Carnation

Paul Weller will receive an Outstanding Contribution to Music award at Wednesday's Brit Awards. This song from The Jam's The Gift has always haunted me. It makes us face up to the reality of our own sin-hardened hearts.



If you gave me a fresh carnation
I would only crush it's tender petals
With me you'll have no escape
And at the same time there'll be nowhere to settle -
I trample down all life in my wake
I eat it up and take the cake
I just avert my eyes to the pain
Of someone's loss helping my gain
If you gave me a dream for my pocket
You'd be plugging in the wrong socket
With me there's no room for the future
With me there's no room with a view at all -
I am out of season all year 'round
Hear machinery roar to my empty sound
Touch my heart and feel winter
Hold my hand and be doomed forever -

If you gave me a fresh carnation
I would only crush it's tender petals
With me you'll have no escape
And at the same time there'll be nowhere to settle.
And if you're wondering by now who I am
Look no further than the mirror -
Because I am the greed and fear
And every ounce of hate in you.


I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25.)