Metro-lyrics and the Bible 2: Jim Reeves "I can' t stop loving you" and Isaiah's "Song of the vineyard"

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

2 July 2010

Jim Reeves died in 1964 in a plane crash. He is a great singer around the globe and his golden voice is pleasant to listen to. He sang many Christian songs as well. One of his metro-lyric songs was "I can't stop loving you". It is on (www.youtube.com).

It is not difficult to find the lyrics online. It was written by Don Gibson but sang very pleasantly by Jim Reeves.

I Can't Stop loving You Lyrics

Songwriter: Don Gibson

I can't stop loving you,

I've made up my mind

To live in memories

of old lonesome times.

I can't stop wanting you.

It's useless to say.

So I'll just live my life

in dreams of yesterday.

Those happy hours

that we once knew.

Though long ago

still make me blue.

They say that time

heels a broken heart.

But time has stood still

since we've been apart.

I can't stop loving you . . .

We easily get the picture here. Two lovers apart for some accident that have happened between them. An accident caused by sin. And both of them were suppose to go on with their lives living as if the other is not existing. But, in his mind, he cannot live without her. He cannot forget the happy hours. He cannot pretend that he is living with another. So, he decided to live alone and just remember those happy hours. They say time heals a broken heart but the problem for him is that time has stood still since they are apart. Why, because he can't stop loving her. This agony of love, the agony of separation from the lover, this pain was also known by Isaiah who composed a similar agony in Isaiah 5.

Isaiah 5

The Love-Agony Song of the Vineyard

Isaiah is singer about God he loved

1 I will sing for the one I love a song about His vineyard:

God as Farmer and Lover of His vineyard

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

Someone sings about the Lover and His efforts

2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

God the Lover is speaking (calling for an investigative judgement)

3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard."

God the Lover is in agony

4 "What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?"

God the Lover is speaking (future executive judgement)

5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.

God the Lover is speaking (future executive judgement)

6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it."

Isaiah the singer explains God the Lover and His Beloved

7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Wrapping it up we conclude that ever since the fall of Adam and Eve and their hiding from His face due to shame, God came to look for them and looked for Israel later and is still looking today for each one of us.

When we sin, we are separated from God because God cannot live with sin. He gave His Son to die for sin to be solved in the universe, why should He overlook sin or pretend it does not exist? Sin causes the same agony today. It is the wish of the Lover to tell us: I am still loving you. I can't stop loving you. I can't stop wanting you.

Dear God

Lover of my soul

Love divine

For you I give my whole self

Embrace me also with Your mercy

Your beloved I want to remain

Amen