Harder To Believe Than Not To

Steve Taylor's Song "Harder To Believe Than Not To"

What Steve says about it: From Now The Truth Can Be Told Liner Notes & Song-By-Song Essays, Now The Truth Can Be Told Insert Booklet, August 23rd, 1994:

"A personal favorite. I travelled to London for the chamber orchestra session conducted by very legendary orchestral arranger Del Newman (think Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" among a myriad of others). The classical setting seemed appropriate, especially since the haunting melody in the introduction was lifted from Sergei Rachmaninoff's now-public domain.

The song takes its title from a line found in the collected letters of Flannery O'Connor, acclaimed short-story writer and novelist from Georgia. Her literary friends in New York had a hard time believing that a writer of her caliber could profess to be something as common and unfashionable as a Christian. She reacts in her letter to the criticism that Christianity's primary function is as a crutch for the weak-spirited, writing how they don't understand the cost involved in following Jesus, that "it's much harder to believe than not to believe."

The quote stuck. The cost of discipleship--the ideal of taking up your cross everyday and following Jesus--makes it hard to believe, because Christianity demands things from us that we don't naturally want to give. In the words of playwrite Dennis Potter, "There is, in the end, no such thing as a simple faith."

Lyrics: Nothing is colder than the winds of change
Where the chill numbs the dreamer till a shadow remains
Among the ruins lies your tortured soul
Was it lost there
Or did your will surrender control?

Shivering with doubts that were left unattended
So you toss away the cloak that you should have mended
Don't you know by now why the chosen are few?
It's harder to believe than not to
Harder to believe than not to

It was a confidence that got you by
When you know you believed it, but you didn't know why
No one imagines it will come to this
But it gets so hard when people don't want to listen

Shivering with doubts that you left unattended
So you toss away the cloak that you should have mended
Don't you know by now why the chosen are few?
It's harder to believe than not to

Some stay paralyzed until they succumb
Others do what they feel, but their senses are numb
Some get trampled by the pious throng
Still they limp along

Are you sturdy enough to move to the front?
Is it nods of approval or the truth that you want?
And if they call it a crutch, then you walk with pride
Your accusers have always been afraid to go outside

They shiver with doubts that were left unattended
Then they toss away the cloak that they should have mended
You know by now why the chosen are few
It's harder to believe than not to

I believe

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Harder
• To
• Believe
• Than
• Not