100 Pop Songs Every Catholic Should Hear #5 "Ablaze" by Alanis Morissette

This past month, my children had many occasions to hear me say things like, “Watch this!” and “Look at that!” In Virginia, the world was adorned in a frozen gown. And when something or someone is covered in white, it’s a sign to us that something awe-inspiring is happening.

A baby is clothed with white in baptism. Little girls wear white gowns to receive their Lord for the first time in Holy Communion. Years later, they will wear another white gown as they walk toward their beloved to be united with him unto death.

During the Transfiguration, Our Lord’s clothing became “as white as snow.”

And in the eye of the beholder? The reflection of the light of beauty.

But we have to look.

Which brings us to this week’s “Pop Song Every Catholic Should Hear.”

Ablaze
Alanis Morissette

First thing that you’ll notice is some separation from each other
Yes, it’s a lie, we’ve been believing since time immemorial
There was an apple, there was a snake, there was division
There was a split, there was a conflict in the fabric of life

One became two, and then everyone was out for themselves
Everyone was pitted against each other, conflict ruled the realm
All our devotions and temperaments are pulled from different wells
We seem to easily forget we are made of the same cells

To my boy, all that energy, so wild
Love your hues and your blues in equal measure
Your comings and your goings-away
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

Second thing you’ll notice is that
Often we think that there’s not enough
It might feel dark
It might feel lonely and you’ll wonder why you’re here
You may be overcome with darkness and a sense of hopelessness
But it won’t matter if you keep the core connected to the oneness

To my girl, all your innocence and fire
When you reach out, I am here hell or high water
This nest is never going away
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

And this cord is unbreakable
This pilot light is there in your pocket
And this bond, beyond unshakeable
Even if we all forgot all at the same time
If we forget at the same time

To my boy, my precious, gentle warrior
To your sweetness and your strength in exploring
May this bond stay with you through all your days
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

To my girls, all your innocence and fire
When you reach out, I am here hell or high water
This nest is never going away
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

To my boy
(First thing that you'll notice is that everything is temporary)
To my girl
(Next thing you might notice is that we will always be a family)
To my boy
(My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze)

“Look out, children.” When our children are very little, we are terrified that they won’t see danger. But when they start growing up, we are much more terrified that they won’t see beauty. “Look out, children.”

First thing that you’ll notice is some separation from each other
Yes, it’s a lie, we’ve been believing since time in memorial
There was an apple, there was a snake, there was division
There was a split, there was a conflict in the fabric of life

I remember when my children were small babies, they would sometimes pull me and my wife toward them with each of their little hands. Somehow babies instinctively know that there isn’t meant to be separation from each other. Alas, in the garden of Eden, our first parents believed a lie. And so children eventually come to find, because of our wounded nature, that there is a conflict in the fabric of life. The danger is that our children will believe the lie that this is the end of the story—that separation from each other is as inexorable as death.

A devastating lyric that reminds us that “from the beginning it was not so.” No, on the contrary, “they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.” And this is the light that our children must gaze upon if we are to keep the light in their eyes ablaze: the truth that my wife and I are not two, but one flesh. It is in this “civilization of love,” as John Paul II puts it, that children learn to see and experience truth, goodness, and beauty.

Parents, if we want to continue to see the light in our children’s eyes: love your spouse.

In coming to the chorus, we should note that “Ablaze” has a very intentional lyrical structure. The song is arranged so that, in the verses, Alanis sings about the potential disillusionments that our children may find. These are the things which can cause them to cast their eyes away from the light of beauty. But in the chorus, she reminds her children who they really are. The lesson for us parents is this: our children will hear the lies of the world soon enough; the way they overcome these lies is by remembering the song that we sing to them of who they really are.

How do you keep the light in your eyes when you are overcome with darkness, loneliness, and a sense of hopelessness? The last lyric in the verse tells us, “it won’t matter if you keep the core connected to the oneness.” I don’t think we are meant to understand this lyric as saying that these struggles are meaningless, or trivial. Rather, I think the point is that the darkness itself will ultimately fade away…if.

If.

How to interpret the lyric “keep the core connected to the oneness?” Perhaps through the lens of St. Augustine. Alanis was raised Catholic. Which is to say, she is forever marked as belonging to Christ. Although she has wandered into Buddhism, we are called to remember her in our prayers—that she might be brought back, like Augustine, “with a twitch upon the thread.”

As St. Augustine professes, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart (cor) is restless until it rests in you.” The English word “core” comes from the Latin cor. This lyric then is ultimately Augustinian. As further proof, we need look no further than the episcopal motto of our Holy Father, Leo XIV, “In Illo Uno Unum,” a phrase taken from St. Augustine’s which translates to, “In the One, we are one.”

Nothing else matters “if you keep your heart resting in the One.”

A lovely lyric here that recalls to mind the exhortation of St. Catherine of Siena, “Be who God made you to be, and you will set the world ablaze.” We might be tempted to think of innocence as powerless, weak, and safe. But it is none of these things. Christ was innocent. Every Christian martyr has been innocent. There are only two responses to innocence: to be consumed by it, or to try to extinguish it, for innocence always comes as a purifying fire.

Hell and high water come to extinguish the blaze of innocence. Affirm to your children that when the waters rise—and they will—the nest in which they were raised is never going away. It sits, above the waters, always ready to welcome them home, there to be reminded who they are, until their innocence and fire are rekindled, ready to set the world ablaze once more.

Coming to the song’s bridge, Alanis reminds her children that their pilot light, the cord, the bond of parental love is ultimately “beyond unshakeable.” Importantly, it exists as a real relation of love. That is, it has an objective actual existence, and is not merely a kind of fact that is “true if I believe it.” No, this relationship is not merely in the mind of parent and child. On the contrary, “even if we all forgot all at the same time,” the reality of the unbreakable, unshakeable bond remains. And make no mistake, sometimes, parents and children do forget. Edgar Allan Poe cautions us, “That years of love have been forgot / In the hatred of a minute.”

If we do forget, it is this bond, which was always there, that recalls us to ourselves. The prodigal son comes to his senses by remembering the kindness of his father. Yet, perhaps he doesn’t fully remember how unshakeable this bond is, as he declares, “I no longer deserve to be called your son.”

His father has not forgotten. The cord is unbreakable—even by death itself. “Quickly bring the finest robe…because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again.”

In the song’s outro, there’s an interesting musical counterpoint between the melodies of the verse and chorus. There is a callback now to the first lyric, “First thing that you’ll notice,” but now, because the chorus is sung to the child at the same time—reminding them who they are—we see the child’s viewpoint changing: “Everything is temporary.” Everything? No, not things that are meant to endure: faith, hope, love. The child notices that pain and loss are temporary, but “we will always be a family.”

If our mission is to keep the light in our children’s eyes ablaze, and we do that by reminding them who they really are, then let’s not forget to remind them who and what they are to us. In the book of Tobit, after his son removed the scales from his eyes, “Tobit saw his son and threw his arms around him, and he wept and said to him, ‘I see you, my son, the light of my eyes!’”

My mission is to keep the lights in my children’s eyes ablaze because they were first the light in mine.

I see you my sons. I see you my daughters.

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Alanis Morissette performed this song while holding her daughter for the Jimmy Fallon show in 2020. It’s a lovely and charming performance. For some reason the show made the original video private, but you can still watch it as part of a reaction video below: