I’m doing my Friday night routine listening to music, XTC’s* Single Collection 1977-1992*, and Dear Godcomes up. Now, I really love XTC and find most of their lyrics quite clever, but this is not one of them, though I’m sympathetic to the message. But this is a naive and juvenile way to tackle the subject, though typical for an angry young man with a guitar. I used to be this young man, sans guitar, but I got wiser. The song has just too much of a atheist-being-angry-with-god vibe for me now. A very courageous song for a single in 1986 nonetheless.
A, well, tad better and cleverer example of the subject is Randy Newman’s God’s Song (That’s Why I love Mankind). Interestingly, there’s a song with lyrics that mirror somehow Dear God’s on the same Newman album, He Gives us All His Love, which you could mistake for a song about being angry at God too, but the dead-pan way in which Newman delivers it leaves not doubt about being deeply sarcastic.
These are three examples, and to get it out of the way, obviously John Lennon’s Imagine. I’ve read that Jethro Tull’s whole album *Aqualung *is one big critic of religion, but I’ve never had time to listen through it. What else it there?
About half of Slayer’s catalog. For instance: Slayer’s DiscipleSlayer - Disciple. “I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple; I’ll never be the one to blindly follow”
In fact, a good bit of Metal could reasonably be called “atheistic”, IMO. I’d be happy to try and provide as many examples as anyone would like in nearly any sub-genre of metal, too; just ask.
I love me some good metal, but I’m not very deep into it, especially into the multitude of sub-genres, but isn’t much of metal’s atheism a faux-or-not-faux-satanism? Now, I’m convinced that most of those bands take such a stand not very seriously, but they do it to appeal to fans. But I just don’t know enough about the scene to differentiate between exaggeration/self-parody and true commitment. Please educate me ;).
(for example, I’ve read somewhere that one of the songwriters of Slayer is a devout catholic. Shouldn’t compute )
No, I didn’t include “Satanic” bands or most of the Norwegian Black Metal bands from the '90s, as many of the most popular bands are not atheist, they are anti-Christian and possibly specifically anti-Roman Catholic. Sam Dunn did a decent featurette on the NBM history and scene when he did Headbanger’s Journey, but I can’t find it online. It’s good, succinct look at it all (the arsons, the murders, ya know; that stuff).
Anyway, a lot of the lyrics of NBM are about religious ideas outside of Christianity: Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, Surtur, etc.
Believe me, metal has religion covered from all angles. Atheist, Christian, Hindu, Pagan, Mesopotamian, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan… frankly, if we can headbang to your god (or lack of one), we’re prolly gonna.
Regarding Slayer: aye, Tom Araya, the bass player and singer, is a Catholic. Most of the songs about religion were (and are) written by Kerry King. Tom Araya and Jeff Hanneman (RIP) primarily wrote songs about the terrible things that Nazis did, although on the last couple they had also taken to pointing out how shitty Islam is, most likely in reaction to 9/11 and ensuing events. 2006’s Christ Illusion pretty much alternated between how bad religion in general is, how bad the Catholic church is and how bad Islam is.
Tomorrow Wendy by Concrete Blonde always struck me as that way. Seems like it’s written by someone that once believed but is struggling to maintain that belief.
The perspective of the Gershwin standard "It Ain’t Necessarily So"from “Porgy and Bess” is at least skeptical if not atheistic. However, one should keep in mind that in the context of the show, it’s sung by a rather disreputable character.
Err… Norway is less than 5% Catholic. They are reacting to Christianity specifically, but Lutheranism really. If the imagery is Catholic it’s because Lutheran imagery is comparatively stark (though there is a high church). Stained glass is more evocative than potlucks :dubious:
LaVeyan Satanists are sort of atheist but the black metal guys are usually gung ho about rejecting that form in favor of horns and brimstone.
I’m not so sure, but “No” from the new album is on point. As well as his side project, the 6ths “The Dead Only Quickly.”
I’d look into Filk music, a lot of this home-made stuff must cover angsty alternatives to God.
Obviously, singing about how there is no God is not a useful way of using up your allotted 80 odd years before nothingness sets in.
Tom Waits’ “God’s Away on Business” makes about as much sense as most of Waits’ songs, but I think it’s fair to say it doesn’t hold out hope that God is particularly interested in what’s going on here on earth.
ETA: And Harry Chapin’s “Sniper” includes the lines: “He looks at the city where no one had known him. / He looks at the sky where no one looks down.” The person looking to the sky and not seeing God goes on to climb a clock tower and kill a bunch of people, so it’s not clear that Chapin is endorsing his atheism (though from interviews I’ve heard with Chapin, he sounded like at least an agnostic himself).
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