Nearly a year ago, I happened to see a trailer for the Barbie movie. As I expected, it was pink, plasticky, and packed with progressive agendas. It attracted my attention like car crashes draw rubberneckers—I craned my neck to see what had caused this unfortunate accident and was nearly incapable of looking away.

The trailer was attractive and vacuous, very much like the doll the movie was based upon. But toward the end of the trailer, as my attention began wavering, a catchy tune grabbed me.

“But you’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along.”

At first listen, it seemed like an encouragement for someone working alone to craft their own creative path. However, as the earworm dug its way deeper into my cerebellum, another side of the song began emerging.

After the chorus had cycled through my head several dozen times, I was compelled to look up the lyrics to the rest of the song. What I found was not nearly as off-putting as the Barbie trailer, but no less disconcerting.

Verse 1

Nobody can tell ya
There’s only one song worth singing
They may try and sell ya
‘Cause it hangs them up
To see someone like you

Chorus

But you’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along

Verse 2

You’re gonna be nowhere
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be rough goin’
Just to do your thing’s the hardest thing to do

On the surface, the song encourages us to follow our hearts, no matter the cost. It paints a picture of a gritty writer, artist, or musician pursuing their passion and art against all odds. It’s a vision of personal freedom and expression that stems from the counterculture movements of the late 60s when the song was written. Now the song is back as the soundtrack to a movie named after a plastic doll hawked by a toy company whose primary goal is to increase shareholders’ profits. Irony?

The song promises freedom. Freedom from the censure of society, freedom from negativity, freedom from anything that restricts your expression of your truth. This ode to individuality casts a vision of unfettered personal autonomy with infinite horizons and possibilities. Personal fulfillment and meaning are waiting, you just need the courage to take them. The wind is in your hair and you’re traveling to somewhere better.

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In the first few pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Sillmarillion, Eru Ilúvatar, the creator, creates spiritual beings called the Ainur. Each of the Ainur begins singing alone, but as they sing, they begin to sing together and a beautiful harmony grows from their music. Ilúvatar soon reveals to them a musical theme that is so beautiful that the Ainur all bow before him in wonder. Ilúvatar then teaches the Ainur how they can each build upon his great theme to produce an even more beautiful harmony that will become a Great Music.

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.

The Great Music was perfect because it followed and built upon the theme of Ilúvatar. But within Melkor, one of the Ainur to whom had been given greater power and knowledge, arose the idea that he could add his own music to Ilúvatar’s theme. Melkor’s music created discord with the Great Music, and some of Ainur even began to follow Melkor’s music, creating a sea of darkness and discordant music that drowned out Ilúvatar’s theme.

Ilúvatar began singing another theme, like and yet unlike his first. But Melkor’s discord rose and contended with this second theme until Melkor overcame Ilúvatar’s music. Nevertheless, Ilúvatar was not defeated. He began a third theme that strove against Melkor’s music until it had completely overcome it. Ilúvatar’s theme ended in a magnificent chord that filled all of existence until it was deeper than the Abyss and higher than the Heavens.

Throughout the rest of The Simarrillion, Melkor and his followers become the main enemies of Ilúvatar, the Ainur, and of elves and men. This conflict, which stretches over the next several thousand years, all began when Melkor decided to create his own music to compete with the Great Music of Ilúvatar and the rest of the Ainur.

Although Tolkien disliked allegories, such as The Chronicles of Narnia written by his friend C. S. Lewis, there are direct Christian themes and allusions sprinkled throughout his works. The character of Melkor is a clear parallel to Satan, one of God’s greatest angels who was cast out of Heaven due to pride.

Both Melkor and Satan were beings, who, because of pride, decided that they knew better than their creator. This was the same sin that drew Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. With this act, Adam and Eve showed that they wanted to walk their own path independent of God.

Notice that Ilúvatar didn’t make the Ainur sing in lockstep to his theme. Instead, he showed them how they could build upon the theme to make a greater music. In his account of the creation of Middle Earth, Tolkien expresses a truth that we see clearly in the Scriptures: God doesn’t expect us to be automatons that parrot only the words He puts in our mouths.

God made us as individuals, and He is glorified when we express our individual gifts within the theme that He has created for the world. But when we decide to make our own kind of music without following His One Theme, then our many individual themes will clash with each other, creating discord and disunity. Each musician within an orchestra can make beautiful music on his own, but the harmony will be chaotic and unpleasant if a single theme does not guide the music that each musician creates.

What we consume changes us, whether we want it to or not. If we become entranced by the visions of limitless personal freedom we see around us, we will soon find ourselves being pulled in that direction without ever deciding to leave the path we thought we were on. Like the mythological sirens who enticed sailors to turn aside and destroy their ships, the music, books, and movies of Western culture are tempting us to turn away from the safe path and wreck ourselves against the jagged rocks of freedom and individuality.

How can I harmonize my song with God’s Great Theme? Rehearse His music until I know it even better than my own. Then I can weave my notes around it and through it until no one can tell my music from His.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16