Songs in the Night

by Donna Poole

“In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning,” –F. Scott Fitzgerald

The old mystics used to talk about the dark night of the soul, and singers and poets since have adapted the phrase for their own meaning.

When it’s dark inside, do we forget to sing? We may. Friends can help us then. “A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it back to me when I’ve forgotten the words.” –Unknown

God gives songs in the night (Job 35:10). John and I used to listen to a radio program titled “Songs in the Night” on Sunday nights after we put our young children to bed. Many years later our sons told us that as soon as they heard the theme music play, they covered up their heads with their blankets. They were just little boys and thought the program’s title was “Sounds” in the night. They didn’t want to hear any scary sounds in the night!

God gave me songs this week. A friend visited our church on Sunday, played his guitar, and sang, “The Old Country Church.” Perhaps it’s a good thing I was listening from Kimmee’s car in the parking lot instead of being inside. I used up many tissues crying at the good memories that song recalled.

On Tuesday I heard more music. Bobby Charles is a music therapist at University of Michigan Hospital. He visits oncology patients because he loves to give songs in the night. We patients getting strong chemotherapy listen to him play his guitar, tap our toes in our beds or recliners and almost forget cancer for a while.

We’re hurting; it’s starting to get dark inside, but Bobby Charles hears the songs in our hearts and sings them back to us when we’ve forgotten the words.

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Charles Tuesday. I asked if what I’d read was true, music is the only activity that activates the entire brain. He said he’d read the same thing. We talked about the mysterious ability of music to recreate memories, to calm, to help alleviate pain.

“There is still so much we don’t know about the power of music,” he said.

He can play about any style of guitar music. I requested “Country Road”.

“You mean the John Denver Country Road?” He smiled and not only played it but sang it as well.

Mr. Charles played “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel; suddenly it was 1965, and I was a junior in high school with my whole life before me. I loved music when I was a teenager.

Mom didn’t like us to play music at home; looking back I understand why. Six of us, seven when my older sister visited, lived in a trailer ten feed wide and fifty feet long. That tin box magnified every sound, and we weren’t quiet kids.

I do remember Mom singing a few hymns though, “I Come to the Garden Alone,” and “God Will Take Care of You.” In my memories, when Mom sang, she was always in the kitchen. Mom made wonderful spaghetti, homemade donuts, potato pies, and pasta va zoola, so when I remember her music, I remember her food. I can almost smell the thick spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

There was no cussing allowed in the home I grew up in, not even in songs. Mom had a bar of soap ready for anyone who offended the no cussing rule, but when I was a child and got mad enough at my younger sister, Mary, I sang, “Bloody Mary.” She hated the words, “Bloody Mary is the girl I love,” and when I shouted out the last six words including the cuss word, she always told Mom, and I got to sink my teeth into the soap. So, remembering that song makes me taste soap!

Macy, our granddaughter, is a genius at remembering lyrics, and she’s my hero in many ways. With a chromosome deletion and addition, her determination has taken her further than experts ever thought she would go. When Macy was pre-school age, she memorized every word of every verse of every song we sang at church. She picked up the words to songs on the radio and on her CDs as well. She sang a song that named all the presidents. I often thought if someone could put everything Macy needed to know to music, she could learn it all without struggling.

What is there about music? My husband, John and I used to have a nursing home ministry pre the two C’s—cancer and Covid. People in the home, some no longer able to speak a sentence or even tell you their names or room numbers, could still sing the words to hymns they had learned long ago.

After Bobby Charles played on Tuesday at the chemo center, I did something I never do, unless I’m writing. I shared with him, a stranger, some of my own struggles. But you know what? We weren’t really strangers anymore. He gave me one of his CDs to listen to at home. Its an easy listening style and is available on iTunes and Amazon, “Bobby Charles forever and a day.” I think you would enjoy it.  

I hope you aren’t facing that dark night of the soul where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, but if you aren’t, you may someday. If it happens, listen for a whisper of a song. God will give you a song in the night even if its harmony is tears.

When God makes the new heaven and the new earth, we won’t need our songs in the night; I don’t know if we’ll even remember them. He’ll wipe away all our tears and we’ll have an eternity of joy and music!  

The Best Is Yet to Be