Monday, November 17, 2014

#98 HEALER by Kari Jobe



"Hey Guys, guess what. I never had cancer. PSYCH!" - Michael Guglielmucci

Ok, so for those of you who don't know about the controversy surrounding this song, I'll give you the quick AndyPedia version: Guy says he has cancer, writes a huge hit song about God the healer, runs around all over the place singing his song, but eventually admits that, get this, HE MADE THE WHOLE THING UP. Yep, he never had cancer.

Now, before we get to all that, I just thought of a great new idea for a website: AndyPedia. Awesome. It would nothing but an entire web site devoted to me. 50% of the site would be pictures of my cats, 50% would be fantasy football stats, and 25% would be Andy's nap time secrets (maybe I should leave 10% or so for basic math). 

Anyway, back to the controversy. As I mentioned before in this post: Captivated by Vicky Beeching I've decided that, when trying to decide if a song merits being on this list, I will put aside virtually everything EXCEPT whether the song is good or not. Thus, whatever Cancer Man did or did not do has no bearing on whether I should include it or not. At least he didn't start selling meth when he found out he had cancer like Malcolm in the Middle's dad. 


Breaking Bad - #6 on Andy's 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time Blog - coming in 2017

Michael Guglielmucci's story may not matter, since I've decided to use the Kari Jobe version of this song rather than the Hillsong version anyway. This helps us swerve into yet another possible problem when compiling this list. That is, when a good song is done by multiple artists, do I just put the song itself on the list, or do I put the best version of the song on the list? 

So, which version of I Could Sing of Your Love Forever do I use - Delirious or Sonicflood? Which version of How He Loves Us? David Crowder or Jesus Culture? (sorry, Crowder fans). How about trying to choose which version of Shout To The Lord should make the list - Hillsong's original version or the version done by the Jennie Crawford Ugandan Worship Experience? (they have zithers, which makes the decision tough)**

**Full Disclosure: I don't know whether or not they have zithers in Uganda, nor do I even know what a zither is. Perhaps it's what Cindy Brady calls a zipper (sound it out, you'll get it). In point of fact, my knowledge of this grand kaleidoscope of wonderous, diverse cultures in our big, multiethnic world is limited to watching re-runs of the British version of The Office.

The real reason I've decided to use Kari Jobe's version is that her version is so much, much better. Look, back when fake cancer guy was up there singing this song with his hair falling out, and with oxygen tubes in his nose, we were all like, "Wow, what courage, blah, blah, blah". But now that we know he didn't really have cancer, we're all just like, "Man, he don't sing so good". NOTE: I use phrases such as 'we were all like' as sort of a way to translate for the younger generation. 

Now, I know that many of you are keeping track of the Top 100 Countdown in your dream journals at home, so you'll know that Kari Jobe is the first person to be a repeat artist in our countdown. Her first song came in at #101, and you can find it here: Forever (Live) by Kari Jobe According to Blogger's advanced stats, that page is one of the least viewed thus far on my site, so if you missed it the first time around, check it out - I think it's the one where I systematically proved that time travel is real.

Kari Jobe's Majestic (Live), available on iTunes. It's a pretty decent live album
Additionally, and this is what the young kids call a 'spoiler alert', Kari Jobe will appear later in the countdown once again re-doing a song that was originally done by someone more famous. Anyone care to guess the song? Anyone? The first person to correctly guess to which song I refer will get 13 Andy Points, which can be used towards the purchase of Andy Points. In order to qualify for the prize, you must write your answer in ketchup on your computer monitor so that I can see it. And of course, it goes without saying, you must write in backwards so that I can read it (Duh).

So, what do we do now about this song? Does knowing that Michael Guglielmucci lied about his cancer mean that we can't listen to the song anymore? Does it make it harder to listen to? Does knowing the truth about the song's origins strip away the emotion that we otherwise might have felt?

Well, you young folks might not remember this, but back in the late 80s everyone in America was filling up their iPods with the songs from a group known as Milli Vanilli. Milli Vanilli won the Grammy Award for best new artist, and were hugely popular on MTV. Until, that is, it was found out that the artists that appeared in the videos were NOT the actual people who sang the songs. I think the reasoning was that 'fake' Milli Vanilli looked a lot better on the MTV videos, and that would help sell records. Who's to say? Check out this side by side comparison below and you be the judge:



But unlike Milli Vanilli, who were borderline unlistenable BEFORE we found out that they didn't actually sing the songs, the song Healer is a really, really good song. And we're all human, so we need a way to be able to hear this song without being reminded of it's tainted beginnings. Having a solid Kari Jobe version on your iPod is one way to listen to the song and forget about the cancer tomfoolery, But I think I've found another way to make the song more emotionally friendly to us:

Andy's Semi-Serious Take on the Song Healer:

The key for this song, to me, is in one simple word, 'Believe'.  The word appears a few times in the song:

I believe You're my healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe You're my portion
I believe You're more than enough for me

Modern worship songs are full on declarations about God. You are my King. You are my Father. You are worthy, etc. In song lyrics, these are taken as rock-solid truths that come from the truth of who God is and from the writer's own experience.

In the case of the song Healer, Michael Guglielmucci didn't write 'You ARE my healer', he wrote, I BELIEVE you're my healer. What's the difference, you ask? Well, even though the distinction may seem small or non-existent, I think it's enough to allow me to keep my appreciation for the song despite the deception. 

Before he was found out, Michael Gugliemucci was going around singing his song about believing that God was his healer, DESPITE SEEING NO EVIDENCE of God actually healing him. He wasn't getting any better, but he still declared that God was his healer, EVEN THOUGH HE WASN'T BEING HEALED. 

Probably by accident, Michael Guglielmucci really stumbled on to something pretty cool here. It's easy to say that God is my rescuer AFTER God rescues you from something. But it's real, genuine, Spirit-led faith to declare that God is your rescuer while you're desperately waiting to be rescued, but seeing no evidence of it.

And knowing that Michael Gugliemucci was really struggling with a porn addiction makes me think that he might actually have been using the fake cancer thingy to cry out to God and proclaim his healing from his addiction while HE KNEW that in fact he wasn't being healed. None of this may be entirely true, but I like to think of the song lyrics that way. 

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know. Oh, towards that end, I've learned how to install a Facebook comment section so that you can comment directly in Facebook. I haven't tried it out yet, so let me know if there are any glitches. And here is Kari Jobe singing Healer. There were some decent live versions out there, but they probably aren't as good sound-wise as this one:

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