In January, I talked about Leauges’s song “Lost It All,” from their debut album You Belong Here. The deluxe edition of the album contains today’s song, which, like many “Part of It” and “Sky May Fall” are also not on Apple Music. It is, however, on Spotify. The band’s live performance for Paste (in YouTube playlist) features the band as a four-piece, former Audio Adrenaline backup singer and guitarist, Tyler Burkum, playing minimally at the beginning but building into a wall of sound by the end of the track. This song feels at home on You Belong Here and is one of the band’s best tracks. “She Kissed Me” sounds like an old-timey rock ‘n’ roll or R&B song. Built around the drums and bass and adding guitar feedback and sparse chords, for this song Thad Cockrall sings in a lower register and backup singer Tyler Burkum adds the falsetto. And while the melody is completely original to Leagues, the song is a well-disguised cover.
EACH TIME I SAW HER, I COULDN’T WAIT TO SEE HER AGAIN. In 1963, a girl group called The Crystals released their song “Then He Kissed Me.” The song is a story about a young girl who falls in love with a young man and they eventually get engaged. Two years later, The Beach Boys covered the song, this time telling the story from young man’s point of view. The Crystals’ single reached number 6 on the American Top 40 charts. The Beach Boys’ cover charted in Europe, but not in the U.S. The song was also covered by Glam Rock band KISS, closing their 1977 album, Love Gun. All three of these versions keep the same melody, fast and built around a major scale. However, Leagues slows the song down, building it around minor chords. The guitar adds atmosphere and emotion arguably absent from the previous versions of the tune, making the relationship sound much, much more intense. The musical atmosphere distracts listeners from how undernourished in lyricism this song is. The simple song is an account of what happened. But the instrumentation on Leagues’ version, that is the real poetry.
ONE DAY SHE TOOK ME HOME TO MEET HER MA AND HER DAD. “So are you planning on staying there forever?” Josh and his mother were having breakfast for dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way back from the airport. Then the waiter came, a tall young man, wearing a ball cap covering his sandy blond hair. “What about our coffee?” Josh’s mom asked. “Oh, right! I’ll be right back.” “It’s a job,” Josh said, finally answering his mom. “It’s steady, and there’s not much around here.” “Yes, that’s true. You don’t want to be a teacher in North Carolina.” “Here’s your coffee.” “We ordered two,” Josh’s mom said. “Right. I’ll be right back.” “The kids they’ve got working here,” Josh’s mom said shaking her head. Josh and his mom saw the server at the front counter, talking with the maître d, leaning on the counter as if he were hanging out with a friend at the mall. Josh couldn’t help but check out his tight jeans. “Well, as long as you come home every year and you can pay your bills and you’re happy,” The server came back with the coffee. “Thank you,” Josh said, looking the young man in the eye. “I think we’re all set.” The rest of the conversation at breakfast-for-dinner was pretty trivial, about the flight, interesting things about work, a trip his mom had taken. Josh had put boundaries on talking about his personal life back in 2015, when after his mother pressed him on a Skype call to talk about if he had found someone so that she could report back to everyone at church, he said firmly, “Just tell them that I’m happy.” The truth was there should be an extra person at the table. Josh shouldn’t have flown alone. Josh couldn’t help think of how disapproving his mother was of the server. And yet what if he had lived in North Carolina? Maybe he would have taught at a public school and eventually come to terms with his sexuality. But it would have been much harder to hide from his parents. There would probably be years of silence, but maybe, just maybe someday the relationship would mend. He’d could introduce his parents to his boyfriend, a cute server at Cracker Barrel. Then his parents could disapprove of his partner, not because he is a man, but because he is lazy. It could be normal generational disapproval. Something that happened all the time with Jess all throughout high school. Instead, everything would remain hidden. But for how long?
Starting as back-up dancers, GRITS released their debut Jazz-Hip Hop album in 1995. Their fourth album, The Art of Translation (2002) was their breakthrough album, establishing the group beyond the limited listenership of Christian Hip Hop and earning the band slots on MTV and movie and television soundtracks. GRITS is fun to listen to for how they incorporate their featured artists. The group has collaborated in the world of Christian Hip Hop and Christian Rock, featuring Toby Mac, Knowdaverbs, Out of Eden, Jennifer Knapp, Third Day’s Mac Powell. Today’s song features Jars of Clay frontman, Dan Haseltine. Unfortunately, though, this song (Like “Part of It” and several other tracks this year) won’t make it the Apple Music playlist, as GRITS 2008 album, Reiterate isn’t on AppleMusic or Spotify. So, I’ll substitute with their2002 Jennifer Knapp collaboration, which is also an interesting collaboration. “Sky May Fall” came out around the time of the 2008 Financial Crisis. The song talks about world-ending events happening more and more frequently to the point of desensitization. The song is a prayer for keeping your sanity in the midst of a chaotic world.
SOMETIMES I DON’T KNOW IF I’M AWAKE. “People were claiming peace and safety. They said, let us tear down our barns and build bigger, better barns. But disaster struck them when weren’t looking. And my friends, that is this generation.” Some weeks after 9/11, the sermons at church changed in tone. Abstract holiness now had a focus, the coming of end of days, certainly in this generation, Pastor Jim said. It didn’t matter that Allan’s great grandfather had believed that he would live to see Jesus coming in the clouds. Still holding strong at 98 in 2001, but after his hundredth birthday in ’03, he joined the millions of Seventh-day Adventists in the grave convinced that the Second Coming would happen in their lifetimes. But the fear that gripped Allan Sabbath after Sabbath as Pastor Jim pointed out the beast of the week: new signs and wonders and interpretations and reinterpretations. The church filled with people looking for answers, weird people with their own theories about government surveillance. Allan ended up at more and more of these events, playing revival songs as a guest performer or running the sound system for small churches at which Pastor Jim had been invited to speak. It was a weekly spy novel: what was the pope up to? Was President Bush and Black Water in on it? But ultimately that didn’t matter. What did matter was unwavering faithfulness to the Sabbath. “If you break one commandment, you break them all,” Pastor Jim told the congregation. “What is it in your life that could be keeping you from the kingdom of heaven?” He would frequently ask at the end of his sermons.
WARS ABROAD AND CHILDREN SUFFERIN’, POLITICS AND TERRORIST THREATS. LOOKS TO ME LIKE THE SKY IS FALLIN’. After 9/11 every world event had Biblical repercussions. First it was the Tsunami in 2004. Pastor Jim claimed that an angel had spoken to a woman in Thailand, warning her that a disaster was coming from the sea and that a much worse disaster that would spark the end was coming soon to America. The angel also told her to find the Seventh-day Adventist church. Then there was the Hurricane Katrina the following year. But Pastor Jim’s time at the church was cut short because complaints. The first was his sermon on not being complicit in the politics of the world. He told the congregants, “I don’t want to be held accountable to God on judgment day for my role in bringing about Sunday law.” The other was his son’s involvement with one of the elder’s niece. But thanks to Pastor Jim, Allan had been given tools to interpret the signs of the times into his college years, which included the financial crisis, Lady Gaga, the Fukushima disaster, and Obama’s liberal agenda. Despite the financial instability, people started normalizing a post-9/11 world. Some level of “peace and safety” returned. But terrible dreams about being separated from God returned to Allan after a conversation with a coworker in 2015. “Economists are saying that the big financial crisis is coming this year. And that makes sense. It’s the year of atonement. People are saying America is going to pay for legalizing gay marriage.”
In April, I introduced Lana Del Rey to my playlists and talked about my experience with her debut album, Born to Die. My first introduction to Del Rey was The Great Gatsbysoundtrack original song “Young and Beautiful” which was the planned single to bring Del Rey to Top 40 radio. Earlier singles like “Video Games” and “Born to Die” were successful in the indie world and overseas, but Del Rey was still relatively unknown in the States. However, when a remix of “Summertime Sadness” by Cedric Gervais appeared and started taking the charts by storm, Del Rey’s record label pulled support from “Young and Beautiful.” “Summertime Sadness” would become Lan Del Rey’s first number one hit, and the remix would earn Gervais a grammy for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.
OH, MY GOD, I FEEL IT IN THE AIR. When school let out for the summer, church was held in the smaller chapel, giving a more intimate feeling compared to the rest of the year. Most of the teachers were gone on vacation with the exception of a few summer session teachers, the principal, and a junior pastor, who was leading out. Teacher Lee was eager to translate the sermon, but Allan would have been content just to sit there, reading the Bible and praying, allowing the spoken Korean to fade into the background. Then church could just be his own personal date with God. Instead, Teacher Lee attempted to translate all the nuance he could about the Old Testament story about the prophet Isaiah confronting King Hezekiah when he was sick. Isaiah said that Hezekiah would die, but because of Hezekiah’s earnest, persistent prayers, God healed the king. Allan, too, was asking for healing. He feared everything would be coming to an end, and he faced a test the next day. He needed God on his side. But was he cursed to live outside of God’s grace? Did he have to return to a deep state of denial in order to turn to God. What did repentance mean for people like him?
DANCIN’ IN THE DARK IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT. “I booked a room in Seoul. Come stay with me,” Josh messaged Seunghyeon. Hours later he messaged back, “Sorry. I’m too busy. Enjoy your time in Seoul.” “Ffs,” Josh typed on his phone and immediately deleted it. He didn’t care anymore. As a small victory for passing the test, Josh decided to tryout the apps. That night in Itaewon, he sipped a margarita with the not-so-stellar Mexican food he had ordered as he planned his summer vacation. With much more time on his hands, Josh decided it was time to see more of Korea. And what would be a better way to see Korea than in the company of locals? If his boyfriend had no time for him, he would make a new plan, to see the cities he hadn’t been able to see. He would take the train to Boryeong to experience the mud festival. He would try out Jeonju. From there, who knows. Strangers would either take care of him, or if it went poorly it could be a cautionary novel to somebody else. But something biological in Josh was awakening this summer–an urge to chase the dying light of his youth. Being gay in your 20s was supposed to be fun. It wasn’t supposed to be a time when you are riddled with religious guilt. It wasn’t supposed to be the time that you were stuck in a relationship with a partner too busy to notice you. Young gay men were supposed to have lots of sex. Certainly young straight men were. And if a Biblical heterosexual marriage was not in the cards, then why not chase the dying of youth and see where it leads?
I talked about The Foldin March, the band that went from a mid-tier Tooth & Nail band to a working band that makes music for Lego: Ninjago. Today’s song comes from their last Tooth & Nail release, Secrets Keep You Sick. This album was released in 2007, and despite a Dove and Grammy and Dove nomination for the album packaging, The Fold didn’t become a big name in Christian Rock. One or two singles were minor hits on Christian rock radio, but after this album, the band went independent. They were one of the hundreds of band in Tooth & Nail’s revolving door of forgotten bands. “Younger Than Our Years” is the second track on Secrets. It’s got a nice melody, but it’s lyrically problematic and confusing. What’s this song about? Who’s the good guy? Who’s the bad guy? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? While the song may not withstand criticism, there is a youthful arrogance that I want to push back against. It’s the sound of a kid or young adult who thinks he has the world figured out and that the biggest problem is that the older generation is underestimating his maturity. The arrogance reminds me of a grown up who has the mentality of a teenager, like Mark in the following story.
I’VE NEVER BEEN THE KIND OF KID WHO LIKES WHAT YOU’RE SELLING TO ME. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises argues that the free market is the foundation of human civilization, and that it is more powerful than government restrictions on it. Government should thus stay out of the way of the free market, for if the economy is healthy, society is healthy. Mises’s economics are often cited in modern libertarian arguments. Allan wondered how all of that fit in when his coworker Mark, who had lectured him on the dangers of socialism in the upcoming 2016 election, asked Allan to borrow 200,000 won (about $200 USD) so that Mark could visit his friends in Seoul over the summer vacation. “I’m really sorry, but I’m visiting my family this summer, so I don’t have any extra money.” Life at the rural school was finally starting to get to Mark. He was looking more and more tired every day, and he was starting to feel the weight of his decision to move to Gyeongbuk. “It’s a school where I can mold students’ minds with true Biblical values,” he said to his coworkers. Introducing himself as the “like first written gospel,” he crafted a worldview out of Adventism, libertarianism, and whatever was on Facebook. One day early in the semester, the other native teacher, George, asked Allan if everyone at the school believed that it was the Christian duty to travel to Turkey to excavate the Ark.
I’M GOING UNDER WITH YOU, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO. In a way, Mark was everything wrong with Adventism rolled up into one large man. First there was the time when Allan was trying to befriend the lonely older colleague, out of some innate Christian duty. At dinner, Mark explained to the waitress, “I’m trying to be vegan so please make this pizza without cheese.” This was followed by “Let’s get ice cream for dessert.” There was the talk of coworkers in his past who turned against him. The stories repeated over and over again of soured relationships, both personal and professional. “They stole my ideas and got rid of me,” he said. Then there were the conspiracy theories. Mark’s alternate history created an alternate reality he lived in. Similar to what Allan had been taught growing up, Mark’s world was a world that was created 6,000 years ago, flooded by God, divided at the Tower of Babel, and saved through the nation of Israel. But more recently, it was a world where vaccines and vapor trails controlled people. “If only more people would read Andrew Wakefield,” his voice raising with adamance, “people want to look at just one miss-documented study, but that one mistake has made it impossible for people to publish research showing the truth about vaccines.” Allan had grown up a faction of anti-vaxx Adventists, but Mark took conspiracy to a new level, spending much of his time at work on Facebook ministering to the flat earth community. “Many of their arguments are Biblical, but their conclusions aren’t.” Mark was an excellent witness for his faith. He showed Allan the dangers of getting too radical. He showed Allan the future of who he could have become if Allan still believed that the Bible course in Mission College had solved the world’s issues.
There were a number of Christian extreme sports shows that featured harder Christian Rock. These shows might be featured late nights on cable tv or on Christian channels. In 2003, Anberlin released their first radio hit to Christian Rock radio, “Change the World (Lost Ones).” However, around that time “Readyfuels” was included in one of those sports shows. The sport: luge racing. “Readyfuels” was the band’s first promoted single by the record label. “Change the World” was sent to Christian radio. But “Readyfuels” wasn’t a Christian Rock song, in the traditional sense. It’s a song that mostly glorifies the carnal nights of youth–a prelude to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. “Readyfuels” would go on to chart on even Air1, a Contemporary Christian pop radio station. Anberlin’s intention was never to be a Christian band, but unlike other Tooth & Nail staples that moved away from the Christian market, Anberlin has made a career out of being the edgy group that can say what you don’t expect in a Christian song.
GIRLS AND THE BOYS CHASE DOWN RUNNING HOT TONIGHT. While seeing luge racing to Anberlin was pretty cool, what wasn’t so cool was seeing the awful music video for “Readyfuels.” In a time when Tooth & Nail was pumping money into Kutless, Jeremy Camp, and Falling Up, Anberlin had yet to film a music video. So I wrote an email to someone at Tooth & Nail, demanding that Anberlin get a music video for “Readyfuels.” “Why does Kutless have three videos from the same album and Anberlin doesn’t have any?” I don’t remember if T&N wrote me back, but sure enough, Anberlin released a music video. Last year in an interview with RadioU, Stephen Christian talked about the video. He says that he thought that the record label had played a joke. “No really, where’s the real one?” he asked. Needless to say, every music video was better for Anberlin after “Readyfuels.” But let’s forget about that mistake. Instead, let’s go back to the summer of 2003, between freshman and sophomore year of high school. Re-listening to Blueprints for the Black Market shows you how far this band developed sonically and lyrically. On Blueprints, the lyrics are second to the music in most cases. By Never Take Friendship Personaland Cities, the lyrics become central and the music becomes harder. Blueprints reminded me of some of my dad’s classic rock albums I listen to. But there was an Aaron Sprinkle intensity in the production that challenged my stereo in ways that few albums did before it.
HELP ME TO WAIT ON YOU, HESITATE IT TOO, ‘CAUSE I’M ALONE. Just whenever things started to normalize for Allan, it was time to change schools. Starting a new school in 10th grade was certainly better than joining in 11th grade, but he was joining a small school in which most of the students had known each other since kindergarten. And how does one fit in at a Christian school? Who did he want to be? His social life had fizzled at his last school, especially when his sister started dating his friend. Soon his friends started hanging out with his sister, and Allan had turned to a solitary life of playing The Sims and guitar. This could happen again at a new school. What was worse is being Seventh-day Adventist had many disadvantages on a social life. Being a good Seventh-day Adventist meant Allan couldn’t participate in school events on the weekend. He couldn’t play sports, not that he was any good. He couldn’t go out with friends on Friday night or Saturday. And on Sunday, most of the students went to church. So like so many other kids, Allan turned to music. In his case, the Tooth & Nail roster of artists–his favorite, Anberlin and their debut album Blueprints for the Black Market. It was Christian, but you wouldn’t know it at first. But the kids at school had their own taste in everything. There was some overlap. There were some moments of connection, too, but mostly, sophomore year would be like freshman year: weekends at home. Few friends. Lots of guitar time.
Forget and Not Slow Downis Relient K‘s sixth album. The band had shifted away from “tongue-in-cheek” lyrics in previous albums and had enjoyed mainstream pop radio success as well as topping the Christian charts. Forget and Not Slow Down, however, starts to see a shift away from the safety of the youth group, as vocalist and songwriter Matt Thiessen‘s writes about the dissolving of his relationship with radio DJ Shannon Murphy, the details of which were mostly covered up by the purity culture police, but are shocking nonetheless. Forget and Not Slow Down is a breakup masterpiece, and one of the most cohesive and listenable Relient K records, particularly if you don’t like Relient K. Lyrically, Thiessen is often in denial about his infidelity, yet comes close to admitting it several times throughout the tracks. He moves from being repentant to accusatory, from self-righteous to self-deprecating. Musically, the band is joined by O.C. Supertones and Project 86 guitarist Ethan Luck, playing on the drums for this record. The band is also joined by their friends Tim Skipper (House of Heroes), Matt MacDonald (The Classic Crime), Adam Young (Owl City), Aaron Gillespie (The Almost, Underoath), and Brian McSweeney (Seven Days Jesus).
IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, JUST YOU AND ME. Forget and Not Slow Down has a very Tennessee feel to it–not twangy country music, but the album artwork describes it all. Painted by Thiessen’s uncle Linden Frederick, the cover tells a story about the album. The flat fields of Southern Tennessee in Franklin County where Thiessen hid away, writing, processing his break up. The East Nashville production, the American rock ‘n’ roll before it gets processed into country music make the album more Springsteen and less Blink-182. “Part of It” is the fifth track and the fourth full-length song on the record. The first song sets a tone about moving on from mistakes. The second, the break up hits Thiessen, but he feels slightly numb realizing that he doesn’t need someone else to define him. By the third track, “Candlelight,” Thiessen is only remembering the good parts of the relationship. By “Part of It,” Thiessen has released that all the “adhesives” in the world couldn’t repair their relationship. However, the outro to this song, which should be listened right after “Part of It,” Thiessen is begging his ex not to believe the rumors. Following the outro, Thiessen has a chance to process his breakup in the songs “Therapy” and “Over It,” the former which sees him “driving in the country just to drive.” I imagine a man who hasn’t slept much for awhile, un-showered and greasy-haired, in his sweatpants, driving through the backwoods of Tennessee. The album mostly plays on similar themes until the closers “This is the End” and “(If You Want It),” which use the same melody, making the latter just a continuation of the same song.
IF A NIGHTMARE EVER DOES UNFOLD, PERSPECTIVE IS A LOVELY HAND TO HOLD. Allan knew he should go to church. He certainly wasn’t going to get any work done. Nothing was forcing him to go to church, but Sabbath was still a day that he could forget about the mess his life had become. Living off campus, he didn’t run into classmates. The weeks were exhausting. He had risen to every challenge so far in his pretty sheltered life. Why was student teaching becoming such a disaster? Why did Ms. Murphey not give him feedback until the last minute? Why was it so hard to talk with anyone in the education department at school? Why couldn’t he come home and do the work after work. Lesson plans and course work. Course work and lesson plans. At the end of the day, he was exhausted. Now at Mission Academy, he had given up. “What was that? You clearly didn’t prepare,” Mr. Barnes told him over and over again. The weekends were a blessing because he didn’t have to see anyone. Church was too artificial. He had to present his best self. No matter where he went, there would be someone who knew who he was or could ask around about him. “Did you have a bad experience at your last school,” one student asked. “It wasn’t the best experience, but I’m learning. Why do you ask?” “My sister was in your class. She said you were always so nervous, shaking. Kind of like you do here.” Instead of lying around all day looking at porn like many Saturdays had turned into, Allan went to his car without taking a shower. Popping in Forget and Not Slow Down like he did many mornings as an inspirational album to make the day less hellish, Allan just decided just to drive around Collegetown and surrounding areas outside of Chattanooga. It was a beautiful October day and the leaves were starting to change. The landscape would soon look a little less patchy when the leaves fell. The paths left by the tornado last spring would soon be less obvious. Taking a left on State Route 7, he headed toward Georgia, where the worst of the devastation had happened that fateful April night. The eeriest thing was when the forest disappeared. Every time he drove this way, the clean was more complete. But the sight of hundreds of tree trunks snapped and then peeled away, the sight of houseless foundations reminded Allan that people had died that night. Storms come and take away homes and dreams. He may never be a teacher at Mission Academy, the arsenal of the best teachers who graduated from Mission College. He may not have that two story house with a beautiful blond haired wife and the 2.5 kids he saw whenever he closed his eyes. But God had a plan for all of this, Allan was convinced. He’s clearly humbling me for something great, even if it is dying in the Middle East.
Here are the tracks unseparated for your listening pleasure:
*Unfortunately, Forget and Not Slow Down is not available on AppleMusic, so I am substituting their live version of “Forget and Not Slow Down” as it “I Don’t Need a Soul,” and “Sahara” are the only tracks available from the album.
Dave Barnes is a Contemporary Christian singer-songwriter, but he isn’t completely bound by the genre. Barnes is a Nashville songwriter whose songs have been recorded by country, pop, and CCM singers. In fact, his 2010 hit, “God Gave Me You,” became a number one hit for country singer and future The Voicejudge, Blake Shelton. Barnes’s version has a lot less twang but all the production quality of a pop-country hit. Barnes wrote the song for his wife who had been through the “ups and downs” of his musical career. Shelton heard the song on a CCM radio station and decided to propose to his then girlfriend, fellow country star, Miranda Lambert. Barnes remains happily married with three kids. Like Shelton, listeners can be enchanted by the handsome dirty blond Barnes holding his guitar, singing about “an angel lovely” being tricked into falling for someone who is out of his league. If only you let God work his matchmaking magic, this fairytale could happen to you.
I’VE BEEN A WALKING HEARTACHE. I’VE MADE A MESS OF ME. “There was a time when it was practically a graduation requirement to get married before leaving Mission College,” everyone joked. But Allan’s time had ended without any prospects for a job or a wife. He found that social awkwardness had made him incompetent for dealing with teenagers. Every time he entered the school, it was like he felt like he was 10 years younger remembering what it was like to fit in with the cool kids or trying to be smart enough to be respected by the smart kids. And at this school, the kids were both cool and smart. Allan felt like neither. To top off reliving his high school traumas, he had to work very hard to impress his cooperating teacher, Mr. Barnes, whom the kids loved. Allan saw the ways some of the girls looked at Mr. Barnes, laughing at his perfectly placed jokes. He envied how Mr. Barnes’s way with words, tying history and literature into life lessons. Every time Allan tried to tie a lesson together, he over analyzed the metaphor and it unravelled as he continued to scrutinize it. On the good days the kids just stared at him like he was an unbelievable side show at a circus. But most days they just ignored him as another student teacher that was coming through Missionary Academy, one of the main schools to which Mission College sent the student teachers. Mr. Barnes was kind in his criticism of Allan’s teaching. Perhaps he saw a younger brother or possibly a little kid who lacked all confidence, and he was being forced to baby sit this kid. Mr. Barnes was just turned thirty a month or two ago, and he talked about his student teaching goofs that were still sitting fresh in his mind, but starting to cool as days of experience and teaching accolades started to flood his memory. “Your problem is your lack of confidence,” Mr. Barnes told Allan one day after a particularly disastrous lesson on feudalism. “Stop trying to teach like me or Dr. Esso or anyone else and just be you. A confident you,” he said, his blue eyes looking into Allan’s eyes. In a truly Mr. Barnes way, he broke the calculated tension. “I was talking to my wife, and she wants to have you over for dinner. Are you free next week?
ON MY OWN I’M ONLY HALF OF WHAT I COULD BE. Callie Barnes had graduated from Mission College a year before. She was Allan’s age. Because their majors were so different, he hadn’t met Callie until she stopped by the school and Mr. Barnes had introduced his wife. The two had met as camp counselors, she was a freshman he was a senior at Mission College. The two of them made the perfect poster couple for Matrimony College, Mission College’s nickname, Mr. Barnes, despite his thinning strawberry blond hair, his neat Ralph Lauren thin sweater andcool blue eyes and his curly blond-haired wife. “So, are you seeing anyone?” Callie asked. “Not right now. So much of the future is up in the air right now.” “You know,” Mr. Barnes interjected, “the reason you may have not met the right girl yet is she is younger than you,” he looked at his wife. “Stop!” Callie playfully slapped her husband’s arm. “Allan Teacher, I didn’t catch line 15.” It was several years later in South Korea, and he was teaching an adult Bible conversation class. This week, the conversation was about love and marriage, so Allan supplemented with the song “God Gave Me You” by Dave Barnes (no relation to Mr. Barnes). Allan read the line for the students. “This song is so unrealistic,” one of the housewives said. “It’s the kind of song I would have believed before I got married.” “Yeah, you start to find that marriage is all about endurance,” another housewife said. “Wow, it seems that romance is dead,” Allan said. “Let’s talk about this song after you’re married for a few years,” the first one said. “But he’s a man. He could never know about the cooking and cleaning the thankless work of raising helpless children, making sure they get to kindergarten on time,” yet another chimed in. Allan was animated with this conversation. He had gotten to know this particular class for several terms and encouraged them to speak frankly. He was almost cheering as the students responded to the topic, even though they had used his singleness against him.
WE ARE STITCHED TOGETHER. “Well, fairytale or not, let’s look at the verse that song song is based on. Genesis 2:23-24 says: ‘The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh’” (NIV), Allan read. “As a Christian, I believe that marriage may not be like this song, but we have to make it work because God has made it.” “So when are you going to do this?” a student asked. “I don’t think he’s ever going to get a girlfriend,” another one said under her breath just loud enough for the entire class, even Allan, to break out in laughter. “Yeah, Allan doesn’t even like girls. He likes boys,” the only male student, a few years older than Allan, said. Allan had heard it before. It was a pretty typical joke in Korea that no one took too seriously. But Allan wondered if it was becoming more and more obvious, even at work, that he was struggling more and more to believe the Bible passages he was employed to teach.
*note, this video is no longer played on Country Music Television (CMT) because, unlike Barnes, Shelton and Lambert are no longer together. Interpret that however you like. A few weeks ago, Shelton married No Doubt front woman and solo singer, Gwen Stefani.
In 2004, Sufjan Stevens released Seven Swans, a folk-rock album that is his most religious work todate. Drawing on Biblical themes, both Old and New Testament, Stevens has continued to intertwine the Bible into his folk and electronic music, but rarely could his works after Seven Swans be mistaken for CCM. That’s not to say that Seven Swans is a typical Christian album. In fact, songs like “To Be Alone with You” introduce new themes that much of his Christian audience would condemn. In “To Be Alone with You” the most obvious subject of the song is Christ who “gave up a wife and a family. . . . to be alone with [us, Christ] went up on a tree.” However, the last line of the song: “I’ve never known a man who loved me” helps to offset the Christian interpretation andstarted listeners to think that Stevens was talking about homosexual love, a theme Stevens has embraced by writing and contributing to the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack.
I’D GIVE MY BODY TO BE BACK AGAIN IN THE REST OF THE ROOM. Sufjan Stevens withholds many details of his life from the press, particularly about his romance and religion. On one occasion, Stevens revealed where he was attending church. On albums like Carrie & Lowell, he doesn’t shy away from delving into his personal life; however, in prior works, listeners are left wondering if it’s personal details or the work of a skilled storyteller. Like with his lyrics, Stevens often teases CCM connections, associating with Christian folk artists like Denison Witmer, Rosie Thomas, and Danielson Famile, even performing at Cornerstone with the latter. “To Be Alone with You” is an intensely personal song about devotion, which seems to be constructed for misunderstanding. A now criticized component of Christian songs is the ambiguity of “Is it Jesus or a girlfriend?” Often Christian artists gained crossover success thanks to that ambiguity. Artists like Michael W. Smith, Avalon, dc talk, and Amy Grant are just a few examples of artists who have mastered this kind of trickery and scored mainstream radio success. Anyone who started listening to the CCM genre as an outsider, might have questions about this level of devotion, which often sounded sexual to an outsider. In a recent episode of Good Christian Fun talking about this song, co-host Caroline Elly said that she thinks that song is about Jesus, “but it could also be about the confusing queer love you feel for Jesus, especially if you’re in the middle of purity culture, and maybe you don’t have a place to put romantic love.”
YOU GAVE UP YOUR BODY TO BE LONELY. “You all have someone in your life that needs to be saved,” Allan’s Bible teacher said one day. “Even though we live in the Bible belt, you all have one friend who hasn’t invited Jesus Christ into his or her heart. You meet these people and talk about movies or sports. But when all of hell is poured into the Lake of Fire, before that moment, those missed opportunities are going to call out to you, by name, asking ‘Why did you never tell me.’ Now is the time you plot out these conversations you must have. Now is the time you plan how to bring them to church.” Allan prayed for his friend, Steven. His parents had gone from church to church but had settled into to the church of whatever was on TV. He thought about how to make authentic conversation revolving around faith and eternity. He would play only Christian music around Steven. However, this plan backfired one day in the car. Allan was taking Steven home because Steven didn’t have a car. “You’ve been listening to all this Christian music lately, and there’s something I don’t get.” “What’s that?” “Are the singers just trying to have sex with Jesus? I mean all of words are: ‘I want to be close to you/ I want you to know me like no one else does/ Look inside me / Fill me with your holy presence.” Taken aback by the question, Allan muttered, “I guess I’ve never thought of it that way. Allan thought the question was sacrilegious, but not insincere. Is this how the devil has tricked the world, he thought, by perverting something pure and holy?
Listening to Michael Stripe and Peter Buck talk, I couldn’t place them as southerners from Georgia. Netflix Song Exploder‘s episode on “Losing My Religion” wasn’t the first time I had heard R.E.M. talk about their music; however, I was both intrigued and put off by Michael Stripe. He is perhaps one of the most articulate rock stars I’ve ever heard speak; however, I picked up on an underlying arrogance when he talked about this song. According to most accounts, the band recorded Out of Time using the mandolin as kind of a throw-away record before they returned to more conventional writing approaches. The band chose “Losing My Religion” as the lead single, thinking that it wouldn’t chart or that it would just be a minor hit. The band would quickly record more material and go on charting in the lower regions of the Rock Charts. However, “Losing My Religion,” despite its unconventionality became a number 4 pop chart hit, a number 1 rock chart hit, and it went to number one in several countries. Michael Stripe seems smug when he talks about the band’s underdog success, as if he’s a “poet and he knows it.” Occasionally, the music charts reflect effort and poetry and musical effort. Occasionally, the band who all the bands are drawing inspiration from also becomes popular. And that time was 1991.
I’M CHOOSING MY CONFESSIONS. Michael Stripe was raised in a religious background in the Methodist tradition. Borrowing a Southern cliche, “Losing My Religion,” brilliantly plays dances around the actually meaning in the lyrics. Stripe said that it’s about the awkwardness one feels around someone they love. However, the imagery in the music video and some of the lyrics in the song evoke existential meanings, often bating the devout as the lyrics pick apart problems with devotion. One of the reasons that the song was so successful internationally was the response to the sex scandals in the Catholic church around the world. In some contexts, the song is a protest against religion. In a somewhat of counter-argument, the alternative Christian rock culture in the 2000s also “lost their religion.” The mantra many bands and radio stations said was, “It’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship.” Multi-platinum CCM crossover artist Lauren Daigle touted this new cliche on her 2018 album Look Up Child, titling a track “Losing My Religion.” This song was not a cover of R.E.M.’s hit, but rather a song about “losing [her] religion, in order to find you.” The listener can fill in the blank, but it’s pretty obvious from Daigle’s context that it’s about God.
THAT’S ME IN THE CORNER, THAT’S ME ON THE STAGE. Ryan Murphy’s hit show Glee often tackled religion, mainly Christianity. Religion is one point of identity for the characters in the small Ohio town. One episode in Season 2, Grilled Cheesus, dealt with religious idolatry, the prosperity gospel, atheism, and crisis. Finn sings the song “Losing My Religion,” and this is the episode’s catharsis. After watching that episode of Glee, Allan decided that the show was too blasphemous. God wasn’t transactional was the episode made him out to be. If only everyone could find the true version of Christianity. The true reading of the Bible wouldn’t have people plunging into idolatry. People would read the crystal clear text and determine the right path for their lives. People may still abuse drugs and alcohol, but a correct reading of the Bible would not allow people to blame their problems on God. As for Kurt, he would just have to learn to be alone, and then he could reap the benefits of God. Kurt just needed to learn that he was wrong and that God still had plans for him. It was other people that were causing him not to believe, but if he just looked to the word…and then Allan stopped thinking about it. You can answer world problems with religious cliches, like turning of the light and piling the mess into the closet. But sometimes it starts seeping out from under the crack on the floor.
In 2006 a new band released a brutal metalcore album called Plagues. That band so happened to have the name of a much less metal PG-13 movie starring Anne Hatheway, Meryl Streep, and Stanley Tucci. The movie was actually directly based on the 2003 book of the same name. The band, however, chose the name as a protest against materialism. The band The Devil Wears Prada has become a staple in Hard Christian Rock and scene hardcore metal. In 2019, they released the album The Act which expanded their sound to include more singing on ballads such as “Please Say No” and “Chemical.” Clean vocalist Jeremy DePoyster had always had duties Prada songs, in a sense, rewarding listers with melodic choruses; however, “Chemical” is a radio-ready hit.
WAKE UP TO NO MEANING, I STARE AT THE CEILING. According to the band’s episode of Labeled, DePoyster said that unclean vocalist Mike Hranica got the idea for this song after either watching a TED Talk or listening to a podcast. Hranica became very depressed after listening to this speaker because her coping mechanism was to remind herself that no matter whatever bad news she heard, how she felt was only a chemical reaction. To Hranica, this made him feel as if nothing was real. While it’s true that whatever problems we usually face in our daily lives at home and work and back again usually seem like the biggest deal to us at the time (and sometimes they certainly hold some gravity on the future), reducing our responses to chemical reactions in our brains sent Hranica into an existential crisis. There are two ways that I think about this coping mechanism. The first is taking it to a logical conclusion: The simulation theory. In this theory I may or may not be real reacting to you people who may or may not be real. This idea is played out in movies like The Matrix. The second way I could take this coping mechanism is to belittle my problems. So if my reaction to this moment is only chemical, I can also belittle my problem nothing substantial in the greater scheme of the world’s problems. I burned the dinner that I was supposed to serve at party. In the greater scheme, people are starving in the world and I have enough money to throw a feast. I could spend the money again to order take out. People could be upset with me, but at least I’m not a thief or a murderer. It’s only their chemical reactions, by the way. There are certainly problems with taking this coping mechanism to these two conclusions.
THERE’S STILL TIMES I WANT TO BREAK EVERYTHING I’VE EVER MADE. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with one of my students. In my teaching in Korea, I’ve seen that they have a less developed special education program than in some other countries. However, American teachers can’t pass certification without knowing laws and practices for accommodating students with special needs. Min-hyuk (name changed) had many problems adjusting to life in middle school. When I first met the kid for an English conversation ability interview, I asked him to introduce himself in English. He replied, “I’m too cool for that.” Next I asked him to tell me how he learned English, “It’s all about money, if I’m being honest. My parents pay a lot of money for the best academies, and that’s how I learned how to speak English.” After finishing the interview he asked, “Do you have any snacks?” Throughout the semester, he was a pariah among the other middle school first graders. Nobody wanted to be in Min-hyuk’s group. Because my school is a boarding school with about 40% of the middle school students staying on campus, Min-hyuk was placed in the English dormitory; however, after hours he created so much work for the dean, senior students, and classmates. Eventually, his parents took him out of the dorm. He came to apologize for his rude behavior during the interview, though for a subtle point I had thought was not that rude, asking me which phone games I played. “My mom said it’s very rude to talk to teachers about games,” he said. He opened up about the difficulties of adjusting to a new school. I said, “All of your classmates are dealing with a very hard change right now. You went from a time when you could play as much as you wanted to a time when you have to study much, much later into the night.” He said, “Just because others have to deal with it, doesn’t make it any less difficult for me.” “Good point,” I said, “You are you and you have to learn what works for you.”
THERE’S A HOLE IN MY HEAD AND MY HEART. Dr. Esso was skeptical of modernist literature. “Read the classics,” he encouraged his students. “And if you don’t like them, read them again and again. As we get closer to the end of the anthology, we start losing value. There’s something to be said about stories that have been around for 15 generations or longer. Nineteen-year-old college students come in with their opinions, ‘I don’t like Chaucer, he’s no longer relevant. Spenser’s no fun to read. We should read Alice Walker instead of Shakespeare.’ But when a work has stood the test of 15 generations, the work is judging you. No matter what you say, you won’t put a dent into Marlowe’s legacy.” Those words have haunted Allan into his professional career as a teacher. While he doesn’t teach the classics, the standards of being a teacher weighed upon him, particularly in the era of COVID, when he couldn’t keep up with his work. Teachers just do their work. They put in the time. They don’t complain. But what would this work ethic do for him in the future? Was he placing invisible bills into a bank account, or was he working himself ragged like his grandfather had done and like his father was doing even now?
Mixtapemotions 