The Living Lyrics

Volume I: A Selected Cycle

A devotional work in progress, completed in part

Public identity

The Living Lyrics is a long-form devotional work that uses popular music as a lens for reflection, meaning-making, and ethical attention. Drawing from hundreds of songs across genres and decades, each entry pairs a lyric with a grounded, non-preachy meditation that considers how sound, voice, and narrative shape our inner lives. The project treats music not as nostalgia or trivia, but as a shared cultural language—one capable of carrying insight, comfort, and moral weight in everyday experience.

Curator’s note

Volume I presents a selected cycle from a larger completed manuscript.

The Living Lyrics grew from the conviction that popular songs already accompany our lives more faithfully than most formal texts. We carry them through ordinary days and private moments, often without noticing how deeply they shape our inner language—how we name longing, resolve, regret, joy, and hope.

This volume presents a selected cycle from a larger devotional work. Each entry begins with a lyric and moves outward into reflection, attending not only to what is said, but to how it sounds—how melody, rhythm, and voice give emotional weight to words we might otherwise pass by. The songs gathered here span genres, eras, and perspectives, yet they share a common posture: they invite listening as a form of care.

These reflections are not intended to instruct or persuade. They offer a way of staying with a song a little longer, of noticing what it asks of us, and what it returns. Read in sequence or at random, one per day or many at once, the hope is simply that these pages help restore music to its quiet work—accompanying us as we try to live with greater attention.

Volume I table of contents

  1. Four Tops — Reach Out (I’ll Be There)
  2. Morrissey — Break Up The Family
  3. Kate Bush — Running Up That Hill
  4. Stevie Wonder — I Just Called To Say I Love You
  5. Enya — Only Time
  6. Suzanne Vega — In The Eye
  7. Bachman Turner Overdrive — Takin’ Care Of Business
  8. Christina Aguilera — Beautiful
  9. Wilson Phillips — Hold On
  10. Michael Jackson — Man In The Mirror
  11. Grace Jones — I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You)
  12. Bobby McFerrin — Don’t Worry, Be Happy
  13. Naked Eyes — The Time Is Now
  14. Chicago — Hard Habit To Break
  15. Chic — Est-Ce Que C’est Chic
  16. Buffalo Springfield — For What It’s Worth
  17. Oliver — Good Morning Starshine
  18. Sam Smith — Pray
  19. Sammy Davis, Jr. — I Gotta Be Me
  20. Porter, Cole — Friendship
  21. Lee, Peggy — Mañana
  22. Depeche Mode — Higher Love
  23. Genesis — No Reply At All
  24. King Pleasure — Don’t Get Scared
  25. Soul II Soul — Keep On Moving
  26. Coldplay — Trouble
  27. New Order — All The Way
  28. David Soul — Don’t Give Up On Us
  29. Lizzo — About Damn Time
  30. Beck — Loser
  31. Free Design — The Children’s Waltz
  32. Sly & The Family Stone — You Can Make It If You Try
  33. ESG — Erase You
  34. Police — O My God
  35. Bobby Brown — My Prerogative
  36. Rent Broadway Cast — No Day But Today

(This is a selected cycle from a larger completed manuscript.)

Availability

Volume I is currently available in a limited digital edition.

View / Request Volume I

Note: This page is an anchor—deliberately minimal, deliberately stable.