Chicago-based piano-driven, rock/pop band Strive released its first global release, Fire, last month. Their music fuses the soaring, inspirational lyrics of bands like U2 and Switchfoot with the sweeping piano-pop of Billy Joel and Bruce Hornsby. Not only has the band garnered a following with fans – this July they surpassed 1 million plays and 2 million views on Myspace – the band’s music has been licensed for MTV’s “The Real World” and E!: Entertainment Television’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” They’ve toured internationally, earning fans on several continents.
Strive frontman Derick Thompson says the album’s title cut, “Fire,” is probably the most controversial song he’s ever written. Why? Because it’s all about sex. Which isn’t so unusual a topic in today’s hormone-driven pop culture environment, except that Thompson takes a different approach to the subject.
Here, in a guest blog post, Derick Thompson talks about sex, culture and the song, “Fire.” You can read the lyrics to “Fire” and find out how to get your free download of the song by visiting this link.

FIRE: SEX
By Derick Thompson
There is a noisy conversation going on in culture about sex. Walk out your front door and inevitably you encounter advertisements, magazines, movies and music blasting messages about how great sex is. Occasionally an image floats across the airwaves of monogamous teenage or adult couple representing an ideal sexual relationship. Almost non-existent is the fact that great sex happens in a committed marriage.
As a Christ-following artist who works in both secular and Christian spheres, I’ve noticed sex generally isn’t a topic the Church is comfortable talking about. However, the rest of culture consistently uses it to captivate audiences. Let’s be honest, Hollywood movies and Top 40 music paint compelling pictures of sexuality, which influences the way sex is viewed across gender, age and faith spectrums. As a teenager and young adult, I found myself believing the lie that says the best sex happens before marriage. The Christian line that “God wants you to wait for sex till your married” and creative slogans like “My Father Is Watching” seemed hollow amidst very real temptations, especially when the married Christians I knew didn’t appear to have sex lives. My pressing question wasn’t whether pre-martial sex was wrong. I always considered it wrong, but rather whether God’s promises were true…would sex in marriage be hotter, sweeter, more intimate, spiritual and fulfilling than sex before marriage?

“Fire,” undoubtedly the most controversial song I’ve ever written, symbolizes my realization that God’s promises about sex are true. I can honestly say the pre-marital sex I experienced was lifeless compared to the sex I’m blessed to now share with my wife. This song celebrates the love, pleasure and intimacy a man and wife were created to uniquely share. I hope it sings to the hearts and minds of young people to wait and first taste sex in marriage, as well as remind married couples that sex helps keep a marriage alive and strong. As an artist, I want to reflect the glory of the creator who gave the human race such a pleasurable language of love. God didn’t shortchange the human race when he made Adam and Eve man and wife before they experienced sexual intimacy. Rather, he gave them the context to experience their sexuality in its fullest form. Culture needs to hear this truth and more desperately to experience it.
To learn more about Strive, visit their website or MySpace page.
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