Britney

Taken from STORY BEHIND THE SONG: Bebo Norman’s “Britney”

Britney I’m sorry for the lies we told
We took you into our arms then left you cold
Britney, I’m sorry for this cruel, cruel world
We sell the beauty but destroy the girl

Britney, I’m sorry for your broken heart

“Britney” is a song about what our culture says and does to young women these days. It’s a collective apology for the struggle girls face growing up too fast in today’s overly adult-oriented world. The song confesses, “I’m sorry for the lies we told… We took you into our arms then left you cold/I’m sorry for this cruel, cruel world… /We sell the beauty but destroy the girl.” It’s about the lies we tell them about fame and money and what’s beautiful and what will give them life. It’s an apology for those lies. But more than that, it’s an invitation to the truth about a God who is bigger than the pain this world so often leaves them in.

I was up late, couldn’t sleep, watching some news channel, when yet another story about Britney Spears came on. My first instinct was to scoff and write it off, but then there was this freeze-frame shot of a look on her face of utter and absolute despair and confusion and brokenness—a look that I recognized. And I remember thinking “This girl is a child of God.” Suddenly, I saw her story not as something to mock, but as a real-life tragedy that is desperate for redemption and hope—a story not so different from any of our stories. Take away all the lights and cameras, and it’s really just a narrative of a girl so clearly in need of love, so clearly in need of the redeeming love of our God.

And suddenly, all I wanted to do was just apologize, over and over. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...on behalf of this fallen world, on behalf of our consumerism that so consistently devours what it wants and leaves the remnants in the wake of the search for the next fix, on behalf of believers, like myself, who mock and hurl stones rather than scribbling a message in the sand.

I think that night I saw her through the eyes of Jesus for the first time. I imagined what Jesus would say to me in my darkest hour and realized that those are the words we should speak to this world, to this culture, and even to Britney Spears in their darkest hour. “I’m sorry. Hope is here.”
–Bebo Norman.