Have you ever sang a song and never quite sang a line properly but that didn’t stop you from expressing yourself anyway?

My mother has a way of inserting her words into songs when she doesn’t know the lyrics. (and they actually fit!) usually she is so consistent with her lyrics that she could easily convince an innocent bystander that those are the original lyrics. I know this because my aunt has fallen victim to this so many times. 

One time, my aunt called my ma and began complaining about how the choir at her church weren’t singing the right lyrics to a song they loved (which my mother had introduced her to). Halfway through the complaint, my ma bursts out laughing, saying, “I guess those are the real words!” My very confused aunt responded after a moment of baffled silence. “Wait… You weren’t even sure the ENTIRE time?!” My mother says, “I love the song and I have things I want to express, so if I don’t know the correct lyrics, I don’t let it stop me from expressing myself.”

I am my mother’s daughter. Well, not as great as she is at remixing songs anyway. My lyrics are usually pretty… meh (unfortunately). Typical example: Not so recently, I added a song to my playlist: Most Beautiful/So In Love by… drumroll please… Maverick City Music! Yes yes… I am in love. Anyway, there’s a certain line in the song that I feel in my heart every time, “Our love sings to you.” The irony is, I only googled the line today. So this whole time, I’ve been singing my version of that: “My heart sings to you” which is [technically] my truth. (Which, if you ask me, is less embarrassing than other ‘remixes’ I’ve made over time. Just saying!)

This afternoon, while I was in the bathroom singing along to this song, I felt the sudden urge to google the lyrics. To finally know the truth. To be honest, it always bothered me that I didn’t know the correct lyrics. A part of me felt like I was ruining the song somehow or that I was missing out on some special ministration by refusing to find out the truth. Now that I know the correct line, I must say, I prefer my version of it though they aren’t so different. (I still love you Maverick!)

How often do we make assumptions about the unknown and then base our actions on those assumptions?

I mean, I could’ve really had a moment of uninterrupted worship in my bathroom this afternoon, if I didn’t let my mind dwell on the self-imposed guilt of not knowing the correct lyrics and all the things that could possibly mean. 

How many things are we missing out on because we are stuck in our heads running simulations on events or situations that might/could/may… possibly, (never) happen?  

These days, when my aunt hears a song my mother is singing and finds herself falling in love with it, she asks, “Is that the original version, or your remix?” We laugh.

Does it matter?

Nana Agyeiwaa Nyameba