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Rev. Robert Ketcham
After gracing us with his 2000 hit, It’s my Life, in which he boasted, “I aint gonna live forever”, Jon Bon Jovi has released another expression of his poetic sterility called, We Weren’t Born to Follow, and it has me thinking. Rather, it has me somewhat unsettled since it only perpetuates the deception of young men who may have otherwise considered it virtuous to follow Christ as a priest; the lyrics of this new song suggest that obedience is something unnatural and that following a greater good is not virtuous.
I may be making too much of this one song and its impact on the youth, especially since Jon Bon Jovi (now 47) no longer sings on their behalf. However, I would like to reflect not on what the song purport to say, but what it actually says.
The chorus of the song continues:
“We weren’t born to follow;
come on and get up off your knees.
When life is a bitter pill to swallow,
you gotta hold on to what you believe.”
It’s full of dangerous contradictions that can paralyze us while bringing us to think ourselves less than admirable for being disciples of Jesus, since discipleship requires that we follow, something that Bon Jovi claims we weren’t born to do.
 Of course, however, his intention is not really to discourage people from following at all, but rather to compel them to follow him. The expression, “come on”, is a dead giveaway that it is he who wants followers, and the melody, at the expense of beauty, is just another earworm, impossible to forget and easy to follow.
And I’m sorry Mr. Bon Jovi, but the idea of swallowing the “bitter pill” of circumstance only serves to remind me of drinking the Robitussin not because I wanted to, but because it was right and good to follow my mother’s advice.
Even the image of “[holding] on to what you believe” denotes the high virtue of being led by something greater – something, ironically enough, worth following.
Finally, the idea of not being “born to follow” leaves me wondering just how long a child might, in such a case, survive without following his mother to her breast, or his father to the surface of the pool after his first dive.
And all of this idealistic gas (to borrow an expression from C.S. Lewis) sits nestled between the most obviously problematic line of all, namely, “get up off your knees”. Who would dare interrupt a man in prayer? It would be as precarious as suggesting to a child that the streets are as good a place as any to play.
The lyrics of this song are the words of a proud and apparently unsatisfied band of men who are not to be considered wise since they seem not to understand that the best leaders are always also the best followers. Good leadership is inseparable from faithful discipleship.
Consider how Jesus is a devout follower of the Divine Will of his Father. In fact, it is from his obedient sonship that his greatness flows. To whom did he give himself on the cross if not to his Father? And to whom did he ascend after his Resurrection? Everything he does he does for his Father. He, himself, tells us: “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:39).
And he calls his disciples to this same kind of willingness to follow. Consider his words to Matthew and to Philip, “Follow me” (Mt 9:9 / Jn 1:43), or those to anyone with ears to hear:
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). Think also of his reference to his sheep who hear his voice and “follow” him (Jn 10:27), and of Saint John’s vision of the undefiled in Heaven who, even now, “follow the Lamb” (Rev 14:4).
No, it is not the problem of modern man that he tends too easily to follow; it is quite the opposite; it is his reluctance to follow that holds him back from experiencing the true freedom of belonging to God, and leads to his smug condemnation of those who do so joyfully and unapologetically.
In contrast to the drivel and balderdash offered by Jon Bon Jovi, listen now to the words of a hymn sung by the boys of The Bamfylde School of Cornwall England at the beginning of each episode of the 1980 BBC television series, To Serve Them All My Days:
Look ahead to a life worth living
full of hope, full of faith, full of cheer
to a life that is made for giving
without stint, without shame, without fear.
Look ahead to the one who leads us
to the Lord who guides our ways.
We shall follow, follow, follow;
we shall follow him all our days.
Words such as these beget men capable of real leadership, truly priestly men who are man enough to follow Christ into the wilderness of the cities, into the homes and into the schools. Words such as these form the soldiers who receive Purple Hearts and the priests who receive Sacred Hearts. And they become for us living reminders that we were indeed all born to follow, born to follow Jesus.
in Jesus and Mary
- fr robert
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I am wondering if you ever heard the song "Better Days" by The Goo Goo Dolls. You should give it a listen.
Jeannine Maloney