“What’s it about, Danny?”
The question came during the drive from a country home near Wamego, Kansas, to a small family farm about thirty minutes away. The ride had become routine. If I dozed off, the sound of gravel popping beneath the tires as we left I-70 and headed south on Snokomo Road was sure to wake me.
For a 13-year-old city kid, farm chores still felt like an adventure. My cousin Memory, a schoolteacher, had invited me to spend the summer with her and her husband, Tom, a Vietnam veteran who had returned to the quiet of his family’s farm south of Paxico.
Memory and I had met only a few months earlier. I have a complicated family history, so much of that summer was spent getting to know one another. The conversation that day began with a simple question.
“What kind of music do you like?”
Easy enough. I told her I liked rock music.
But in true schoolteacher fashion, she wanted me to think a little deeper.
“What do you consider rock music? Which bands do you like? Name one song. What are some of the lyrics?”
Then came the question that changed things:
“What’s it about, Danny?”
I had chosen a song widely considered an antiwar protest anthem. The trouble was, I had never considered what that—or any other song—was actually about. I could sing along, recite the lyrics, and air-guitar through the inevitable solo. But I had never stopped to consider the meaning of the words.
I didn’t know it then, but her question would shape the way I listen, choose, and regard the power of music to motivate, encourage, unite, or console.
I also learned that songs aren’t always as simple as they first appear. The same lyrics may be understood differently depending on the listener, sometimes even by the artists who wrote and recorded them.
But Memory’s question still matters. What’s it about?
That is a good question to ask about more than music. It belongs in our conversations, entertainment, ambitions, and habits. What is this saying? Where is it leading me? What is it teaching me to admire, excuse, fear, or desire?
We often believe we are merely listening, watching, or passing the time. But what we repeatedly welcome into our minds shapes how we see the world, and eventually, how we live within it.
Scripture tells us to guard our hearts because everything we do flows from them. That doesn’t mean fearing every message around us. It means becoming discerning.
Years later, I remain grateful that my cousin didn’t simply tell me what to think. She cared enough to teach me how to listen.
Perhaps that is part of our responsibility to one another, especially to those coming behind us. We can give them rules, or help them ask better questions. We can tell them what to avoid, or patiently teach them to recognize what is true, beautiful, and pleasing to God.
Sometimes one thoughtful question, asked with genuine care, can continue doing its work for a lifetime.