I would note that I really disdain Christian pop music. I've also found, albeit through
limited experience, that trying to discuss music itself with a Christian pop fan or even musician is a confounding experience that should only be undertaken (A) while really, really high, and (B) for reasons other than actually talking about music, such as observational psychological research.
At any rate, I find a lot of Christian pop hypocritical. They want the glamour, the cool factor, that comes with being "metal" (Stryper, Bloodgood, &c.), rappers (D.C. Talk), or pop stars (Michael W. Smith). They want to use that glamourous factor to attract young people to the congregation. Yet it's exploitation. "See? Christians can have the rock and roll attitude that's cool and hip and down with the young people, too!" And, really, if these people were like Rev. Scott Sloan, or something, I could sympathize and even encourage. But they're not that smart; they don't learn from the embarrassment of their tumbleweeds moments when everyone just sort of looks at them and wonders what institution yon preacher just escaped.
Thinking back to the
South Park episode "Faith Plus One", I'm reminded of Stryper when they do the bit about loving Jesus versus being
in love with Jesus. This is actually a
real song from my youth:
Inside of me there is a lonely place; sometimes I just don't know it's there. But when I'm all alone, that's when I have to face
The part of me that needs someone to be by my side. That's when I call on
You—You make my life complete, You help me through and through, You give me all I need. I'm calling on you.
I can't explain just what You do to me; my love grows stronger everyday. You give me love, You give me company. And when I have to face the rain, You bring sunshine into my life.
You—You make my life complete, You help me through and through, You give me all I need. I'm calling on you.
(Stryper, "Calling On You")
No, really, is that about a girl, or Jesus? When you're fifteen, it sounds like a good song for making out. And then you learn it's a paean to Jesus.
So, yeah, when I saw that
South Park episode, I was literally on the floor laughing.
Meanwhile, in the 1970s, the state legislature of California went on this bizarre kick, denouncing pop music for Satanism. One song, for instance, Styx's "Snowblind", was an anti-cocaine song that started with the words, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, the face you show me scares me so. I thought that I could call your bluff, but now the lines are clear enough."
Yeah. Witchcraft. Satanism.
I bring that up because Peter Gabriel was similarly denounced, I believe, for "Shock the Monkey" and the fact that he was a man who wore facepaint onstage. Yes, the man who wrote "
Solsbury Hill" and "
Here Comes the Flood" was a
Satanist:
Climbing up on Solsbury Hill, I could see the city light. Wind was blowing, time stood still; Eagle flew out of the night. He was something to observe. Came in close, I heard a voice. Standing, stretching, every nerve had to listen; had no choice. I did not believe the information. I just had to trust imagination. My heart going, "Boom, boom, boom!"
"Son," he said, "grab your things, I've come to take you home."
To keep in silence I resigned. My friends would think I was a nut. Turning water into wine; open doors would soon be shut. So I went from day to day though my life was in a rut. 'Til I thought of what I'd say, which connection I should cut. I was feeling part of the scenery; I walked right out of the machinery. My heart going, "Boom, boom, boom!"
"Son," he said, "grab your things, I've come to take you home."
Back home.
When illusion spins her net, I'm never where I want to be. And Liberty, she pirouettes when I think that I am free. Watched by empty silhouettes who close their eyes but still can see. No one taught them etiquette; I will show another me. Today I don't need a replacement. I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant. My heart going, "Boom, boom, boom!"
"Hey," I said. "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home.
("Solsbury Hill")
• • •
When the night shows, the signals grow on radios. All the strange things, they come and go as early warnings. Stranded starfish have no place to hide. Still waiting for the swollen Easter tide. There's no point in direction; we cannot even choose a side.
I took the old track, the hollow shoulder across the waters. On the tall cliffs, they were getting older—sons and daughters. The jaded underworld was riding high. Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky. And as the nails sunk in the cloud, the rain was warm and soaked the crowd.
Lord, here comes the flood. We will say good-bye to flesh and blood. If again, the seas are silent, and any still alive, it'll be those who gave their island to survive. Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
When the flood calls, you have no home, you have no walls. In the thunder crash, you're a thousand minds within a flash. Don't be afraid to cry at what you see. The actors gone, there's only you and me. And if we break before the dawn, they'll use up what we used to be.
Lord, here comes the flood. We will say good-bye to flesh and blood. If again, the seas are silent, and any still alive, it'll be those who gave their island to survive. Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
("Here Comes the Flood")
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Even I, who generally don't believe in deity, and who is specifically estranged from the Biblical God, adore "Solsbury Hill". And, to be certain, simply standing on a concrete post atop the hill, looking back toward Bath and out over the countryside, all I really wanted was for Eagle to come down from the sky as I sang to myself.
But, really, two songs that rely heavily on Christian experience? From a Satanist? Oh, come on. Perhaps it's a bit of jealousy sublimated into protecting the children if it turns out that "regular" musicians write better "Christian" songs.
I mean, even 1980s pop metal. Savatage, for instance, was on the PMRC's hit list because of their Dungeons and Dragons kind of mythical imagery. Yet this is also a band that infused their music with Christian themes. "White Witch", for instance, seems to assert that there is no such thing as good witchcraft—a common 1980s Christian argument for censorship. "
Devastation" is about the Apocalypse:
Waiting for disaster, blackness in the night. I roam the world to hear the cry. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide; two-thousand brings the untimely end of all living things.
The Four Horsemen have started their ride. Can you see them in the sky? Glaring down at the ground—smile on their face—as they commence the end of the human race.
Total devastation; prepare yourself for death. This world's insane.
Start your fields afire. Watching them burn, tomorrow will be another world's turn. To win is the end, to be a part of Judgment Day—we should have listened to what Christ had to say.
Total devastation; prepare yourself for death. This world's insane.
What do you say?
We all have our chances of living in peace. Now I'm afraid you're in too deep. what can you do when you're a fool? It all goes this way—you should have listened to what Christ had to say.
Total devastation; prepare yourself to die. This world's insane.
Or there is the entire story of
Streets: A Rock Opera, about a drug dealer turned musician turned wasted burnout who finds his spiritual redemption in mercy.
There is the
prayer at St. Patrick's:
Hey there, Lord, it's me. I wondered if you're free, or not asleep—this just won't keep. It seems I just don't see why all the things we asked, or prayed would come to pass, have gone unheard, like silent words that slip into hte past.
'Cause, Lord, they're not schemes. Can't you tell dreams? Why do you let them slip by, never even tried?
It isn't you don't hear. There's far too many tears. Or can't you feel? Are we unreal to one who knows no peers?
You say we must pay dues, but still I am confused. I need to walk, and with you talk, instead of to statues.
'Cause, Lord, they're not schemes. Can't you tell dreams? Why do you let them slip by, never even tried?
'Cause you take all the fame. But who'll accept the blame for all the hurt down here on Earth—unnecessary pain. Surely, you musy care. Or are you only air, built in our minds when we're in binds, and never really there?
Can we be tired of you? Is that something we're allowed to do? For even the blind change their views, and it's time we tried something new.
So I've pled my case; I'll now pull my escape. Didn't mean to doubt what it's all about. Seems I forgot my place.
But if you find the time, please change the story line; or give a call, explain it all—I'll even leave the dime.
Or the
moment of surrender to God, set to the Welsh hymn "Suo Gon":
I've been waiting, long forgotten—shipwrecked on a distant shore. Am I drifting, no more wanted, floating outward, evermore?
All the dreams that I have harbored in the labyrinth of my soul, gone forever? Not discarded, only sleeping 'til they're whole.
In the graveyard of my heart now sleep the years that I've long sold. For their markers, is their nothing? Only ghosts I cannot hold.
Father hear me: I am tired. Shall I waken in Thy home?
Hold me closer. I am trying. Sweet Lord Jesus, heal my soul.
("Heal My Soul")
Yeah. Satanic, witchy, anti-Christian rock and roll.
At the end of the story, DT comes face to face with a homeless man dying in plain view on the street. And here, he finds his redemption in mercy, comforting a dying man while everyone else is afraid. Two songs are blocked together here on the album. If ever a Broadway musical, this would be the showstopper at the end. And twenty years later, if I absolutely need, I can curl up in the dark, crank the volume, and lick my wounds:
So what can I tell you, if life's the length of this play? Perhaps God gave the answers to those with nothing to say.
But the years are forgiving. If God's forgiving in kind, perhaps we'll all find our answers somewhere in time.
I've been changing, redefining, all the things I thought I knew so long ago, when I was flying through the years that seem so far away.
In the back of a region, in the back of my mind, is where I've piled up the seasons that I've traded for times.
I've been grasping at rainbows, hanging on 'til the end.
But the rain is so real, Lord, and the rainbows pretend. And the rainbows pretend.
I've been changing, redefining, all the things I thought I knew so long ago, when I was flying through the years that seem so far away.
("Somewhere In Time")
• • •
So after all those one-night stands, you've ended up with heart in hand; a child alone, on your own, retreating.
Regretful for the things you're not, and all the things you haven't got. Without a home, a heart of stone lies bleeding.
And for all the roads you followed, and for all you did not find, and for all the things you had to leave behind—
I am the Way, I am the Light. I am the Dark inside the Night. I hear your hopes. I feel your dreams. And in the dark, I hear your screams. Don't turn away, just take my hand; and when you make your final stand, I'll be right there, I'll never leave. All I ask of you is Believe.
Your childhood eyes were so intense while bartering your innocence for bits of string, the grown-up wings you needed.
But when you had to add them up, you found that they were not enough to get you in, pay for sins repeated.
And for all the years you borrowed, and for all the tears you cried, and for all the fears you had to keep inside—
I am the Way, I am the Light. I am the Dark inside the Night. I hear your hopes. I feel your dreams. And in the dark, I hear your screams. Don't turn away, just take my hand; and when you make your final stand, I'll be right there, I'll never leave. All I ask of you is Believe.
"I never wanted to know, never wanted to see. I wasted my time, 'til time wasted me. Never wanted to go, always wanted to stay, 'cause the persons I am are the parts that I play. So I plot and I plan, hope, and I scheme to the lure of a night filled with unfinished dreams. And I'm holding on tight to a world gone astray as they charge me for years I can't pay."
I am the Way, I am the Light. I am the Dark inside the Night. I hear your hopes. I feel your dreams. And in the dark, I hear your screams. Don't turn away, just take my hand; and when you make your final stand, I'll be right there, I'll never leave. All I ask of you is Believe.
Believe.
("Believe")
I mean, so
freaking Satanic.
That is why "Christian pop" exists. It depends on the myth that rock and roll and pop culture are all degenerate expressions human corruption. It's not so much that only the Christian version is good, but that the proposition
demands that there be a Christian version in order to give the young people their rock and roll sound without endangering their lives or souls. Because, you know, if it's not part of the genre, it's just corrupt, godless at best, and the sort of thing that will always lead you to Satan.
I
really disdain Christian pop culture. It's probably more of a "dealbreaker" than country music for me. I mean, it's not that I
can't be friends with such people, but that there comes a quality threshold below which, and a quantity threshold above which I simply cannot exist in the same space as certain kinds of music.
And besides, the culture is
rich with Christian expression in mainstream pop culture. I noticed that even in places about Europe where faith participation is declining, Tanita Tikaram sells more of one record than her entire catalog has sold in the United States. But in this country, "
The Redemption Song" is a stoner anthem, and therefore can't possibly be anything but corrupt. Still, though, the overt expressions of joyous faith don't seem to count against her in Europe.
Most of my friends don't know just how devoted to faith Van Morrison is. He did
great pop music, and did a pretty good job of separating his faith from his pop identity.
And, yes, I've actually known a couple people for whom the revelation that he is so given to faith actually damaged their ability to enjoy his music. Leave them to it. Whatever. My point being that the supposed chasm between faith and pop culture isn't actually real.
Anyway.
Maybe Tanita's not a good example; the Christian supremacists can certainly find other reasons to steer their children away from her music.
But that's the thing. Christian pop is about supremacism. It is not enough that there is no real chasm between faith and pop. The point is purity; not necessarily of virtue, although that's part of the larger identity, but rather of the marketplace. By creating a purified market while falsely demonizing the competition—and let's be clear, you're not winning record sales that way—one ... well ... creates a purified market.
And I still don't get Christian bookstores, either. Or, rather, perhaps I do, but I doubt my neighbors of faith would appreciate that opinion any more than the rest of this. But ... it's
bizarre to witness from without. I mean, yes, I understand the idea of a Christian bookstore that specializes in books important to the faith, but publishers have created diverse subgenres that are all ridiculous except from the point of pure fantasy. Perhaps I should be thankful for the
Left Behind novels. Maybe they're a sign that in a hundred years, Christian fiction will be just another dragon or Druid fantasy.
That would be progress.
But a lot of it is almost offensively untenable: come to God, solve the mystery—that sort of thing.
There is no chasm except what they dig for themselves.
