Magic Words

Petra spends this song refusing the very thing its title offers: "say the magic words, I won't say the magic words to please you, 'cause you might decide to judge me by what I say to you and not what I do."

"'I want you to be free,' Jesus said that to me, why should things that we say have to get in the way" quotes Jesus' own promise almost directly — that the Son makes free indeed — and uses it to argue against performing the right vocabulary instead of living the actual thing.

"Why can't we deal in spirit, not empty words and phrases that we've learned to recognize but barely understand" echoes Samuel's story about choosing a king — that people look at the outward appearance while God looks at the heart. The repeated, escalating refrain, "please don't say the magic words," closes the song less as a chant and more as a genuine plea against substituting vocabulary for substance.