At the library where I work, I have a lot of free time. For fun, I decided to see if God was real. So I read Sam Harris’ ‘Letter to a Christian Nation,’ and it seemed to make sense. And then I read Ray Comfort’s ‘God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists.’ Very reasonable.
I guess the subject was on my mind lately. After all, some of the most prominent musicians of my age have taken a very strong stance on the subject of late. In fact, as Muslim extremists continue to wage a holy war in the East and the debates over abortion, evolution, atheism, church and state and prayer in schools have cut the West in half, three precious albums, like diamonds, have been born of the pressure over the past year.
Now, rock has a history of angering the Pope (especially The Eagles). But since 2006, rock has dropped its dopey call for teenage hedonism and antichrist promotion. No, the albums that have emerged over the past year have approached religious culture and philosophy intellectually. These aren’t heavy metal bands. The modern movement stems from – of all places – Omaha, Nebraska.
In 2006, Cursive’s ‘Happy Hollow’ lead singer Tim Kasher publicly and emotionally decries the faith of small town America. The most direct and vitriolic rant comes in ‘Rise Up! Rise Up!,’ where he sings, ‘Reverend, sir, I don’t want to seem malevolent / My teenage angst is far behind me / But father, certainly it’s troubling to see all these people kneeling, instead of dealing with the fact that we are all we have / So, rise up! Rise up! / There’s no one to worship! / But plenty of life to lose!’ Ray Comfort had better get to work on this guy.
Happy Hollow is a concept album that tells the story of a small Midwestern town of the same name – and there are some crazy stories. ‘Bad Sects’ describes the agony and paranoia of two priests who become romantically involved. ‘At Conception’ tells the tale of an anti-abortion activist (and priest) who gets a young woman pregnant – then demands she abort the child. These two songs are bristling with power – and the second one, especially, is brilliantly written.
Many of the tracks are more like ‘Rise Up! Rise Up!’ – Kasher unloads on the church and, very often, the concept of God, without restraint or shame. The first track, ‘Opening the Hymnal/Babies’ declares ‘The beautiful truth of it is / This is all we are / We simply exist / You’re not the chosen one / I’m not the chosen one / But we don’t need anyone / Let’s not choose anyone.’ ‘Big Bang’ reasserts this claim: ‘We need a purpose in life, a survival guide / We need explanations for how we arrived / There was this big bang once, now we’re standing on our own two feet / There was this big bang once, we’ve been sharpening up our teeth.’ In ‘Retreat’ Kasher cries, ‘Lord, let us go!.’
Now, in 2007, two bands have picked up Kasher’s cry. His close friend Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fills his new album, Cassadaga, with religious imagery. Granted, Oberst’s content is a little less ‘Freud’ and a little more ‘agonizing God complex’ – what else would you expect from old Conor? But you can’t ignore lines like, ‘The Bible’s blind, the Torah’s deaf, the Qur’an’s mute / If you burned them all together you’d get close to the truth / Still, they’re pouring over Sanskrit on the Ivy League moons / While shadows lengthen in the sun.’
Most recently, The Arcade Fire’s ‘Neon Bible’ has joined the campaign. The title track of the album cautions, ‘There’s not much chance for survival / If the neon bible is right.’ At the end of ‘Intervention,’ the album’s thundering epic, lead singer Win Butler roars ‘Working for the church while your life falls apart / Singing Halleluiah with the fear in your heart.’
And we can’t forget Tim Kasher’s other good friend, Tim Kinsella of Make Believe. In 2006’s ‘Of Course,’ Kinsella counters the Christian Right (in some not-so-simple terms) in the masterpiece ‘Pat Tillman / Emmitt Till.’
What is a Pope to do? He breathed a sigh of relief when heavy metal ran its course. Now they’re about to see the fight renewed by a bunch of plaid-sporting, bespectacled indie rockers. And just after Ray Comfort warned me so passionately about youth occult music!
Rock has a strong tradition of religious heresy (Creed?). What’s different about this new push? For one, the motivation has changed. It’s no longer about rebelling against our parents – this generation has seen more horrors executed in the name of God than any other since the Crusades. Secondly, these releases protest with an eloquence and intellectual savvy thus unseen in the pop world. For fans of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, it’s a triumph. For free spirits, it’s commanding, beautiful, and angst-ridden art. For the Pope, it’s high time to get past ‘Hotel California.’ For punk rockers – be ashamed that these whiners are doing your job better than you. For the rest of us rockers, it’s refreshing to see some semblance of a unified social movement rising in the tumult of today’s far-out world.
