Counting Stars

This song places in opposition two worldviews: the materialistic, self-centered, pragmatic vision of “counting dollars” that dominates our world and an alternate vision of “counting stars.” “Counting dollars” implies that all value can be quantified, bought, and sold; in this paradigm, things that cannot be reduced to a matter of investment or profit, like love and beauty, can be disregarded. “Counting stars,” on the other hand, evokes a child-like sense of wonder. Gazing at the night sky invites reflection on infinity and eternity; those who count stars do not expect to ever account for the full number, much less to possess the stars or gain some material benefit from them.

The speaker of “Counting Stars” finds himself profoundly at odds with his society but uncertain about how to live in a more truly satisfying way. Surrounded by people obsessed with “counting dollars” and told that he ought to “make that money,” he submits to societal norms and behaves as he’s expected to; he hasn’t fully bought into the dominant paradigm—he says, “I don’t think the world is sold”—but up to this point is still just “doing what we’re told,” fitting in with the world around him. He’s neither old enough to have completely assimilated to a dull, realistic, pragmatic acceptance of life as it is nor bold enough to defy and change it. This tension creates cognitive dissonance between his outwardly conforming actions and his true values: “I feel something so wrong / doing the right thing.” The “right” thing here has nothing to do with morality; instead, it is “common sense,” worldly wisdom, the practical business of getting ahead and looking out for number one. It is the deeply ingrained principles of the world, our assumptions about what will make us happy and thus about “the right thing” to do to achieve happiness, that the speaker defies, throwing away the possessions and material success that most people value with the lines “watch it burn” and “sink in the river.” Even though he may still “make that money,” he will not give his heart to it, regarding worldly success with a detachment that allows him to “watch it burn” without being devastated by the loss.

In the midst of his dissatisfaction with the paradigm of “counting dollars,” the song’s speaker gropes toward an alternate vision of life, “dreaming about the things that we could be” if we chose different values and lived according to a different sense of “the right thing” to do to find happiness. Surprisingly, the alternative he envisions subtly but unmistakably draws on Christian spirituality. His thoughts about his situation take the form not only of “dreaming” about the future but “praying hard,” looking to God for help as he attempts to step into a new world and assume a new identity. The line “Seek it out and you shall find” makes the Christian element clear with a direct quote from the gospel: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). In the song’s context, it promises that the speaker’s dissatisfaction and desire will ultimately lead to the genuinely meaningful and abundant life he is searching for. “Counting Stars” also refers to another important verse: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Trying to save your own life is the essence of the world’s “common sense”; it expresses our natural, instinctive selfishness and self-centeredness. But a life of selfish ambition, focused only on achieving success in the form of power or pleasure, is in the end empty and meaningless. A life of sacrificial love for others, on the other hand, appears (by worldly standards) to be a loss, but leads in the end to purpose and joy. It is for this reason that “everything that kills me makes me feel alive.” As Christian monks, nuns, missionaries, and martyrs through the ages attest, the suffering that the world hates and fears—in the form of poverty, privation, persecution, torture, and even death—can be embraced as “the fellowship of sharing in [Christ’s] sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11). In the dazzlingly countercultural value system of the gospel, even what kills us only makes us alive in a new way; death on earth is the entrance to life in heaven. The hope of heaven reverses all our values and priorities; for who live by “counting dollars,” hope for something greater truly is a “four-letter word,” foreign to the accepted wisdom and destabilizing to societies built on greed and power.

The lines “sink in the river / the lessons I learned” provide an especially interesting allusion that reinforces these meanings. In an ancient method of reading the Bible called typology, events in the Old Testament can be interpreted on multiple levels—not only as literal history but also as foreshadowings of future events and symbols of spiritual realities. For example, the crossing of the River Jordan, by which the Israelites entered the Promised Land, can be read typologically as both the sacrament of baptism, by which a person enters the Church, and death, by which a believer enters Paradise. “Crossing Jordan,” “crossing the river,” or just “crossing over” are therefore English idioms for dying. Lessons, rules, and principles oriented toward “counting dollars” only apply in this life; after death, money and worldly success will be worthless, and the very skills and habits that helped us store up treasures on earth may actually harm our prospects of receiving treasures in heaven. The lines “Sink in the river / the lessons I learned” acknowledge that worldly wisdom cannot cross over to the heavenly country, but must be left behind in the river of death. Indeed, in order to prepare for that day, we ought to deliberately sink those old, materialistic, self-centered attitudes in the river of baptism. Here is another meaning of the verse “Whoever loses his life for [Christ] will find it” (Matt 16:25); by choosing to put the old self to death with Christ in baptism, we also share in the power of Christ’s resurrection and his new and eternal life (see Romans 6:3-10).

“Counting Stars,” then, presents a choice between two systems of values: the dominant, accepted, common-sense attitude that, obsessed with money and material success, seeks to advance selfish desires above all else, and a radically countercultural spirit in which burning love, the hope of heaven, and joy greater than all the number of the stars make sacrifice and even death a pathway to eternal life. The speaker has discovered experientially what Christianity has taught from the beginning—that the things worldly people chase after do not truly satisfy. “Praying hard,” he prepares to “swing [his] heart across the line” and take a decisive step, renouncing the world and choosing Christ. Symbolically drowned in baptism, leaving behind his old values sunk in that river, he will rise again to reach the stars. Against all expectation, this apparently secular song contains a powerful Christian conversion story and a beautiful expression of the dramatic choice that baptism entails.