The Hook

This little ditty goes to all the parents and youth ministers out there.

Reading time: 7 minutes

Music and me go way back. Piano lessons in seventh grade… a pots-and-pans drum set on the kitchen floor when I was two… headphones when I was still in my mom’s belly. I’m sure all of this contributed to my love of music and to my recent habit of playing the “steering wheel drum set.” (Yes, I am the guy in the car behind you, playing a mad air-drum solo while you wait for the light to turn green). It’s a bad habit, I know—especially at 70 mph—but there is just something in the music…. something that is moving… something that makes me go, “yeah, this is sweet! Turn it up!” Begin mad air-drum solo.

For producers in the music world, this “something” is what is so sought after. Sure, image is something in music, but it isn’t The Thing. If your band has “it”—this “something” that makes people pause and say “wow, that’s pretty cool”—it doesn’t matter what your band looks like. Your band rocks and we want more. (Nice hair, by the way).

It’s like we get hooked and we’re flopping like fish out of water—only we’re in our car or at a dance or in some other place where flopping around like fish probably will result in strange looks or a visit from the nearest police officer. But we’re enjoying it and having fun and, really, we might not even care about what the band is singing about. All we know is that this song kicks.

In the music world, this “something” is often found in a simple little mix of bass and drums. Here, I need only to say three words: Ice, Ice, Baby.

If you know the song, you can already hear what I’m talking about: “bum-bum-bum-buhduh-bum-bum… buh-bum-bum-bum-buhduh-bum bum.” Now stop, collaborate and listen, Vanilla Ice…. And you know the rest (or, at least, you pretend that you do, because if you really did, you know that your friends would be like, “wow, he knows all the words to Ice, Ice, Baby.” This might be cool today, or not, I don’t know). At any rate, for many people, if you just mention the song, “Ice, Ice, Baby,” they can probably remember the basic baseline if they’ve heard it before.

In the music world, this addictive quality of a song is called a “hook.” It’s often the “something” about a song that draws people into the music and makes them wanting more. The hook might come in a sweet baseline (like Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean”) or in a solid beat (as heard in Queen’s “We Will Rock You”), or in a silly few repetitive words (like a-weem-o-weh in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”). In fact, the hook might be a certain excerpt of another song (the hook of Ice, Ice, Baby is actually the opening to “Under Pressure” by Queen) or it may take the form of an entire chorus (see “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks). We’re even hearing some parts of music that we would hear in Broadway musicals (like “Hard Knock Life” from Annie in Jay Z’s “Ghetto Anthem”) make it into popular music. It’s all very interesting.

So, why do I mention all of this on a Catholic youth website?

Well, first, I think there is the budding concern with regard to the music industry today: is it good for our teens? Since a lot of our music has a good beat, and feels good, and might even cause us to air-drum in the car, we often overlook the message that we are encountering by having the song on in the first place. (Here, one may ponder how simply encountering questionable—or even, sinful—lyrics could be harmful. I simply ask a question in response: is a child harmed when she encounters her parents fighting with one another? And what if that fight was played over and over and over like an iPod on repeat? If she is not harmed in a strict sense of the word, at the absolute least she will become numb and dulled to such occurrences. And this is certainly harmful for a whole litany of reasons which a good psychology book is ready to reveal for us).

A quick note, though: hooks aren’t necessarily bad in themselves (nor is music).

But if they reel us into places where we ordinarily wouldn’t go if we had full use of our reason, then perhaps they aren’t so good. A hook to a fish is only good or bad depending upon whether the hook leads to the frying skillet or to fresher waters.

Here, then, is the crux of the matter: when listening to music, we must employ our mind and not simply our heart in determining whether a song stays on or is turned off. We can’t simply bite at any hook, nor can we bite only those that seem to fill an immediate need emotionally or otherwise.

Being entranced and uncritical is akin to drunkenness or to sexual inwardness—it is a certain moral mindlessness that smells very fishy. The metaphor I use here is not accidental; for I intend not simply to point out the “hook” in music, but also the hooks in a wide variety of issues we face alongside teens: from alcohol use to sexual experimentation to doing anything else but sitting down and praying. So often, the hook which lures kids to pre-marital sex is the same hook which leads other kids to alcohol or to cutting.

These difficulties all have their hooks; and if we, like fish, mindlessly grab hold onto one of them, we should not be surprised if the end result might possibly be a frying skillet. After all, living a certain moral mindlessness doesn’t bespeak being fully alive or being fully human. It bespeaks being a fish.

At the same time, the issue isn’t simply moral mindlessness, it’s also about a radical heartlessness. Ask any teen about a song that was cool “yesterday” and why it isn’t cool today. “It just isn’t,” they’ll reply. And it’s often because the song has been overplayed. The hook doesn’t seem to work any more. The heart has been dulled and the hook can’t seem to break through what now seems to be a heart of stone. In other words, to quote the Righteous Brothers, we’ve lost that lovin’ feeling.

Thrill seekers, pornography addicts, and even kids who have gone through parents’ divorces—they so often tell counselors that they need “more” in order to feel. The horrible issue of cutting today is a prime example. We’re a culture that is slowly losing not only its mind, but its heart.

This is the challenge of our day, to show what it is to be fully alive and to be fully human, to give teens the tools to use their mind and heart, as well as the signs to show when they are not. For, if we can do that, we can avoid the hooks that draw so many of our teens into the places we do not ever wish them to go.

Here, I think many of the youth ministers are doing a fantastic job, for they are reminding us in both mind and heart that God loves us and that he want us! Truly, Our Father has a few hooks—or nets—of his own (and should we be surprised, really, knowing how Jesus taught Peter, a fisherman, a lesson or twelve in how to fish?). By entering into God’s nets—and not the world’s hooks—we become more and more fully human and, really, divine.

Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets." And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. (Mt 5:5-7)

The spiritual nets we see today—nets which require both “boats” of our heart and mind—include Scripture, Eucharist, the Teaching of the Church, the Rosary, Service and Love. These are the best kind of “hooks,” for not only do they feed us, but they also draw us into the places we want to go and to the people we want to see; namely, to heaven itself with Our Father and all his children.

Again, in keeping with this, we must also teach our schools of fish about which hooks are the good ones and which are the bad—and to give them the tools to avoid them on their own.

So let us keep vigilant in our mission to teach (see Matthew 28:20). Let us lure our teens with these nets of Our Father. Let us reel them into Christ’s boat, which is the Ark—The Church. I’m certain that, with Jesus’ help, we will bring home a catch far greater than any of us could ever imagine or do by ourselves!

I pray that we all avoid the hooks of the world and, instead, find ourselves wonderfully caught in the nets of the Holy Spirit. May God bless you and keep you always! Amen.

God love you!