Who is/was he, and what was happening that drove him to write this? That’s about all we can say about Craig Musseau and his poem-song “Good to Me” that he contributed to the Christian music industry by 1990. Where he was, his age, etc., and especially the circumstances in which he found himself are a mystery. If someone has details about how and why Craig decided to make public his distress-praise ode to God in the 1990 timeframe, I’m listening! As my blog’s header says, Song Scoops is a music detective’s quest, with your help especially useful in cases like this, when the story is pretty veiled. Perhaps it's not unlike someone hunting for and finding the switch to turn on a dark room’s light bulb (shown here). It might strike someone as a bit too close to New Age-ism, but I just clicked on my desk’s Lava lamp, containing a most unusual light, in an attempt to provide some extra inspiration and close my information gap on Craig Musseau and his composition! According to instructions that came with this curious desk accessory, the ‘Lava’ brand lamp is a ‘philosophy’, with oozing wax that becomes ‘hypnotizing and invigorating’ inside its liquid container. This lamp purports to remind the observer/s of the prehistoric primordial goop (the wax), and yet the post-modern age too. What a device, with such a broad effect, and more rousing than a simple light bulb! This prehistoric and yet post-modern effect, in its spacious sweep, can also characterize the God who created in the beginning and is still here in our age. Craig apparently counted on Him remaining good throughout the ages.
That light bulb analogy that began this blog entry is perhaps appropriate here, to describe what Craig Musseau discovered. He was in a dark place, and he needed light that only God could provide. This sounds very similar to the episodes of the great psalmist David that caused him to lament. Was it Psalm 13 that Craig was reading, in which David concludes his cry to God by saying ‘…He has been good to me’? Craig felt he needed His ‘hand of mercy to heal…’ because he was ‘weak’. Interestingly, this poet thought God’s ‘love...(would) free me’, so it sounds as though Craig was suffering emotionally or spiritually, rather than physically when he might have instead called for God’s almighty power. His ‘strength’, ‘rescue’, and ‘promise’ were also on Craig’s lips, even as his insides wept over his situation. There’s an evident burden on his heart, but nevertheless Craig pledges ‘…to follow (God) forever’, and then sings repeatedly this devotion’s title words, showing his fidelity to God despite his hurts. The accompanying music in this repeated phrase has the worshipper feeling as if he’s rocking in the arms of a loving parent who’s trying to soothe an agitated child into a peaceful sleep. Did Craig find rest and reassurance? Tell me if you know.
If the poet-king David were to answer, he might remind us that he had to write many laments to cover his life’s episodes. Research indicates Craig did the same (writing or co-writing at least a few dozen songs), but chose to remain relatively anonymous, except for his name, for some reason. He could have been stressing over his own situations, or maybe he was the compassionate friend who was giving voice to the griefs of someone or multiple people close by. David must have thought his own poems put to music were therapeutic, and not just for himself, since many of his psalms have superscriptions that indicate a ‘director of music’ (as in Psalm 13) employed David’s thoughts for group worship. Craig likewise took his own desperate meditations and set them to communal use when he allowed for the dissemination of ‘Good to Me’. No one’s alone here, he’d probably say. Our Creator would want us to think that way, too.
This site indicates that the author-composer wrote at least 20-30 songs: https://songselect.ccli.com/Search/Results?List=contributor_P97469_Craig%20Musseau&PageSize=20&CurrentPage=1
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