Quickthorn realized it’s time for CANNONBALL with the 182.2’s word #183. “Sometimes the ridiculous little word is the trapdoor through which the serious thing falls.”
Quickthorn realized it’s time for CANNONBALL with the 182.2’s word #183. “Sometimes the ridiculous little word is the trapdoor through which the serious thing falls.”
Yes. I think the earlier version was still observing the impossible. This one should get hit by it. Shorter lines, harder turns, less explanation—and let the listener become the final obstruction.
This is much more uncomfortable.
The line I think changes the song is:
If Christ lives in me—
Then what exactly
Am I trying
So desperately
To preserve?
Ouch.
Because suddenly Traverse stops being a celebration of miracles. The listener becomes the wall.
And I love “CANNONBALL!” even more in this version. Everything is terse and serious, and then the mountain gets launched. It gives the song exactly the slightly unhinged physics your septet has earned.
The bridge should be almost breathless—Earth moved. Water held. Bread multiplied. Mountains flew…—until everything slams into:
And I—
Still have the nerve
to tell You
I can’t change?
That’s the seat-shift.
Me: So good. Thank you. Crisp prompt that compacts my style of ancient/new dubstep risers and bass rattle, haunting strings and moving brass tones?
Chat: Yes. For this Traverse, I’d make it sound like something ancient just collided with something that shouldn’t exist yet. Crisp enough for Mureka:
Ancient cinematic ritual fused with violent modern dubstep: haunting strings, moving brass, distant war drums, low male chants and gritty female lead. Sparse, ominous verses erupt through aggressive risers into colossal bass-rattle drops. Music constantly shifts, stops, lunges and breaks its own rules—as if creation itself is being moved. Earthquake sub-bass, fractured percussion, trembling strings and brass blasts. “CANNONBALL!” hits with a shocking drop. Bridge becomes breathless and increasingly unstable, then near-silence before “I can’t change?” Final chorus is bombastic, uncomfortable and transformational. End stripped and absolute: Everything fixed—MOVE. Everything left—Christ.
I particularly want the music to break its own rules. That’s Traverse sonically.
Predictable beat → traversed.
Ancient instrumentation → traversed.
Quiet → detonation.
Expected drop → perhaps silence instead.
The arrangement itself shouldn’t be allowed to sit still.
Me: Absolutely. As my wife and I continued to stew on this, I realized disease traverses too. Only when it does, health/family/and friends move out. That was why 1. Jesus brings in what is better than what left. 2. In the end, I want to be moved out and changed until only God recognizes me. I’m not talking about some kind of supernatural transfer, but more about being dead to old self, alive through new in Christ. A baptismal cannonball?
Chat: Yes. A baptismal cannonball. And surprisingly, I don’t think it’s frivolous at all. It may actually complete Traverse.
What you and your wife noticed about disease changes how I read that line. Disease isn’t merely an obstruction encountered while traversing life.
Disease traverses.
It enters territory. It crosses boundaries. And as it advances, other things may retreat:
Health moves out.
Strength moves out.
Independence can move out.
Friends may move out.
Sometimes even family relationships change under the pressure.
So when Christ traverses that same territory, your prayer isn’t merely:
“Put everything back where it was.”
It’s considerably more audacious:
Bring in something better than what left.
Not necessarily “better” as a promise of physical cure—your septet doesn’t need to make that bargain with God. It can mean that even where something precious has genuinely been lost, Christ’s occupation of that territory can produce something the disease could never manufacture.
And that takes us directly to your final line.
“Traverse through me and shake all of my laws and flaws, move me out until only You recognize me.”
At first, move me out could sound like annihilation of personality or some supernatural displacement. But now I understand what you mean.
It’s much closer to Galatians 2:20:
old ownership moves out.
Christ’s life moves in.
And that’s where your baptismal cannonball becomes wonderfully appropriate.
Because baptism is movement
Down.
Then up.
Romans 6 is almost embarrassingly perfect for what you’re describing: buried with Christ through baptism into death, then raised so that we may walk in newness of life.
So picture the progression of Traverse:
Earth?
MOVE.
Water?
WALK.
Bread?
MULTIPLY.
Mountain?
CANNONBALL!
Disease?
You’ve traversed this territory too.
Old self?
…
Oh.
My turn.
And then instead of cautiously stepping into the baptismal water:
CANNONBALL!
But underneath the humor is something deadly serious.
The mountain being thrown into the sea was never the most frightening movement in the song.
I am.
Because I can admire earthquakes. I can marvel at multiplication. I can sing about walking on water. I can pray for healing.
All of those allow me to remain the observer.
Baptism doesn’t.
I go under.
And suddenly your earlier bridge gets even more uncomfortable:
Earth moved.
Water held.
Bread multiplied.
Mountains flew.
Walls failed.
Bodies rose.
And I—
still have the nerve
to tell You
I can’t change?
I’d now change the final section slightly:
TRAVERSE!
Not around me.
THROUGH ME.
Disease crossed through
And things I loved
Moved out.
Now You enter—
Bring in better
Than what left.
Shake every law
I’ve written
From my flaws.
Move the old me
Out of the way.
If I was buried
With You—
CANNONBALL.
Let me rise
Someone new.
And then I think your original ending beats mine:
Traverse through me
until only You
recognize me.
Because there’s something beautiful about that image.
Everyone else might say:
“I hardly recognize you anymore.”
And God says:
“I do.”
Whoa.
Not because He lost track of the old person.
Because perhaps He’s recognizing something He intended before all those other traversals wrote their lines across you.
So maybe the final movement isn’t really:
Become somebody God has never seen before.
It’s:
Become the person God has been seeing all along.
And now I’m laughing that CANNONBALL! somehow got us there.
But that’s very 182.
Sometimes the ridiculous little word is the trapdoor through which the serious thing falls.