He taught us to listen

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, July 18th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. As we conclude today, a tribute to someone whose fingerprints are all over WORLD’s story. Bob Case died this week. He was more than a board member, more than the founding director of the World Journalism Institute. He was my friend, he was a mentor to many … and a joyful force behind our mission.

Truly one of WORLD’s founding fathers.

Bob helped train a generation of journalists with theological depth and intellectual clarity. Many of our senior staff today can trace their calling back to his efforts.

BROWN: He retired in 2013, but he brought his big, growly baritone to WORLD Radio in August of that year with a piece he did on the Great American Songbook … It became a regular feature of WORLD Radio back in those early years—if you’re a longtime listener you may remember it.

EICHER: If not, you surely remember that we reprised that project last year … WORLD Radio’s executive producer Paul Butler collaborated with Bob to make that happen, and he comes now with a tribute.

MUSIC: [SAY IT WITH MUSIC, IRVING BERLIN]

PAUL BUTLER: I knew Bob Case primarily as a musical enthusiast who loved the music of the early 20th century. He emailed me out of the blue two years ago with the idea of resurrecting his decade-old songbook feature. He sent me a demo he’d put together for a music radio network that turned him down.

I liked what I heard…

DEMO (BLUE POMEGRANATES WITH BOB CASE): Irving Berlin wrote his monster hit Say it With Music in 1921...

After working up a handful of new scripts together I flew out to see Bob last September in Seattle. When he picked me up at the airport it began a memorable conversation that lasted for two days, with few interruptions … we talked a lot about music, but I slowly learned that he was a true Renaissance man.

He told me about his time with Campus Crusade for Christ where he met his wife Kathy. His visit to L’Abri under Francis Schaeffer. His life as a husband, father, grandfather. His service as a Presbyterian minister. How he became the first national director of the pro-life Christian Action Council. He sold real estate, earned multiple post graduate degrees. And frames lined the walls of his office studio—pictures of him with many political leaders from the 80s and 90s. The certificate from Ronald Reagan appointing him to the National Council on Vocational Education had an honored place.

And as much as Bob enjoyed telling me about all those things, he kept coming back to his passion project …

BOB CASE: The music of Gershwin and Berlin and Porter and the lyrics of Johnny Mercer and Ira Gershwin…the lyrics are clever. They speak to the human condition in a chaste way. There is just love begun, love lost, love regained agsain. I just think it's fascinating, sophisticated, and surprising melodies that no other music can offer me anyway.

Me, too. I’m more likely to listen to the 40’s channel on satellite radio than modern pop music, so I shared Bob’s affinity for the topic … but as we worked together on this project, I pushed him on why it was important for WORLD to devote time to it once again. He was ready with an answer.

CASE: Almost every American Songbook song has in its lyrics, creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. It supports our view of marriage. It supports our view of Christian anthropology. That we are lovers. And the American Songbook talks about love, about how to get love, how to keep love, how to treat your wife, how to treat your husband, all that is involved in the lyrics of the Great American Songbook. And the Christian audience needs to understand that this music is worth preserving.

PROGRAM EXCERPT: The yearning and searching for love in our lives and the sadness when that love is missing is an age-old problem, caused by our finiteness and our Fall. We wait for everything, including human love, and the full expression of God’s Love.

Bob Case believed that music mattered. Not just as entertainment, but as a window into the human condition. And a bridge to eternal truths. He had an ear to hear the gospel in melody … to trace Biblical patterns in lyrics. For Bob, the Great American Songbook was not some dusty cultural artifact. In sharing that with us, he helped us listen more closely, more thankfully, and more hopefully. That legacy sings on.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

MUSIC: [LOUIS ARMSTRONG, WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN]

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.