There are several universal truths in music. The first, of course is that Van Halen sans David Lee Roth is just not Van Halen The second is that Paul McCartney, as talented a songwriter as he might be, was the biggest pussy in the Beatles. I have come to add a third one that just might usurp the first two:
Religious music sucks ass.
(Speaking of pussies, I just watched that latest Star Wars film. I couldn't wait for Anakin Skywalker to turn into Darth Vader.... Ooops. I'm going off on one of those classic fuquad-esque tangents. Back to the topic.)
Where was I? Oh yeah. Religious music. It sucks... With the exception of Handel's Messiah and Blake's Jerusalem, it SUCKS. Okay, so I'm risking 850 jiggawatts of lightning-bolt up my rusty sheriff's badge talkin' religification on the lord's (sic) day and all, but I just spent a week in the goddamned South, and I've about had my fill of Jebus (not that I was that religified to begin with. By the way, while I was down there, I actually heard a woman call her child by name: "Messiah." I admit, I culled my firstborn's name from mythology, but "Messiah" is just a bit creepy to me.)
I'm not going to antagonize christians (sic), because those freaks have very little sense of humor about their sh*t... but do me a favor. If you're going to write a song to beat the Jesus drum, at least write a good f*cking song.
On the way down to 'Dixie' to visit my old man, the FM transmitter for my iPod went on the fritz. It lasted for the first leg of the trip, but dissed us on the most painful 400 miles. You know the ones... with the freaky crosses on the hillsides. Ever since the film "Children of the Corn", Jesus radio gives me the willies. Ironically, I've come to the conclusion that religion is not for children. It's just too darn violent and spooky. One of these lunatics kept enunciating the word "flesh" for some reason. Then my wife kept egging me on by saying sh*t to my kids like, "Today is the day the saviour has risen."
"Stop that!"
"Lamb of god..."
"AAAAAAAAuuuuughhhhhhhh" (screeeeech... swerve....) "Come on! I'm driving!!!"
Along with those f*cked up preacher-men came an onslaught of vapid religious tunes that gave me one of those 'ice cream headaches' and caused me to tap anxiously on the seek button on the radio. I don't know if it's a chicken or egg thing, or a horse before the cart thing, but I can't understand why worship songs are just so laaaame? Is it because I'm not down with g-o-d, or is it because these 'songwriters' are afraid if they write anything saucy they'll spend eternity licking the underwear lint from Satan's red-hot ass crack?
Among the gems I was slapped on the ass with:
"blaahh... blahhhh... blahh... Jesus is the sweetest name...." (Actually "Shaneequah" is the sweetest name. Homegirl got an ass that could lead a gift horse to water...)
Another of my faves was some backwoods sh*theel lamenting how bad god feels, and that you would, too "if noone believed in youuuuu...." When I think of all the other things we do that bums the deities out, I would put that song about eighth on the list of sh*t that makes god cringe.
And to make matters worse, 90% of my other options consisted of those brutal, nasal abominations they call country these days. It's like having to choose between the runs and the bends. It got to the point that when I finally came across something somewhat palatable, I turned to my wife and said, "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually glad to hear this crappy Phil Collins song."
Up here in the North, radio only gets jesufied on Sunday mornings, and country is thankfully relegated to one station to the extreme right of the dial (imagine that). It's not like radio's much better here anyway, seeing that it is instead littered with the phat bass of the urban ilk, the stale bongwater stylings of classic rockers or disposable pop pap. Seven days a week of gospel, though is just too much for this heathen to handle.
So in closing, I'd just like to say this. If you're going to pen a religious ditty, fire up a fatty, take a couple swigs of Glenfiddich, tear a piece of ass first... then (making sure you have about three days' growth of facial hair) write that sh*t at 2:45 in the morning. If you're not going to play by my rules, at least have the decency to keep it off my airwaves. Take a page from that stinky hippy textbook. Trade tapes with each other after Sunday mass.
"Dude, I just recorded 'the King of Glory' on my Garageband."
"Cool. I'll trade you for my ukulele rendition of 'Are You Washed in his Blood' with a phat Jeremy Camp beat."
"Sweet."
15 comments:
I don't even know where those stations are here in Charlotte but driving between here and Buffalo..yikes, West Virigina ONLY plays that. On one unlucky trip I was actually glad to find a country station. Did you hear me? Glad to find a country station, ack.
Whoops, Michele sent me. The country thing had me all frazzled.
There's good and bad in all genre's of music and popular religious music has improved greatly over the past decade. From Michele's.
I used to live in the house where 'Jerusalem' was written.... :-)
Hi Prego, Michele sent me
cq
Ok, as someone who only listens to Christian music... I will admit, there is some pretty dull stuff out there... but then again, I am not in the south!! I LOVE the stuff we listen too... matter of fact, half the music they play on our Christian radio station is also being crossed over onto the pop stations. In the defense of Christian music... stuff in the south is SOOOO Way different!!! 2 different books!!!!
Here via Michele!
Jeez I've missed your sense of humor, Prego! Another great post. The Christian music that REALLY creeps me out is the that your previous commentor, Crayonsetc mentions. No offense, Cray, but I HATE it when I'm listening to a statioon and getting off on a cool groove, and then the words come in and they SNEAK the Jesus stuff at you. That's just not playing fair!
(Hope you've been doing well, Prego)
I don't always listen to Christian music but I NEVER used to b/c it was dull and boring, but now bands like Lifehouse, Los Lonely Boys, Sonicflood and Audio Adrenaline are pretty cool - even get a lot of play on mainstream radio.
I know you warned me off your blog for today but no harm, no foul, no big. :) I feel that way too sometimes when I'm really, REALLY annoyed.
I'm afraid I'm pretty down on modern music in general. I guess I'm getting old.
Thanks for visiting by way of Michele!
Hey, Prego! I live in the South (as of 2 months ago), I dig Jesus (my husband is even a protestant minister), but I abhor Christian radio. Lyrically and theologically, it's stunningly bad. I've even tried listening on XM Radio thinking I might find something decent. Nope! I like African American spirituals and that's about it.
As for the South itself, most of it doesn't fit the old stereotypes anymore, IMHO. The town I live in has grown exponentially over the past five years, and like everywhere else, we've become homogenized.
BTW, someone on cnn.com is compiling a list of the worst songs ever, and I can't believe there are no country songs on it. What's up with that? Are they afraid to alienate former Fox News viewers? I dunno.
Sounds like you've had yourself some scary experiences with this music. We don't really have these stations over here. My knowledge of Christian music are hymns at church and the CDs one of my friends likes to lend me on a regular basis (it's all she listens too!) some of it makes me cringe but there are a few good 'rock' bands out there 'spreading the word' as they say. In fact one of them some of their stuff is quite hardcore and you wouldn't know they were a Christian band...well not so much anyway!!
What do I know anyway I'm a heathen to my own religion with a love of heavy metal, rock and grunge...what would I know?!?!?! LOL!!
Hello, Michele sent me.
I'm with you on Christian music.
Any song with the word praise in it translates to "change the channel" in my language.
And greetings from a little further east in the empire.
Try Mindy Smith. She's religious but doesn't really come across as such. "Come to Jesus" is a song that ANYONE can appreciate. And that's coming from an agnostic.
When I do the road trips, I like to drive at night so I can listen to distant AM stations. This works out best when the sky is clear. The talk stations are really good for this sort of thing because you can really get a dose of the local flavor, wherever "local" happens to be.
sooo much sweet, tasty hate (and well placed, at that) in your post, and it's squandered on the god-people...
Oh well, I certainly appreciated your vitriolic venting!
Brother...never ever fight the tangent. The tangent is good. The tangent is wise. And if you don't let it cum naturally, you'll eventually develop literary blue balls.
And then your finger tips will fall off.
That said, what about Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast? That's religious music and it doesn't...
Oh, wait...yes it does. It does suck.
I think you may be onto something there, hermano.
But you gotta get some Elvis Gospel.
I agree about Van Halen sans Roth -- it doesn't do it for me.
Michele sent me in the name of the Lord (just kidding)
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