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Movies & Music: Genres that motivate
At my house, we always fold laundry on the four-poster cherry bed that my husband and I bought the first year we were married (19 years ago this week!) The other night, I stood facing an enormous heap of clean laundry, the accumulation of several days of someone not folding it when he said he would.
(Since it’s our anniversary week, I won’t say who.) 
Not wishing to raise a fuss, I decided to fold the clothes myself. But I needed a little motivational music, so I turned on the Music Choice channels on our bedroom TV and scrolled through the choices. Classic rock? Not in the mood. Classical? Love it, but not today. Singers and Standards? Usually my favorite, but…
A little voice said, “How about some gospel?”
Not Christian Contemporary. Not Southern Gospel. Just gospel – the soul food kind. I pushed a couple of remote buttons and ….oooooh yeah….the Mississippi Mass Choir was singing “Thank God for My Mansion” and just tearing it up. For the next 20 minutes, I was a laundry-folding fool, cutting little jigs and singing out loud even though I didn’t know the words. Before I knew it, I had transformed that untidy heap of cloth into several ranks of neatly stacked duds.
I’m tellin’ you what: Next time you need to clean the house or wash the car, flip on some gospel music and, if you have a pulse, you will be motivated. Lawd a’ mercy!
back to top24 Comments to “Movies & Music: Genres that motivate”
My kids to the laundry in my house, but cooking dinner last night I had a lot of chopping and dicing to do; I kept the beat to Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
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Fortunately for me, XM radio has a good gospel channel. I like to spend time there. They also have a modern Praise Music channel, which I really have a very hard time listening to.
Our public radio station has a fine gospel program on Sunday mornings.
You haven’t lived until you’ve spent an afternoon in the Gospel Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival watching the local (The Johnson Extension, sigh) and national gospel acts tear it up.
I attend many music festivals (mostly bluegrass) and the promoters usually schedule a couple of gospel/bluegrass acts for Sunday mornings. Always a treat.
Think I’ll go put on some Dottie Peoples – “He’s an on-time God”.
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Mahalia Jackson – Walkin’ In Jerusalem is a great one for some motivation.
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In fact anything by Mahalia Jackson will motivate.
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Travis, do you live in the DC area? I used to listen to Red Shipley on “Stained Glass Bluegrass” every Sunday morning. He may still be on FM 88.5.
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You haven’t lived until you’ve spent an afternoon in the Gospel Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival watching the local (The Johnson Extension, sigh) and national gospel acts tear it up.
Omigosh…that sounds like heaven!
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Chas,
Thanks very much for the tip. Did you know that Red Shipley died last fall?
Obits/tributes are available online.
I’m not in the DC area, but I know that there’s a good grass scene back there. The Birchmere and all.
Stained Glass program lives on, I believe, and you can listen online.
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Actually I find Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture perfect for grumbling days of house cleaning. Especially when the canons boom and I throw the clean clothes into the children’s rooms . . .
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My favorite album to get things done by would be “Saturday Night Fiedler.” Sound tracks to action/adventure movies like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark might do.
I never tried any music to work by except my own singing, though – and that was when I was single and sang only for myself. I’ll have to consider finding a place to set up a small CD player in the kitchen.
To each his own taste, though. “Gospel” style music would only motivate me to turn off the radio or leave the room. The words may be great, but I just don’t like that style of music.
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Thanks Travis. I visited the WAMU website and learned that Red Shipley died last Oct. 6. I’m real sorry to hear that. He had retired before I left but kept his Sunday show from his home near Charlottsville. I also listened to Jerry Gray faithfully. But he’s no longer on. But Ray Davis is still there. I don’t know how old Ray Davis is, but he used to DJ on one of those blowtorch border radio stations. “Border to border and coast to coast”.
On Sunday mornings, I listen to a local station program, “The Old Country Church”.
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Michelle,
Wagner does sound like motivating housecleaning music!
“Kill the wabbits! Kill the wabbits!”
(dust bunnies, that is)
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Andrea Bocelli
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I like to clean to English music. My motivational cleaning music is Ralph Vaughan Williams or Gustav Holst. (Mars, Bringer of War is a very vindictive cleaning song.
)
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When a Child is Born and Go Where Love Goes are both in English, but oh what a voice… Crank it up and let the music grow and the house is clean in no time.
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Congratulations on 19 years. My wife and I have an anniversary this week too. On April 2, it will be 20 years.
For house cleaning I prefer what is now called “classic” rock. When did it become “classic” anyway? I crank it up and can clean a whole house in about an hour using large trash bags. This is why my wife does not allow me to help. Hey, its workin’ for me.
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As for gospel music, I love it, even though the theology is not always sound. I lived in Mississippi for five years as a kid. I didn’t go to church at the time, so on Sundays I would ride my bike down to the black section of town, where the roads were dusty and unpaved and the houses small and shabby.
The black churches were so tiny that most people had to stand outside. They put loadspeakers on the corners of the building and the congregation would stand there singing their hearts out. I loved it. I would sit off in the distance and just listen. It was wonderful.
One thing that I stuck with me to this day is the idea of worshipping God with all your heart, however imperfectly. So many churches expend needless energy trying to get a polished, perfect sound, but it becomes aniseptic. Its like Listerine, yech!
I love nothing better than an old black guy, or a nervous child squeezing out imperfect notes for the glory of God. For this reason I also prefer unaccompanied music best. Put the instruments away and just make a joyful noise.
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Please do not accuse me of some ethnic or racial prejudices, but shouldn’t all Christian music be considered Gospel music? When I first worked in Christian radio in the 70s, anything without electric guitars was called traditional gospel music, whether sung by white Southern quartets or large choirs of any color.
My motivational music? Either salsa, merengue (Puerto Rican dance music) or Christian contmeporary. Occasionally Bach or Mozart help out.
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chas–I too enjoyed listening to “Stained Glass Blue Grass.”, with Red Shipley. It used to come on our local country station every Sunday, and my husband (although he HATES bluegrass gospel), would let me listen to it. Unfortunately, our station doesn’t carry any gospel bluegrass anymore. Been trying to find some for several months.
Staying home from fellowship this morning as I’ve got a raging fever and chest cough. I’m going back to bed.
Blessings!
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Get Well momoffour. I didn’t know you lived in the WAMU listening area. I really liked Red Shipley and, especially Jerry Gray. They are no longer on. (Jerry retired.)
Xion, Peter L
“Classic Rock” is an oxymoron. The difference between “gospel” and other religious music is, I believe, defined as:
If it’s a hymn of praise, it’s a hymn. If not, it’s gospel music. i.e. For the Beauty of the Earth, Crown Him With Many Crowns, How Great Thou Art would be hymns. And Saved, Saved, & At Calvary would be gospel songs. I could be corrected on that. The Baptist Hymnal puts them together. I think the differences are blurred with the advent of “Praise Songs”. I DO NOT like praise songs. The words are fine, I’m sure God appreciates it (He liked the unmelodious chants the Jews used.) But it agitates me when it takes five minutes to sing a “song” with 12 lines, total.
But the Bluegrass Gospel that Travis, Momoffour and I are talking about is not, strictly, real gospel music. Much of it is about “Daddy’s Table Grace,” “I Heard Momma Pray for Me”, The little white church, the old home place, and such. Roy Acuff sang, “A Cabin in Gloryland” (”So I can hear the angels sing and shake Jesus’ hand, just build me a cabin in the corner of Gloryland”) The theology is atrocious, but I like to hear it. And it’s probably no worse than “Do Lord” that young people used to sing.
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Chas – “‘Classic Rock’ is an oxymoron.”
Not sure what you mean Chas. Oxymoron is word that combines two normally contradictory terms. It comes from the Greek oxy (”sharp”) and moros (”dull”). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron. In our day it describes the typical politician. So then does “rock” mean the opposite of “classic”? I don’t understand. I am overanalyzing this aren’t I?
Also, regarding praise songs, some purists really don’t like them. But for most of us, it isn’t the style that is so bothersome it is the incessant playing of them to the exclusion of all else. Let’s praise God in a variety of forms!
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High. To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. Ps 92
Anybody got a psaltery?
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Xion, I mostly agree about praise songs. The thing that bothers me is the repetition. i.e. “It took five minutes to sing twelve lines.”
When I say “Classic rock is an oxymoron”, I mean that a classic must pass a time test. Most rock cannot meet that standard. It will be gone in a few years. What then, is classic that isn’t written by Brahms? Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” might be classic. Certainly “White Christmas” is. An illustration: I have a CD called “Classic Country Music”. It contains some songs that could arguably be classic. Possibly, “Crazy Arms”, “He’ll Have to Go”, but I doubt it. Certainly “Gentle on My Mind”, etc. won’t make the cut. I have another CD collection called “Country Greats”. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” are possibly great. But, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys”, will never be great.
I’ve rambled on, but you get what I mean. Some Beetles music may eventually become classic. But not yet.
I think you mean to say that you like old rock that you grew up with, just as I like the old music by Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, Ernest Tubb, etc. Also, Anita Carter; can’t forget Anita Carter.
I’ve never called “Walking the Floor Over You” classic. But “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You” almost has to be.
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Chas- by saying “It took five minutes to sing twelve lines,” are you referring to what someone on this blog a year or two ago referred to as “7 – 11” music (7 words or lines repeated 11 times, or the other way around)?
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I understand now Chas.
For the record, I don’t particularly like Rock either, except when I am cleaning the house. In this circumstance it does help to move along the task at hand more quickly. Otherwise, I am more of a Blues and Gospel man. But those styles are less motivating when landfill needs a’ fillin’.
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Mom of 4 – Hope you’re feeling better!
I read your post yesterday morning and thought about you and prayed for you off and on during the day. Now it’s almost 3 am Monday morning and I’ve been thinking of you again. (I’m an insomniac)
Anyway based on previous posts of yours and the one specifically where you asked for prayer because of your husband’s lack of regard for you, this part of this thread’s post jumped out at me:
“and my husband (although he HATES bluegrass gospel), would let me listen to it.”
Another red flag Mom of 4!
I’m way too familiar with this type of man as two of my sisters were involved with men like this in their past. Dominating, controlling men who thought they had to do all the thinking and decision making for them. As is normal for this type of relationship, the control escalated into physical abuse – after the mental and emotional abuse, of course. Does your husband also “let” you visit with your family now and then?
I promise you that Jesus didn’t redeem you in order for you to be the “slave” to this man. In Him, we are equal and free. Your relationship with your husband has nothing to do with Biblical submission.
Take care and know I’ll continue praying.
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