Entertainment For Lively Minds
The case for the defence?
So the devil, they say, has all the best tunes? Well, I was just wondering, at this time of tidings of great joy, how true this may be. As a card carrying heathen myself, it does actually seem to be largely so, at least in white boy music. Aside of where gospel and r'n'b become inextricably entwined, say, the works of Mavis Staples and the excellent Blind Boys of Alabama, I can find very little evidence of a decent god-loving song. Yes, yes, I know U2 can blur their lyrics in a bit of vagueness to take the edge (geddit!) off their muscular christianity, but apart from Cliff and Vans poptastic number one of some years back, which was, to be fair, pretty dire, can anyone show me a decent christian song? Ironic modern takes on old C&W songs don't count, by the way.
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Exhibit A
Quite so
or this gem as selected by Michael Eavis for his Desert Island Discs?
House music's frisson
always came from the tension between the spiritual and the profane... exhibit A:
(the first person to say The Style Council's cover is better gets excommunicated)
And talking of the tension between the spiritual and the profane, what about the intense dialogues with God in the ouvres of Word favourites, Messrs Cash and Cave?
I'm not what you'd call religious however...
This is an unquestionably great song. I have eight different versions of it on my ipod.
and below this is the reason I'm not religious.
I found it in the comments section of youtube under the posting of this beautiful song. So people get ready.
The author called themselves "Godsweetwarriors"
He/she wrote...
We need to be ready! We are all 100% old age positive. For some of us, our world ends at death. However, when we walk Christ like in this world, we have gotten ready. We who are sleeping in Christ will be the 1st caught up to Christ, then those of us still alive will be change in a instant and be forever with Christ at His 2nd coming. 1Thess.4:13-18 God Bless you.
It depends on your definition of popular music, I suppose
Gustav Holst's tune for "In the Bleak Midwinter" has just been voted (again) the most popular Christmas song in some poll or other. And are you really dismissing the great composers of the 18th and 19th century and all their religion based music; the requiems of Mozart and Faure, the passions of Bach, the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley? Even in the 20th century there were David Fanshawe's African Sanctus and all the arrangements of carols by Sir David Willcocks.
You're right in terms of rock and roll though.
Sorry, I hadn't factorred in......
......Bach, Mozart and Holst as white boy music, but I guess, in their day, that is what they were.......
Look harder
There's tonnes of 'em.
Take your pick from a tonne of great vintage blues about Hey Zoose although I guess offerings from Rev Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson etc might be regarded as gospel rather than blues, Broken Family Band did a great EP called Jesus Songs, Jesus Walks by Kanye West, Rebel Jesus by Jackson Browne (the McGarrigle sisters' version is the best), Higher Ground by Stevie Wonder, Orphan Girl by Gillian Welch, anything by the magnificent Joseph Spence.
Here's a great one from Fairport - Now Be Thankful.
In the Uk
it's minority sport, it's hard to point to many bestselling, top ten hits that are relgious the devil does have the best tunes all respect due to fairport and gillian welch.
The main problem is singing about being bad is more fun than singing about being good.
Hmmmm, maybe
I will grudgingly accept the Fairport, being more a hymn to an unnamed maker,IMHO, albeit with a very traditional sounding and Wesley-esque tune. (I dare say I am nit-picking as it is a fine, fine tune) I hadn't appreciated Higher Ground necessarily meant up there, and is a good example of "best music"
I can't speak for the Broken Family Band, tho' I have one of theirs somewhere from e music. Yes, I do include old blues and old timey as nominally gospel. I also feel that the Jackson Browne one mentioned, like Joan Osbornes "If God was one of us" and Shelby Lynnes "Jesus on a greyhound" more to be songs that name check Jesus or God as individuals, but again I will be open to censure should needs be. Likewise, any song mentioning Heaven need not be construed as religious.
I am ignoring the Byrds "Jesus is just alright", as I am asking for examples of "best" tunes......
I think you are
right when this came up before no one could up with good and well known songs, for various reason they don't exist.
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/last-truly-wonderful-christian-rap...
Forgive me if I'm wrong
But I think that Fairport song was written by RT even though he had left the band by the time it was released. So the the unamed maker he had in mind may in fact be Allah.
Allowed 'cause it was a hit...
..and it's been around for over 500 years....
How about Bob?
The tone of much of his Christian albums is a bit preachy but surely "Every Grain Of Sand" (especially the Emmylou Harris cover)counts as a "decent christian song."
Blimey!
I'd forgotten that, even tho' I contributed to it, with a nod to the songs Allah has prompted. Perhaps. (To be fair, RT does say that many of his mid period love songs are vague as to whom they allude, suggesting they be in fact hymns to his maker. There is the rather more overt middle eastern sounding shocker from Light Shine that I haven't transferred to i-pod. And his Taliban baiting song, "Outside of the Inside" is a deeply religious song, pointing out how the Koran has been interpreted.
"God never listened to Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker lived in vain
Blasphemer, womaniser,
Let a needle numb his brain
Wash away his monkey music
Damn his demons, Damn his pain
And what’s the point of Albert Einstein
What do we need Physics for?
Heresy’s his inspiration
Corrupt and rotten to the core
Curse his devious mathematics
Curse his deadly atom war
There’s a message on the wind
Calling me to glory somewhere
There are signs too deep for the dumb
Like perfume in the air
And when I get to Heaven
I won’t realise I’m there
Shakespeare, Isaac Newton
Small ideas for little boys
Adding to the senseless chatter
Adding to the background noise
Hard to hear my oratory
Hard to hear my inner voice
Van gogh, Botticelli
Scraping paint onto a board
Colour is the fuel of madness
That’s no way to praise the Lord
Grey’s the colour of the pious
Knelt upon the misericord
There’s a message on the wind
Calling me to glory somewhere
There are signs too deep for the dumb
Like perfume in the air
And when I get to Heaven
I won’t realise I’m there
I’m familiar with the cover
I don’t need to read the book
I police the world of action
Inside’s where I never look
Got no time to help the worthless
Lotus-eaters, Mandarins, crooks
There’s a message on the wind
Calling me to glory somewhere
There are signs too deep for the dumb
Like perfume in the air
And when I get to Heaven
I won’t realise I’m there")
More RT religious lyrics
Mary and Joseph from Henry the Human Fly. Although I have to confess I haven't the foggiest what he is going on about here. Anyone know?
Mary and Joseph were watching the border
Lovers with a different pose
Like the worm that loves the rose
Mary is in stitches
She's tied down on the bed
While Joseph plays the ukelele
Standing on his head
Sad is the hour that saw them divided
People with a common blood
Parted in the name of good
The father and the mother
Of the royal king on earth
He'll only come when hearts are joined
And peace rings in his birth.
I believe that the above RT song..
..is one of the bravest songs ever written.
Not to mention..
Psalm 137;1
Steeleye Span
Gaudete.
See 6 posts above..
..o wolfish one...do try to keep up.
See 6 posts above..
..o wolfish one...do try to keep up.
If 'Keeping Up' involved playing every last You Tube embed
on here, I'd never get any work done. Adding a hint to the content of the clip would have helped!
Thanks for posting it though, you've prompted me to dig out all my Steeleye albums for a good old wallow.
Come on Vulpes..
..you're obviously not interested in getting work done at all.
(I thought the "500 years old" would have been clue enough!)
Unsuffer Me
By Lucinda Williams. It is only one interpretation of the song, but one that makes sense I think. Contemporary rock music and of the highest quality.
Has no-one mentioned...
...My Sweet Lord by George Harrison?
I think part of the problem here is that while there may often be some stylistic similarities, gospel music is generally characterised simply by the religious content of the lyrics. Nobody's Fault But Mine by Blind Willie Johnson doesn't sound anything like Where You There When They Crucified My Lord by Johnny and June which in turn is very different from In The Upper Room by Mahalia Jackson or When God Dips His Pen of Love in My Heart by Alison Krauss. If these songs didn't deal with holy subjects then they would simply be country songs, blues songs or soul songs.
I mean isn't all music descended from religious music in some way or other?
How about this for muscular
christianity? DC Talk's Jesus Freak.
Clapton is...
...if not God hisself, at least singing praises to God hisself in "Presence of the Lord".
Mmmm. Also, The Rainmakers in "Let My People Go-Go":
Moses went up to the mountain high
To find out from God, "Why did you make us? Why?"
Secret words in a secret room,
He said "Whop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom,
I did not put you here to suffer
I did not put you here to whine
I put you here to love one another
And to get out and have a good time
Now, let my people go-go...