Forever Young, covered by Sydney band, Youth Group, is an intergenerational text that provides opportunities to explore faith in everyday language of popular culture.
The music video, released this year, shows teenage skateboarders taking part in a contest at the Coca Cola factory at Frenches Forest, Sydney Australia, footage originally shown on Australian youth show GTK (Get To Know) in 1975.
You can see the music video on RAGE, the Australian ABC’s equivalent of MTV on Saturday and Sunday mornings. More people see the video on YouTube.
What’s made the track so popular? The Youth Group recorded “Forever Young” for the third series of The O.C., a music-saturated teen US television drama series, and suddenly found themselves with an international hit, published around the world on The O.C. Mix 5 and now as an EP, Forever Young.
The original song, written by Marian Gold, performed by German synth band Alphaville in 1982 and re-released on the 1989 CD, Forever Young, picked up the uncertainty experienced by Gen X teenagers as they faced a world in danger of nuclear holocaust.
Let’s dance in style,
let’s dance for a while.
Heaven can wait,
we’re only watching the sky,
Hoping for the best
but expecting the worst.
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young
or let us live forever.
Forever young,
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever,
forever, forever?
As I watch this video and listen to the song with my family and friends, I’ll be exploring questions relating to youth, aging and hopes for the future. I’ll be inviting Gen Xers to talk about their experiences of youth in the 1970s and 1980s, along with the realities of their lives now. In turn, teenagers will have their unique perspectives on the world of the twenty first century and what it might mean to become adults with a future.
The conversation could be rounded out with a reference to Bob Dylan’s 1973 song, “Forever Young”, first recorded on Planet Waves. It would be good to hear from people who despite their physical limitations can look back at their lives saying they’ve grown up to be true, courageous, upright and strong, living with joyful hearts, forever young.
Having explored the songs and video, it’s time to introduce a new intergenerational text for conversation, Ecclesiastes 12:1-2, paraphrased here in The Message.
Honour and enjoy your Creator while you’re still young,
Before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes,
Before your vision dims and the world blurs
And the winter years keep you close to the fire.
I’ve just posted on ‘text’ at GodPost, unpacking some of my thoughts on analysis of generational text. In that post I say:
“Paying attention to the texts that form and express the values of a generational cohort helps us recognise and discern the impact of those texts. In some cases we will discover perspectives that have been overshadowed by the texts of previous or later generations.”
Take U2’s song, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”.
It was released in 1987 as a single and as part of the Joshua Tree album. It was released as a music video as part of the Rattle and Hum video (with the gospel choir New Voices of Freedom) and later in The Best of U2: 1980-1990 (walking the streets of Las Vegas).
People aged 16 to 25 in 1987 when this song was released, were born 1962 to 1971, now aged 34 to 43. It’s helpful to note that the members of the band, U2, were born in 1960 and 1961.
This could be a useful text for exploring the values, spirituality, and aspirations of late Trailing Edge Baby Boomers and early Generation X. If you’re in any doubt that this song has done the rounds, bear in mind that it has been covered by at least 30 different artists.
Engaging with the text
In engaging with this text, where would you start?
With the experience of Bono and The Edge as they put the song together? See U2 Songfacts.
With the experience of participants of a group? Would you ask what it is that people are looking for?
Would you unpack the imagery of mountains, fields, city walls, honey lips, burning desire, the hand of the devil, bleeding colors, broken bonds, loosed chains and carried cross?
How might this text relate to other texts? To novels, movies and television series? To personal stories? To Biblical texts?
Who else has asked these questions? Check out U2 Sermons Blog. Check for comments on this post. Add your own!
The Lyrics
I have climbed the highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you I have run,
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I’m still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it
The music video, released this year, shows teenage skateboarders taking part in a contest at the Coca Cola factory at Frenches Forest, Sydney Australia, footage originally shown on Australian youth show GTK (Get To Know) in 1975.
Let’s dance in style,
