Switchfoot: Learning to Breathe

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“I Dare You to Move� is the song from Learning to Breathe (2000) that was later included in Letdown—for which I will present two possibilities. One, “you�/Foreman, now a bigger player in the music scene, is being critiqued for his faith and music, exploring a misstep or the difference between “who you are and who you could be.� Two, the “you� in question is Jesus Christ who has recognized His mission, the goal of His life, and is being dared by the narrator to lift Himself up off the floor (as the infant child? of the not-yet-empty tomb?) and make a difference “between how it is and how it should be.� The narrator hints that maybe redemption and forgiveness wait with this “you,� and that he cannot escape from his mission, closing with the line “Salvation is here.� Either way, the questions require some thought on our part. What is waiting to be done that will go undone if we don’t get off the floor? Who needs our help? How can we be used by God to make a difference?

The title track once again talks about how life knocked the singer down again unexpectedly, and that “You� is the only one who can break his fall, who can teach him how to crawl, who can teach the singer how to breathe, who can take him “there.� “Love is a Movement� documents God’s giving His life to “put motion inside my soul,� renewing Switchfoot’s attack on human apathy and serving as a good model for their present agenda through DATA (providing funds and other aid for those suffering from AIDS, another U2-supported endeavor; see www.datadata.org). Switchfoot (and U2) wants nothing to do with “cold religion� and everything to do with a forward movement toward loving others and serving those in need.

The Gospel according to Switchfoot is well documented in the second half of Breathe: “The Loser,� “Erosion,� and “Living is Simple� all talk about life in terms that echo the Beatitudes. How? The losers win, erosion makes a person whole, and living is dying in three role reversals. Foreman writes that he is selling out by admitting that he wants to lose, with a “contract pending on eternity,� the backbeat of the last becoming first. The Holy Spirit is called upon to wash away his sins because he desires to live by dying to himself.

Link on Hollywood Jesus