Guidelines for this Activity
1) Listen to the song or watch the music video with your group. (The video is embedded below. You can purchase the album at local retailers or online.) The lyrics are printed below so your students can understand the words.
2) Discuss the song with your group using the suggested discussion questions below.
3) Compare your students’ comments with the insights of the song’s creator, Jon Foreman (below). What aspects of the song did your students emphasize? How did their insights compare with Foreman’s comments?
The Lyrics: “Mess of Me”
I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
there ain’t no drug that they can sell
there ain’t no drug to make me well
there ain’t no drug
there ain’t no drug
it’s not enough
the sickness is myself
I’ve made a mess of me
I want to get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me
I want to spend the rest of my life alive
we lock our souls in cages
inside these prison cells
it’s hard to free the ones you love
when you can’t forgive yourself
I’ve made a mess of me
I want to reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me
I want to spend the rest of my life alive
Questions for Discussion
1) What does this song say about the human condition in a fallen world?
2) King David was the greatest king in Israel’s history, yet the Bible records some of the heinous acts he also committed. The Apostle Paul was the most successful Christian missionary in history, yet considered himself “chief of sinners”. If even King David and the Apostle Paul struggled with their sin nature, what chance do the rest of us have?
3) Is it harder to forgive others or to forgive yourself?
4) Do you ever find yourself burdened by the weight of your past?
5) If so, who do you turn to?
Compare
What did your students say about the song? How does this compare with the insights of Switchfoot songwriter Jon Foreman? How does it compare to what the Bible says about His love, our sin and the potential for new life?
Jon Foreman’s Comments About the Song, “Mess Of Me”
“He not busy being born is busy dying.” – Bob Dylan
“You were born a white man in mid-twentieth century industrial America. You came into the world armed to the teeth with an arsenal of weapons. The weapons of privilege, racial privilege, sexual privilege, economic privilege. You wanna be a pacifist, it’s not just giving up guns and knives and clubs and fists and angry words, but giving up the weapons of privilege, and going into the world completely disarmed. Try that.” – Ammon Hennessy
Lyrically the song is yearning for abundant life to spring from past mistakes. The song attempts to explore the darkest parts of the human animal and transcend them, rising above these gloomy moments to find true life. If you’re Freud, you call these darker urges the death drive. If you’re St. Paul, you talk about doing the things you don’t want to do. Whatever you call them, these dark places destroy us if we leave them unchecked. I feel that tension everyday, between the right and the wrong, between life and death. And yet there is no easy path to freedom from self. It’s a narrow road and few find it. We’ve all thought about the quick fix: that special something/someone that could take the pain away. Yet the problems in my life are much bigger than any temporary solution. We die a little everyday- physically, spiritually; we are in sorry shape. Ain’t no drug to make me well. Ain’t no drug that can relieve me from the monster of myself. Ain’t no one to blame. But my decision is made. I want to follow this through… I want to spend the rest of my life alive.
This tune has lived several lives all revolving around the guitar hook. It started out as a song called “I Saw Satan (Fall Like Lightning)” I wrote it a couple years back when I was stealing heavily from scripture. We dragged it into the studio with Charlie Peacock for a week of recording at Big Fish Studios and came out with a really great bridge. Then we wrote a new chorus, called the song “There Ain’t No Drug” and built the verse lyrics around the new chorus. We made the bridge the chorus after that. (And at this point I was about as lost as you, dear reader. These are the limitations of having no limitations!) So we stepped away from this song. We knew it was a great one, we were just too inside it. When we came back to it we realized that we were really close… we just needed the final push- so we re-tracked everything at Mike’s place. Tim was the champion of this tune: lifting it from one phase to the next, never giving up on the riff. I’m really proud of Tim for pushing through till the final version that ended up on the record.
More Information
You may want to share the following Bible texts with your group:
“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (
“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (
You can find out more about Switchfoot and Hello Hurricane at: Switchfoot.com. You can find more Youth Culture Lessons at YouthWorker.com.
Related links:
Switchfoot’s ‘Hello Hurricane’ set for Nov 10
Youth Pop Culture Lesson: “Always” by Switchfoot (Music)
