Suspended Forth

Lyrics

Friend stopped talking to me

By accident

It was no one's fault

It's just how it happened

I never set that bridge ablaze

I just stopped walking on it

May I never grow weary of your narrow road

What if I never become who I'm supposed to be in my mind's eye

What if I fail me

Getting all caught up in the miry dross

The suspended fourth never gets resolved

And all the things I haven't finished

Left unsaid and unsung

How awful it would be to leave them

Undone

I'm convinced that this seed has taken root

How long now before I see fruit

So that I can be sure I'm blooming beautifully 

Reflecting you and only you in my ability

Have I let you down

Trusting you is like learning to ride a bike

Listening and then following the course

With your hand behind my seat

Pedals beneath my feet

You thrust me onward

And I am suspended forth

(c)2019 Allie Harshner

Lyrics, Unpacked:

This song is one of the final tracks on my album Conversations, but it's quite different than all the others in that it's kind of a conversation between me and my God. 
A prayer, if you will. Or, a psalm. 

When Mike first heard it, he was like- this really sounds like it could be a psalm.
Not that attempting to write scripture or anything, but rather putting a prayer/conversation to music.

The first verse points to how human relationships just break down over time:

Friend stopped talking to me

By accident

It was no one's fault

It's just how it happened

I never set that bridge ablaze

I just stopped walking on it

This tells how we can so easily drift apart from people. You get busy and eventually stop contacting them or vice versa, or they stop letting you in on all the details of their life for whatever reason. 
It's not that you got in a big fight, set that bridge ablaze, you just stopped actively and intentionally pursuing the relationship,  just stopped walking on it.

Because distance. Because reasons. Because laziness. Because other people. Because excuses.

Yet, may I never grow weary of your narrow road.

MAN, what an ask. We can drift apart from God so easily if we just let it happen. The natural direction of our hearts is pointed away from him, and it takes an intentional effort to be pursuing a relationship with God.

The next verse is me fretting about my recent life change, asking all the anxious "what-if's" about whether or not I'll actually accomplish what I set out to do.

What if I never become who I'm supposed to be in my mind's eye

What if I fail me

Getting all caught up in the miry dross

The suspended fourth never gets resolved

And all the things I haven't finished

Left unsaid and unsung

How awful it would be to leave them

Undone

What if I fail me is my favorite line I think I have ever ever ever ever written because it is so selfish and yet so prominent in the underlying motive of my life: "I don't want to let other people down". No, girl, you don't want to let YO-SELF down.

This is, in fact, related to my music, and that's where I was able to slip a little pun in.
A suspended fourth is a music term for a chord where third note in the chord is omitted and replaced with a perfect fourth. It has a tendency to sound "unfinished"- or, as some of me and my nerdy musician friends like to interpret - it's like you just want to go home and play the third chord to get it resolved in your mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The idea here is that I have a fear of leaving things unfinished in my life.
I've been given musical gifts; Am I doing enough with them?
Am I getting distracted with "miry dross" - the muck of worldliness?

And the real kicker is that I play the entire song in the key of E (actually key of D capo'd to 2nd fret so I can get the low E on the top string) and there are suspended fourth's ALLLLLLLLLLLL up in this song's chord progression to indicate a deeper meaning of like, "Um, yeah, God's not done with me yet."

The third verse is me longing to see evidence of faith- a struggle that I think every Christian faces.

I'm convinced that this seed has taken root

How long now before I see fruit

So that I can be sure I'm blooming beautifully 

Reflecting you and only you in my ability

It's like, Ok- I do believe. I say I believe. Is my life behavior in accordance with how my beliefs should be portrayed? How can I be sure that I am living and abiding in God and what he wants me to do versus what my heart thinks it should be doing, which is wicked and deceitful in itself?

It's trying to answer Del Tackett's question: Do I believe that what I believe is really real?
Longing for that evidence, that confirmation, that YES- you are on the right track! You go, girl!

Dat spirit fruit has got to be so delicious.

Have I let you down?

BOOM. This is the climax of the song. Not producing fruit vs not being able to see fruit.
That is, you're abiding, you're just not aware of what God's doing yet.

Yes, there IS some dissonant tension with the harmony in the song- and that is intentional.
It exemplifies the uncomfortableness we feel with trusting in someone we cannot see.
You're just clinging to the cross, hoping that it's enough.
And it is.

And then the final verse:

The child-like faith that we're called to have: Trusting you is like learning to ride a bike

Reading the Word; Listening
Prayerful obedience; and then following the course
His sovereign will on our life: With your hand behind my seat
Our free will and ability to make decisions: Pedals beneath my feet
He gives us the ability to trust in him and not ourselves: You thrust me onward
In this pilgrimage until glory, I trust him
I am held in him
And I am suspended forth

Photo credit: Mike Harshner

And then, of course, I end the song with a suspended fourth B chord because I'm ironic like that.

Let me know if there are any corrections to be made, lyrical or otherwise. Thanks! -AH