yeah… you guessed it…
“Unwritten”
oh P-Jonny, your timing is impecable!
would it be blasphemous to say that i don’t like that song? it came on one of the secular stations i listen to, so i switched to the atl christian station mentioned in this post and that song was on. maybe it was a sign from God, but i put on a cd instead.
is there any way a christian band cover a song by maroon 5 or matchbox 20? i know maroon 5 sings about sex alot but i’m sure they can work around it.
Atlanta’s Fish station is a lot better than it used to be, but still I don’t think I even know this song. I probably couldn’t tell it apart from any of the other schmoltz they play on there. All the songs sound the same, even from artists that I love. It’s like always the one song on the album I love the least.
Anyway, I’ll say it again. This blog is a ministry to me and you need to make a devotional book out of your posts.
robyn collins, you and brenna give me hope for the future. acdc fan, and led zeppelin @ a wedding. katdish loves her aerosmith too.
classics are called that for a reason, just like lon schools us in his classic rap.
paul wall et al. had a benefit last night for kids in houston who graduated high school, with parents in prison. we need to be in the world, loving the world, not separated and judgmental. all kinds of music breaks down all kinds of barriers. even the hoff sang @ the berlin wall coming down. sorry christina who loves all things german, but those berliners are whack for loving the hoff
(If you listen closely you can almost hear the readers that hate my grammar printing out my profile photo, taping it to a pillow and punching it.)
As a member of the “Blog Grammar Police”, I have to inform you that when it’s obviously a purposeful misspelling or made up word, we let it slide.
More importantly, your writing is witty, timely, and right on the mark, we’re either thinking too deeply or laughing to hard (or both) by the time we get to the end of the post to even care!
My biggest pet peeve is when christians back seemingly christian musicians or christian music and then suddenly take it all back. Evanescence. I bought their cd at a christian bookstore. Then they used a couple swear words and suddenly they’re going to hell.
Also I find it hilarious that jesus take the wheel flooded christian radio but they never played her next song about vandalizing a cheating boyfriends truck. Weird
Plus!!! Natasha Beddingfield used to be a worship leader/songwriter at Hillsong Australia.
haha. that right there helps our case and arguement for the song Unwritten.
Why oh Why do Christian station play The Fray just because the first line says "I found God"? It is not a Christian song! Listen to the lyrics people! (exclamation point-itis)
Blake, same for "Bless The Broken Road." Listen to the lyrics–it's not a Christian song.
I appreciate this post immensely for several reasons
1) This song is EVERYWHERE… no lie. I think it came out about 5 years ago, at least and people still play it.
2) There's always a serious moment of confusion in my car when I think I've just changed to a Christian radio preset and hear a song I thought was secular. Hate it when they throw me off like that.
3) My mom laughs at me because I often imagine decisions being made in board rooms with big tables and tall swively black chairs. Most frequently this imagination is applied to commercials. ie "What were they thinking when they decided to okay that commercial?"
You have made me laugh so much the past several days since I have discovered your site.