30 Day Song Challenge, Day Sixteen
April 28th, 2011 by Murray Barnes | Posted in 30 Day Song Challenge, Music, PersonalContinuing then, Day 16: A song that you used to love but now hate.
I do quite like Pillar. The music is at just my right level of heavy, and so they’re a band I used to listen to regularly on my mp3 player while walking places, or reading on a train. The point is that it was background music and I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics, and that’s why I liked this song. It’s pretty good, yo.
Then one day I happened to actually listen to the lyrics, and they’re incredibly offensive. Here are some choice quotes to show what I mean:
Stop complaining move along
Open your eyes and see what’s going on
We need to get back to the ways of the days of old
One nation under God indivisible
and
They’re so offended by 4 words that need no explanation
In GOD we trust the motto of this greatest nation
Not just a motto but something that we truly believe
If you don’t like it you can pack a bag and you can leave
I mean, whuh? Someone who disagrees with you needs to fuck off? You need to return America to being a Christian nation, something it never was? Being a Christian should be about being humble, turning the other cheek, etc, etc. This song is the complete opposite. As a Christian, it slightly disgusts me, and so I can adequately say it’s a song that I’ve gone a complete 180 on.
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4 Responses to “30 Day Song Challenge, Day Sixteen”
By Pallander Frogleggingson on Apr 28, 2011
Yes, this song is pretty awful. I really can’t get behind anything this strongly religious in tone on the one hand, and so patriotic on the other. But it’s actually the religious element that offends me more.
In fact, anything which markets itself as Christian rock, Christian metal, whatever, I am immediately dismissive of. This might seem a little conceited of a position to take, but I have never ever come across an artist associated with any kind of marketed Christian music that wasn’t some derivative watered-down version of some pre-existing marketable mainstream sound. That plus I hate the evangelism aspect of it, cynically making something that might appeal to kids, but at the same time falling under a Christian music label and selling to that built-in audience of people who kind of want to “rock out”, but just can’t allow themselves to do so unless they’re praising Jesus at the same time. Do parents by this for their kids to avoid them listening to real metal bands with their less suitable messages?
Anyway, like I say, this would all be moot if I felt any Christian bands were doing anything more than aping mainstream success in a sanitised form. I don’t. There’s Christian musicians I listen to, and plenty of songs that reference God, Jesus, or religion in general, and that’s absolutely fine (see the Beach Boys), but then there’s bands like this which seem devoid of any real substance and would have no success without being marketed directly to a Christian music market.
But hey, that’s just me… I suppose it does no harm really; this insular Christian music world almost never crosses over into the outside. Possibly because if it did, people would have no connection to the Christian message and just view it as derivative and bland.
I feel bad about ranting for so long about it, but for whatever reason the whole notion makes me actually genuinely angry.
By Murray Barnes on Apr 28, 2011
I see your point, and mostly agree with you. My favourite Christian Artist is a “Christian” artist, not a “Christian artist”, i.e. he’s someone who sings songs, and some of them are about God. I think he did one specifically Christian album, but it was mostly him doing covers of hymns, with a few songs he wrote himself, though perhaps coming from a different approach than most Christian artists.
I can’t find a decent version of Brian Houston performing it himself, but here’s a cover of one of his Christian songs that’s much better.
Anyway, far worse than this song that I chose are the comments on youtube by people who love it.
By Pool Frutigerson on Apr 28, 2011
I think the most compelling form of any religion in popular music is to do with questioning faith, or personal faith because that’s more a human question than a religious one. Music tends to be more compelling when it’s about human experience.
In terms of actual religious music, rather than just religious lyrics set to contemporary music, I do like the choirs and the organs of Christianity, but I tend mostly toward Eastern traditions and “primitivism”, which I think lends itself better to re-interpretation. Traditional Christian music almost universally lacks a strong rhythm, and because it was some of the first music to be strictly notated, it also tends to be strictly and rigidly performed.
Arvo Pärt is a composer I love whose music is predominantly Christian in origin. Lots of choral work in Latin, lots of strings and bells. But what I get out of it is more about sacred space than religious reflection. Traditional churches are fascinating places, imposing that sense of the sacred in architectural form. Even someone like me can’t help but feel a “presence” in these spaces, and through that music.
By Ruairidh on Apr 29, 2011
Bland skuggor rider en odjur.
Som en svarta träd.
Griper hård på en mäktig hammar.
Ut för svaga kristna blod.
TROLLHAMMAREN!
TROLLHAMMAREN!
Trollhammaren sveper igen!
Hugga ned, broder igen!
Hör det sista ropet -
Trollhammaren är här!
TROLLHAMMAREN!
Han är inte en människa.
Inte bräcklig och svag som dig.
Du ska vara maktlös.
Inga ögon ser din änd.
TROLLHAMMAREN!
TROLLHAMMAREN!
Sedan mörkret övertog.
Räds den frostens kalla fingrar.
Som griper tag och förlever.
Under kommande vinternatt.
TROLLHAMMAREN!
TROLLHAMMAREN!
TROLLHAMMAREN!
——-
Among shadows rides a beast.
Like a black tree.
Grips tightly on a mighty hammer.
Out for weak Christian blood.
TROLLHAMMER!
TROLLHAMMER!
The Trollhammer sweeps again!
Cut down, brother again!
Hear the last shout –
The Trollhammer is here!
TROLLHAMMER!
He is not a human.
Not fragile and weak like you.
You will be powerless.
No eyes see your end.
TROLLHAMMER!
TROLLHAMMER!
Since the darkness overtook.
It is afraid of the frost’s cold fingers.
That take hold and kill.
Under the coming winter night.
TROLLHAMMER!
TROLLHAMMER!
TROLLHAMMER!
TROLLHAMMER!