Ann and Nancy Wilson wrote this song about Mike Fisher, who was an original guitarist for Heart (he eventually stopped performing and became their sound man) - he and Ann were dating. Roger Fisher, who is Mike's brother and also plays guitar in the band, is also credited as a writer on this song. According to Ann, she felt that the world was crazy and sometimes maddening, but her relationship with Mike kept her balanced. This was Heart's first single. They were based in Vancouver at the time and signed to a small label called Mushroom. When the album became a hit, they moved to Seattle and signed with a label owned by CBS Records. The original band members were from Seattle. According to the liner notes for one of their greatest hits albums, they moved to Vancouver when some of the male members of the band would have been subject to the draft in the Vietnam War. They returned to Seattle when that was no longer a threat of them being called up in the draft. Unfortunately, their Vancouver years limited their exposure in the US at a time when they could have been one of the top bands there. Crazy on you was released in the summer of 1976 on hearts debut album "Dreamboat Annie"
We might still get by
Every time I think about it I want to cry
With the bombs and the devils
And the kids keep coming
Nowhere to breathe easy...no time to be young
But I tell myself that I'm doing alright
There's nothing left to do tonight but go crazy on you
My love is the evening breeze touching your skin
The gentle sweet singing of leaves in the wind
The whisper that calls, after you in the night
And kisses your ear in the early light
You don't need to wonder, you're doing fine
And my love, the pleasure's mine
Let me go crazy on you
Wild man's world is crying in pain
What you gonna do when everybody's insane
So afraid of fortune, so afraid of you
What you gonna do?
Crazy on you, let me go crazy on you
I was willow last night in my dream
I bent down over a clear running stream
I sang you the song that i heard up above
And you keep me alive with your sweet flowing love
Crazy, crazy on you,
Let me go crazy, crazy on you
"Crazy on you" is a song of the heart. (Pardon the pun) it about the kind of commitment and single mindedness that builds relationships and keeps them. Its a song about sweet flowing love. A love song in essence, with romantic overtones. For heart in 1976 it was a hit even though they were not a well known band in the US at the time, after moving to Vancouver and back again. A mistake that they may have regretted. Heart have often been described as the “female Led Zeppelin,” as much for their arena-ready hard rock riffs as for singer Ann Wilson’s powerful, Robert Plant-like vocal histrionics. But the thing about Heart that most closely resembles the mighty Zeppelin is their ability to shirt effortlessly between bombastic rock and roll and the most delicate folk-based music. Both sides of Heart are displayed in full glory on “Crazy on You,” It's a masterpiece about "Purity of Heart"
This mornings devotion is part 6 of the series in the beatitudes and today it's time to look at "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God"
Jesus used to make the point that God is concerned about our hearts, our inward motivation. That is the place where God looks. He is concerned for the inward and moral rather than the outward and ceremonial (Mark 7:1-23). He wants us to have 'pure' hearts. The word for 'pure' means 'unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed', like pure clean water.
In a world where the pressure to conform is very great, it means to be free from masks and free from having different roles for different occasions. It means being ourselves as God intended, instead of play acting; living life in the open and letting people see right through us. The pure in heart are those who are completely sincere in their relationships. They are those who are totally open and have nothing to hide. A bit like in the Heart song "Crazy on you"
Jesus promises that God will reveal himself to people like that and that one day they will see God face to face. Deception blinds us, but purity opens our eyes to see God. The merciful hold nothing against their brothers and sisters. The pure in heart allow others to see them as they are.
According to James, the hypocrite needs to "purify [the] heart" (4:8). Ulterior motives divide the heart. Jewish writers understood this inclination to moral schizophrenia as resulting from an evil impulse. What God required of those who would ascend the hill of the Lord was "clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24:3-4.
This sixth beatitude calls everyone who has read it to stop, and think, and examine themselves.
The Greek word for pure is katharos and it has a variety of usages, all of which have something to add to the meaning of this beatitude for the Christian life. (1) Originally it simply meant clean, and could, for instance, be used or soiled clothes which have been washed clean. (2) It is regularly used for corn which has been winnowed or sifted and cleansed of all chaff. In the same way it is used of an army which has been purged of all discontented, cowardly, unwilling and inefficient soldiers, and which is a force composed solely of first-class fighting men. (3) It very commonly appears in company with another Greek adjective--akiratos. Akiratos can be used of milk or wine which is unadulterated with water, or of metal which has in it no tinge of alloy. So, then, the basic meaning of katharos is unmixed, unadulterated, analloyed. That is why this beatitude is so demanding a beatitude. It could be translated:
"Blessed is the one whose motives are always entirely unmixed, for that person shall see God."
It is very rare that we do even finest actions or greatest acheivements from absolutely unmixed motives. If we give generously and liberally to something, it may be that in our hearts there is some contentment in basking in the sunshine of our own self-approval, some pleasure in the praise and thanks and credit which we will receive. If we do something, which demands a sacrifice from us, it may be that we are not free from the feeling that people will see something heroic in us and that we may regard ourselves as martyrs. A preacher at his most passionate and sincere is not altogether free from the danger of pride in having preached a good sermon.
This beatitude calls from is a robust self-examination. Is our work done from motives of service or from motives of pay? Is our service given from selfless motives or from motives of self-display? Is the work we do in Church done for Christ or for our own prestige! Is our church-going an attempt to meet God or a fulfilling of an habitual and conventional respectability? Are prayers and our Bible reading done with the desire to get close to God or because it gives us a feeling of superiority to do these things? Is our faith the need of God within our hearts, or something in which we have comfortable thoughts of our own goodness? To examine our motives daunting, as there are fewer things that we do with completely unmixed motives.
Jesus went on to say that only the pure in heart will see God. It is one of the simple facts of life that we see only what we are able to see; and that is true not only in the physical sense, it is also true in every other sense. If I go out on a starry night, I see only a host of pinpoints of light in the sky; But in that same sky an astronomer will call the stars and the planets by their names, and will move amongst them as his friends; from that same sky the navigator could navigate his ship across the seas to the destined port. I can walk along a country road, and see by the hedgerows nothing but a tangle of weeds and wild flowers and grasses. The trained botanist would see this and that, and call it by name and know its use; and he might even see something of value and rarity because he had eyes to see. Put two people into a room filled with ancient pictures. A person with no knowledge and no skill could not tell an old master from a worthless daub, whereas a trained art critic might well discern a picture worth thousands of pounds in a collection which someone else might dismiss as junk. In every sphere of life we see what we are able to see.
So, says Jesus, it is only the pure in heart who shall see God. It is a heart warning thing to remember that, as by God's grace we keep our hearts clean, or as by human lust and wilful disobedience we soil them, we are either fitting or unfitting ourselves some day to see God.
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