“Muskrat Love,” a song about courting muskrats (which are like regular rats only a lot muskier), was a hit not once, but twice in the 1970’s.  The band, America, charted with the song in 1973, reaching #34 on the pop charts.  That recording, by the way, was produced by George Martin, who happened to be free since the Beatles had broken up.  The man responsible for “Something,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “In My Life,” also gave us “Muskrat Love.”  Then, in 1976, the Captain and Teneille charted with it again, reaching # 4 on the pop charts.  How does this happen?  If there had been any traditional folk-songs about muskrat courtship the Weavers would have been singing them back in the 40’s.  How does it even occur to someone to write a song about two muskrats on a date?  Even in the 70’s?  And what prompts enough people to buy a song about two muskrats on a date that it cracks the top 40 not once, but twice?  At least they didn’t make a disco version of it.

Unfortunately they did make a disco version of Jimmy Webb’s eviscerating “MacArthur Park,” which first charted (reaching #2) in 1968.  It was sung by Richard Harris – evidently during a tooth extraction (although I believe I heard strains of it during the torture scenes of A Man Called Horse).  The disco version came in 1978, by Donna Summer.  It hit # 1!  I listened to it again the other day, and all I can do is agree with the refrain of the song itself: “Oh nooooooo…..Oh noooooo…….!!”

Sometimes great songs get remade into hits.  Whitfield and Strong’s classic, “Heard it Through the Grapevine” charted four times.  First by Gladys Knight and the Pipps in 1967 (charting at #2), then by Marvin Gaye in 1968 (charting at #1), next by Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1972 (charting at #25 ), and finally in 1985 (charting at #37) by the California Raisins (or was it the Rollins Stones?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference).  Of course some bands sing different songs that seem to be the same song.  Jill once commented on those Jersey Boys, The Four Seasons, “They sing the same song over and over again: ‘I can’t date you because I’m too poor.”  “No they don’t,” I replied, “They also sing: ‘I can’t date you, because you’re too poor,’ “I can’t date you, I’m married,’ and ‘Let’s Hang On.’”

I have often commented that the Bible’s hymn-book, the Psalms, is far ahead of the praise music we have in our own hymn-books, in terms of variety, honesty, and theological depth.  David’s repentance psalm, Psalm 51, is written for “the choir director.”  Find its like in our own hymn-book if you can.  John C. Walton has identified 33 distinctive psalm types (Chronological Charts of the Old Testament, p.74).  But these 33 types are grouped under 6 headings, and all those headings are further grouped as either hymns of “praise,” or “lament.”  I would argue that each Psalm, the personal ones and the national ones, those that give thanks and those that complain, those that ask for deliverance and those that ask for judgment, are actually the same song.  The 150 songs in the Bible’s hymnal start all over the emotional map, but they all arrive at the same destination.  The song remains the same, and the words are these: God is ours, and God is good.

I would like to end this little piece with words that close Psalm 5, a song Walton lists as a lament:

 

Let all who take refuge in You be glad,

Let them sing for joy forever.

And may You shelter them,

That those who love Your name may rejoice in You.

For it is You, O Lord, who blesses the righteous person,

You cover him with favor as with a shield. Psalm5.11-12

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