Dare You To Move

This week in class, the topic was about Christianity and popular music. The title of the lecture, “It’s a faith, not a genre” simply means that Christian music is not necessarily a genre (as it is a faith), but it can be presented in all types of music. Immediately when thinking about artists that come from Christian backgrounds, Switchfoot comes to mind.

When I was in middle/high school, I remember being a big fan. They are often referred to as a Christian rock band, and are heavily involved with the Christian rock scene. When putting them into a category of Contemporary Christian Music as said by Brian Schills, Switchfoot definitely fits into the transformationist category. Transformationists are people who have some kind of Christian identity but their purpose is to be the best musician. In an interview with the Boston Globe in 2004, the band states,

"We've always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from. For us, these songs are for everyone. Calling us 'Christian rock' tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them, and that's not what we're trying to do. Music has always opened my mind—and that's what we want".

They openly talk about their faith, but they do not want people to necessarily call them a Christian band as that leaves them with a smaller audience, whereas they want to reach out to everyone.

Their song, “Dare You To Move”, is arguably one of their most well-known songs. Here are the lyrics:

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next
What happens next

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

[Chorus]

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

This is quite an uplifting, encouraging song, saying that it’s time to change and to pick yourself up and move on. Even though there is no mention of God in this song, knowing that the band believes in the Christian faith, it is easy to put it in a religious context. The beginning of the song is saying that everyone is watching and waiting for you to do something. Then the lyrics, “dare you to move”, could be encouraging people to take a stand for Christ – stand up for what you believe in. The lyrics, “forgiveness is right where you fell” could be saying that God has forgiven your sins; the only escape from our sins is through the redemption of Jesus Christ. This is simply my interpretation of the lyrics, not necessarily how they are meant to be interpreted.

I’ve included the video below. I noticed that in the video that at the beginning, there are scenes where people are lying on the ground, in need of saving. At the end of the video when they sing the lyrics, “I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor”, the people in need of saviour wake up or are saved. 

What do you think about these lyrics and the video, and how they relate to Christianity?