Carry on, the hard rock band sang from the school bus’s tinny AM station as it wound it’s way up and down the mountain to my high school. I rested my head against the cool glass, grasping at those words of encouragement between electric guitar riffs.

Tenth grade was a time of tension. My parents were under stress running their small business. My mother clamped down on my young faith. My spirits sank, toying with the edge of hopelessness. The time to graduation and freedom seemed too long to endure. Lay your weary head to rest, the band sang.

The door to my future beckoned, yet I couldn’t imagine what lay on the other side; what life would bring after I left my mountain home, adrift and alone. I knew that somewhere, sometime, I would be free to “set a course for winds of fortune” as the song described, but where would those winds take me? I longed for that freedom and feared it at the same time. Don’t you cry no more, the lyrics comforted me.

Life brings times of pressing. Of hemming in. Such was my season at 15, longing to be loved, grasping at those understanding voices on the radio. Carry on, they sang. There’ll be peace when you are done.

Now my life’s no longer empty, just as the song promised. Those winds of fortune carried me to safe harbors of fellowship and family, purpose and growth. But those years before had a large part of forming me, when all seemed dark save for the tender love of Jesus, reaching out to me through a 70’s hard rock band.

The author of that song, I know now, wrote those lyrics while he was wrestling with truth, attracted to Christianity but not yet willing to believe. He had a hunger, as did I, for the noise and confusion to abate long enough to hear Jesus say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

I still listen to that song, 50 years later. It moves me to remember God’s presence and faithful care for me in a dark time. It is a stake in the ground of my spirit, a memorial of sorts, as it reassures me that surely heaven waits for you.

Music is a powerful keeper of our most visceral memories. A snippet from a song can transport us to events and times long past. I have a number of them on a playlist on my phone, mostly early Jesus music from that time when I was discovering faith. As I write this, many others are coming to mind, clamoring to be added to my list.

What about you? What songs instantly bring you to another place and time? Or maybe a song carried you through a time of loss or struggle. Perhaps one stirs memories of young love.

Would you share them in the comments?

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Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man
Well, it surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more no!

Carry on
You will always remember
Carry on
Nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry
Don't you cry no more

No more!

(Kerry Livgren, Kansas, 1977)