Everybody Here Will Evaporate

A spring or two ago I saw a decent little doc called Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? (rent).

The film itself, shot at the 2003 Cornerstone Festival, feels scattershot and slapped-together, but its subjects - featured talking heads include David Bazan (late of Pedro the Lion), members of MXPX, The Detholz!, Josh Caterer (Smoking Popes, Duvall), Daniel Smith (Danielson) with Steve Albini - are thoughtful when discussing their relationship with what's become the "well-organized subculture" of Christian Rock.  While some bands don't want to do anything other than screech to the converted (the drummer for Cool Hand Luke worries "there's so much about this festival... and this music that isn't about Jesus, and I really believe it's breaking his heart"), those hoping to reach beyond their musical ghetto fall into two groups:  Those who want the "opportunity to minister to a larger audience," to "put the ‘cross' in crossover" (Not sure if this is a quote or if I made it up.  Either way, I apologize.); and those looking to spread their wings artistically, to remove associations both with a brand often seen as second-rate and secondhand (many bands are marketed as holier-than-mainstream versions of other acts, i.e., "the Christian Green Day," "the Christian Poison," etc.) and the more dogmatic aspects of the Evangelical Right.

There have been recent successes both major (Evanescence, P.O.D., Paramore) and minor (Sufjan Stevens, Page France, Anathallo), but outward expressions of faith can be an unfortunate hurdle.  Some secular sorts who bristle at the possibility of proselytization or think themselves too enlightened to consider matters spiritual are quick to point a Jesus Freak finger whenever someone mentions the Lord's name sans vanity.

Which is a shame.  I've never been religious, and I certainly don't care to be preached at, but I'm not dumb enough to fool myself into thinking I've got everything figured out, and am not ignorant enough to think that everyone who wears a crucifix thinks that they have.  No topic should be beyond consideration.  It can't hurt to include, among your love songs and sex songs and navel-gazing tales of woe, something that weighs perfection or eternity or specifics from a perspective that has informed our culture for a pair of millennia now. 

You can't concretely measure whether faith has inspired greater works of art than self-interest, but I'd like to think it has.  You go ahead and sing about your Jesus and I'll listen, as long as you don't suck.

Larry Norman - Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? (mp3) (buy)

Anyway.  That documentary took its name from a song by Larry Norman, who makes an appearance in it, who is mentioned as inspiration by others who appear in it, who passed away this past weekend.  It's a good song - an early 70's tribute to 50's rock and roll that manages to be stiff, sloppy, campy, and earnest - and a pretty good question (though I'd suggest that maybe Satan earned it?).  Norman was an individual and an oddball, a question-asker who successfully suggested a reconciliation between something he loved (rock music) and a Christian lifestyle that had unfairly ixnayed it.  He won mainstream recognition and admiration and, for good and bad, loosed the floodgates of Xian rock.  (Idolator's got an good obit with actual knowledge and stuff.)

This song's lesson isn't particular to Christian people or Christian rock.  It's not the medium, it's the substance.  Genres aren't bad, beats aren't bad, it's where your heart's at that counts.  "I don't like none of those funeral marches,  I ain't dead yet!" is something you might legitimately bark at 86% of your indie rock shows.

Norman's 1972 record Only Visiting the Planet has some great stuff on it.  Musically, it - perhaps setting precedent for the entire movement - is baldly unoriginal.  There's some fey hippie folk, some basic blues-based rock, some rambly Dylan-theft.  But if the tunes are invisible, the lyrics poke you in the eye.  "The Great American Novel" takes on the space race, Vietnam, and the KKK.  "Reader's Digest," which is "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with different lyrics and a brief breakout, barks that "rock and roll may not be dead, but it's gettin' sick:"

Rolling Stones are millionaires.
Flower children, pallbearers.
Beatles said ‘All You Need is Love’ then they broke up... 
This time
Last year
People didn’t want to hear
They looked at Jesus from afar
This year he’s a superstar...
Dear John:  Who’s more popular now?

Larry Norman - Why Don't You Look into Jesus? (Live, Solo Acoustic)(mp3)

The full band version from Visiting is a funkytonk number that might as well be "Up on Cripple Creek" or "Honky Cat" or anything by Little Feat; this live take's from much later in his career, and I just love how he frustrates the clappers at the start.  Speaking of:  "You got gonorrhea on Valentine's Day/You're still looking for the perfect lay/You think rock and roll will set you free/you'll be dead before you're 33."  Jesus is right there in the title, of course, but this is less a fire-and-brimstone tirade than a vivid rail against false cures with a bit of soft-sell:  "You oughta check it for yourself."

tags: larry norman  rip  

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