The Moral In The Music

If you’re from my generation, you remember the Beatles, and probably remember the lyrics, “you know that what you eat you are”. I’ve often thought of those lyrics, though it’s been so long since I heard the actual song that I couldn’t remember the title. I turned to my trusty search engine, and finally found the name of the song and its complete lyrics.

The song was titled Savoy Truffle, and it was released in 1968. There are web sites that devote significant bandwidth to discussing possible meanings of the lyrics. Frankly, after reading them some 40+ years after The White Album was released, I can understand why my parents worried that my love of “all things Beatles” might be cause for concern.

Suffice it to say that the music may be timeless, but the lyrics may need to be reevaluated.

BUT… I still think of those lyrics: You know that what you eat you are. And perhaps I need to think of them more often. Because that phrase is pertinent to our spiritual health.

We nourish our bodies by the food we eat, and our spirits are nourished by what we “feed” them as well. The programs we watch, the books we read, the company we keep… all of this taken together constitutes our spiritual food. And while the lyrics of Savoy Truffle don’t lead me to believe that this is what the Beatles had in mind, it is what I think of when I hear that line.

Over the next few days, I want to pay closer attention to my “soul food” diet.

Oh: by the way… Back in the 60’s, many of us seemed to think we were original thinkers. The line from Savoy Truffle seemed pretty wise at the time, but it is said far more eloquently in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

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