I am sometimes teased by this magazine’s managing editor, Steve Thorngate, for my taste in music. I really don’t see how it’s my fault that I came of age during a moment in evangelical subculture when the formative genres were pop-punk, ska, and emo. And as studies have shown as far back as 1989, when I was learning to tie my shoes, the music we listen to in our late teens and early 20s tends to stick with us and shape our preferences for the rest of our lives.
In case you’re unfamiliar with emo music, emo is short for emotional. The genre actually developed from hardcore punk music, but as it rose in popularity during my teen years, it became more associated with the calmer sounds of alternative rock. Its lyrics are, as you’d expect, emotional—usually described with words like introspective, confessional, and fraught—and often about failed romance. The first stanza of one emo standard by Dashboard Confessional begins, “I’m missing your bed; I never sleep.”
Jeremiah is the emo prophet. In this week’s reading, he puts these bands to shame. Here’s my paraphrase of the opening lines of chapter 9: I wish my head would turn into a waterfall. Then you’d know how much and how often I cry for my people.
