Nothing's Gonna Harm You

A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to a new, reasonably cheap, CD/Radio for the kitchen. We had a double cassette player in there for ages. These were the days before CDs were invented. I had a collection of cassettes to get me through the piled up washing up, and those very rare days when I would actually spring clean cupboards. A little music helped.

I used to make tablet in the old days. I timed the boiling and simmering and stirring to perfection using one side of a cassette tape.

The CD player is a little bit smaller that the old cassette player, so it doesn’t take up much space on the counter. Some of the CDs have been decanted into the kitchen. One of then is Jamie Cullen’s “The Pursuit”. I like his kind of music and not just the music, but the man too.


One of the tracks is called “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You.” The piano arrangement is just wonderful – all those arpeggios (?). In googling the lyrics, I have to confess to a bit of a disappointment – Sweeny Todd? Is he not the barber that kills people and then the baker down stairs makes them into pies? It just seemed that they song was out of place – until I youtubed it and listened to it in context.

Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around.
Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir, not while I'm around.

Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays,
I'll send 'em howling,
I don't care, I got ways.

No one's gonna hurt you,
No one's gonna dare.
Others can desert you,
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there.

Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while,
But in time...
Nothing can harm you
Not while I'm around...

Long before I goggled and youtubed, I listened to Jamie Cullen and his piano arrangement, and I thought about someone singing personally to me that nothing was going to harm me…not while he is around – not Jamie Cullen. I have a habit of reading God into many things and this was an easy read.

Someone can say, or sing the words, like the boy in the film singing to Helena Bonner Carter and no matter how sweetly they sing – they are often powerless to actually do anything to prevent harm from happening. However nice the words, and comforting – they remain just words when most people sing them or say them.

Not so if God were singing those words. When He says “Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around,” we can be sure that He means it and nothing can harm us.

However, God chooses when to sing it, and He doesn’t sing it in every situation that we face. He does not wrap us in cotton wool and protect us from every knock and fall. Harm happens because we like in a broken world – but in every situation He does say, regardless of whether we whistle or not, “I’ll be there.”