The Accidental Beginning of a Book I Never Planned to Write

End of the year

There is a very specific kind of suffering reserved for the last month of school.

Students feel it. Teachers feel it. Even the clock on the wall seems like it’s lost the will to keep going.

Lessons that worked in October now land like a paper airplane with no wings.

Attention spans shrink.

Motivation disappears.

And somehow, every class period feels longer than the one before it.

So there I was—standing in front of a Theology class, fully aware that whatever I had planned was not going to work. Not because it was bad… but because it was May.

And May has rules.

Rule #1: No one wants a worksheet. 

Rule #2: No one wants a lecture. 

Rule #3: Even the teacher doesn’t want Rule #1 or #2.

So I pivoted.

“Alright,” I said, with the confidence of a man making this up in real time, “we’re going to do something different.”

That got their attention.

“We’re going to listen to some songs and see if we can hear God through the lyrics and the melody.”

Now I really had them.

Some were curious.

Some were skeptical.

A few looked like they were mentally preparing to tell this story later at dinner.

Then came the question:

“What song?”

You could almost feel the collective brace.

They were ready for it—some slow, obscure track no one had ever heard of… or one of those Christian rock songs they’d politely endure while staring at the clock, waiting for it to be over.

And this part, at least, had some thought behind it.

I chose Bohemian Rhapsody.

Not because it was easy—but because it wasn’t.

This is a song that has been wildly popular for nearly fifty years. Generations know it. People who don’t agree on anything can agree on this song.

It has been sung in cars, at weddings, in packed stadiums, and probably a few places it shouldn’t have been sung. But for all its popularity, almost no one stops to ask what it’s actually saying.

That’s what made it perfect.

I hit play.

At first, it was exactly what you’d expect.

Most of them knew the song, and within seconds it wasn’t just playing—it was happening. Quiet singing turned into full participation. A few smiles turned into full-on performances.

Air guitars came out. Invisible drum sets were suddenly everywhere. And at least one student had a pencil in hand, fully committed to channeling Freddie Mercury like it was a sold-out Wembly Stadium instead of a Theology classroom.

And then there were the ones pretending to be too cool for it.

Arms crossed. Slight head nod. Trying not to smile.

(They were absolutely into it.)

For a few minutes, it felt less like a class and more like organized chaos—with a surprisingly strong musical backbone.

And right in the middle of it, the door opened.

The principal stepped in.

He took in the whole scene—air guitars, pencil microphones, students fully invested—and calmly said, “Can you turn that down a bit?”

I nodded, reached for the volume, and started turning it down.

Then came the follow-up question.

“And , Mr. McGalloway, what does this have to do with Theology?”

And just like that, the room shifted.

Not back to normal—but into something more interesting.

The music softened. The laughter settled. And every single student turned and looked at me.

Waiting.

Curious.

Maybe even a little hopeful that I actually had an answer.

Because at that moment, it could have gone either way.

This could have just been a last-month-of-school distraction… or it could be something more.

And standing there, with all eyes on me, I realized—

I was about to find out too.

So instead of answering right away, I did something simple.

I paused the song and instead of answering my boss

I asked a question to the class.

“What’s going on in this song?”

At first, the answers stayed on the surface. “It’s weird.” “It doesn’t make sense.” “It’s all over the place.”

Fair.

But then we kept going.

Line by line. Piece by piece.

And something started to happen.

What looked like a chaotic, over-the-top rock song began to feel… familiar.

Because underneath it all, the song mirrors something very human.

It sounds like someone trying to deal with something they can’t undo. Something they regret. Something they don’t fully understand.

And if we’re being honest, that hits closer to home than most of us would like to admit.

Every one of us is carrying something.

Something we wish we hadn’t said. Something we wish we hadn’t done. 

Or something we’ve gotten very good at pretending isn’t there.

And yet, here’s this song—blasted across speakers for decades—where someone just lets it out.

No filter.

No cleanup.

No pretending.

In a strange way, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.

Which might explain something I had never really thought about before:

Why thousands of people can stand shoulder to shoulder at a concert and sing every word without hesitation.

It’s not just performance.

It’s release.

It’s a kind of shared honesty—wrapped in music—where, for a few minutes, you don’t have to hide as much.

And once we started seeing that, we couldn’t unsee it.

What I thought would fill part of a class period ended up taking two full days.

Two days… on one song.

We pulled it apart. Put it back together.

Looked at it from every angle we could.

And that one song opened the door.

It led us into others—different artists, different lyrics—but the same underlying struggle. The same questions. The same tension between who we are, who we want to be, and the things we wish we could take back.

We started to see it everywhere.

Singer after singer, songwriter after songwriter, putting into words the very things most people try to keep hidden.

And the more we listened, the clearer it became:

These songs weren’t just entertainment.

They were reflections.

Of the human heart. Of our own struggles. 

Of the parts of our story we don’t always say out loud.

And once that door was open, there was no closing it.

I didn’t walk out of that experience thinking I had just found a book idea.

I walked out thinking…

There’s something going on here that’s bigger than this classroom.

And that thought stayed with me.

Long after the last bell rang. Long after the school year ended. Long after that “last month survival lesson” should have been forgotten.

Sometimes the most meaningful things don’t come from your best plans.

They come from the moments when you’re just trying to get through the day…

…and accidentally stumble into something true.