Another guest post from BCC’s friend S.P. Bailey.
Good pop songs are bags ready to be packed with meaning by you the listener. Witness the recent list of “the 50 greatest conservative rock songs.” Many performers who made the list were presumably horrified to get a positive mention in The National Review. (Not to worry decadent rock and roll hippies! My conservative friends still consider you both a major cause of the decline of western civilization and harbingers of the apocalypse!) Even so, the list and the accompanying justifications are surprisingly compelling.
Might we, the bloggernacle, compile a list of the 50 greatest Mormon pop/rock songs? Please comment with song titles, lyrics, and/or supporting arguments. Willful misreading is permitted and encouraged. A perfect fit is nice, but taking a line or two out of context and twisting gently is entirely legitimate.
To start with few obvious examples (I apologize for my sad 1980s electronica fixation):
Eurythmics, Missionary Man
You can fool with your brother/ But don’t mess with a missionary man. Are you kidding me? That is almost a direct quote from the White Bible. And what full-time proselyting elder didn’t sing to himself these lines at least once: Well the missionary man/ He’s got God on his side/ He’s got the saints and apostles/ Backin’ up from behind/ Black eyed looks from those Bible books/ He’s a man with a mission/ Got a serious mind.
Howard Jones, Everlasting Love
Is this love worth waiting for?/ Something special, something pure? Then you better call the scheduling office at the temple. Also, get the building coordinator on the phone–got to reserve the gym at your local ward house. By the way, my cousin rents out frilly white lattice backdrops and a variety of plastic flower arrangements (email if interested). Clearly HoJo knows that you don’t have to be a Mormon to write songs about the doctrine of eternal marriage.
Pet Shop Boys, It’s a Sin
I dedicate this song to anyone who has read Spencer W. Kimball’s The Miracle of Forgiveness, which convinced me that Everything I’ve ever done/ Everything I ever do/ Every place I’ve ever been/ Everywhere I’m going to/ It’s a sin.
U2, Where the Streets Have No Name
I’ll show you a place/ High on a desert plain/ Where the streets have no name. From beginning to end, this one is all about the Salt Lake Valley as laid out by Brigham Young et al. Blocks and blocks of streets known only by coordinates. And brimming with people who want to run and hide and tear down the walls that hold them inside.
Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World
As in the world or worlds you will preside over when the Lorenzo Snow couplet (much to the dismay of tedious anti-Mormon boobs) is fully realized. Not that the Lorenzo Snow couplet is fully developed doctrine that we should feel obligated to explain or defend. It’s just something marvelous to look forward to.
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
S.P.,
When a priesthood quorum schedules a moving project for the third Saturday in a row, the Rolling Stones’ I’ll never be your beast of burden is appropriate. Or maybe When the Whip Comes Down, by the same artists.
I know a missionary who often sang AC/DC’s Back in Black in the morning when he put his suit on.
Our doctrine of multiple degrees of glory is a good fit for Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.
The definitive Mo’ song is Wierd Al’s White & Nerdy, a rip-off of Chamillionaire’s Ridin’ Dirrrty. Youtube is your friend.
The Christmas with Johnny Cash album struck me as quite the Mormon album. Some of the stuff on there sounded like it came right out of a President Monson general conference talk. I should add that despite it’s sentimentality, it also comes across as sincere and real.
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is by Tears For Fears. [I knew that. Changed! Thanks, SPB]
Do songs written by actual Mormons count? Like Low’s “I Am the Lamb”?
I’ll be back after I think about this.
Rush had a song that was supposedly written after the band toured Temple Square. (After Googling for a minute…) I think it was “Mission.” Sample lyrics: “I watch their images flicker/ Bringing light to a lifeless screen/ I walk through their beautiful buildings /And I wish I had their dreams.”
Queen: The Prophets Song
Oh Oh people of Earth
Listen to the warning
The seer he said
Beware the storm that gathers here
listen to the wise man…
Mark IV: five superb entries!
Danithew: Can you hear the man in black intone in his deep bass “hearts were touched, spirits were lifted, and joyful time was had by all.”
Susan: Sure! I see no reason to exclude songs by actual members (if the songs alone are somehow arguably Mormon…)
BTD Greg: I love it. True or not, I hope more of these song inspired by real life encounters with the church stories come out.
Lyndsey: nice!
NOFX, the Cause
“It isn’t for the money, It Isn’t for the fame…
…It’s a Plan, a Scam, A Diagram, for the benefiet of everyone, The Cause! We’re Just Doing it for the Cause!”
NOFX,”Happy Guy”
The Lyrics speak for themselves.
“He’s just a man getting through life the best he can
He’s a not a scientist, he programs a computer
Before that he sold cars to pay a student loan now he receives pity
From his family – his friends say how could he
Turn his back on reason worshipping
A God finding truth through fear and mind control
He’s just a man trying to explain how
He found the word of God could make his life seem less insane
So he shares what he’s read, what he understands, it makes
sense to him, it makes perfect sense to him, in fact
He’s never seen so clearly
Turned his back on free will – has he lost his mind?
He’d rather kneel down than take charge of his life
And he knows what people think, but it doesn’t sway him
He can read the writings on the wall
‘Cause he knows how people treat, how they treat each other
A sacrifice to benefit the all
Don’t try to judge him, his theological ideas
His hopes may be false but his happiness is real
Don’t try to judge him, he’s just a man”
Free Will by Rush. I am not sure if we really support free will, but we do like to pretend that we do.
In Yes’ epic Roundabout, the first chorus begins:
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
Even to this day it still sounds to my ear for all the world as if they are singing “Mormons come out of the sky….” I envision an eschatological reenactment of Alma at the Waters of Mormon or something like that.
I think Standards Night or For the Strength of Youth pamphlet would benefit by using my favorite lyric from the Smiths:
What she asked of me at the end of the day,
Caligula would have blushed!
Prince: 7
…There will be a new city with streets of gold
The young so educated they never grow old
*Sounds like celestial glory to me…
Pearl Jam, Faithful (Yield):
We’re faithful, we all believe, we all believe…
Is there poison rain in Salt Lake?
Portrait (He Knew) by Kansas is about Einstein, but it seems to me that it could just as easily be about Joseph Smith.
From Low’s “The Lamb”:
You go west
Where they won’t find you
With your mother’s breast
And the poison arrows
‘Cuz you see black
And I see shadows
I am the lamb
And I’m a dead man
The Waterboys have a lot:
I’ll Meet You in Heaven Again
Some say it’s over – as if there is no more
but death is not an ending – death is but a door
Some call it the end of the road – but they’ve got it all wrong
the end is a beginning
and the road is long
–
My Beautiful Guide
When the sound of the crowd gets too damn loud
and the pain all around starts pulling me down
and doubt and distress put my faith to the test
I take a deep breath
and I turn inside
to my Beautiful Guide
–
Spirit
Man seems
Spirit is
Man dreams
Spirit lives
Man is tethered
Spirit is free
What Spirit is man can be
Re: poison rain in SLC. That depends on how close you live to the Energy Solutions facility! (Not to mention precipitation during temperature inversions…)
Okay, here are some more:
“Jesus Walking on the Water” by the Violent Femmes
– This would make a nice addition to the hymnbook, I think
“Goody Goody Two Shoes” by Adam Ant
– “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?”
“Photograph” by Flock of Seagulls
– “If I had a photograph of you, or something to remind me” could be about genealogy and the hearts of the children turning to their fathers. But mostly, I just think a band named Flock of Seagulls should be adopted by Mormons.
Several years ago when my teenaged daughters would listen to the radio as we drove in the car, a song came on which I started singing to, loudly. I only knew the chorus, an inspirational one, I thought. I’m sure it would fit in with the 50 greatest Mormon pop rock songs:
“I get knocked down but I get up again,
You’re never going to keep me down;
I get knocked down but I get up again,
You’re never going to keep me down…â€(Tubthumping by Chumbawamba)
I felt it was the story of my life.
My children stared at me in horror. Turned out I didn’t know the lyrics to the rest of the song:
“Pissing the night away…
He drinks a whisky drink
He drinks a vodka drink
He drinks a lager drink
He drinks a cider drink.
Pissing the night away…â€
S.P. Bailey, due to sheer laziness, I’ve left the Christmas songs on my radioblog (songs appear in alphabetical order by artist). I will get around to changing them.
If you listen to Johnny Cash’s “Christmas As I Knew It” or “The Christmas Guest”, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Prefab Sprout on eternal marraige:
There is a door we all walk through
And on the other side I’ll meet you
Reunion in the air – A cappella meets pure prayer
Somewhere : I can’t wait to meet you there
If there ain’t a heaven that holds you tonight
They never sang doo-wop in Harlem
There is a door it may seem locked
But in a little while – Don’t be shocked
Above the noise, behind the glare
I know you’re listening out there – Somewhere
Somewhere : I can’t wait to meet you there
If there ain’t a heaven that holds you tonight
They never sang doo-wop in Harlem
–“Doo-wop in Harlem”
Should have replaced that one crappy Depeche Mode song as the official last-slow-dance anthem at proms in Utah in the early 90s…
Also, David Byrne’s “Cowboy Mambo” has a nice lesson on adversity. He meant it sardonically, but I like to take it straight. I’ve edited the naughty bits…
Green grass grows around the backyard [out]house,
And that is where the sweetest flowers bloom…
Now we are flowers growing in God’s garden,
And that is why he spreads the [ahem, adversity] around…
I am just crazy glad that RUSH is making this list a few times, both in the article and in the comments here. Perhaps I am not alone after all.
The have a new album about to come out….
The Ultimate Law of Chastity Song
Good Riddance, “Holding on”
I’ve thought it through & I think you’re right
And you’re not missing much
There’s something pure
That you can’t hold against a simple touch
So many choices and the pressure
We all bring to bear
Your strength works miracles
And touches those who try to care
I believe in you
And I hope you see it through
Your resolve is inspiration in my life
It takes alot now
So few who feel the same
When it means enough
Not to give it away now
Finding it hard
Not to think in terms of yesterday
Finding it strange
That somebody else could feel that way
It must be hard sometimes
To stand behind your chastity
And I wish that I could be the one
But it’s not me I’ll never set you free
Hold on because you’ve got alot to believe in
Well, there is the entire Sufjan Stevens oeuvre…
Some other good Low ones:
“Weight of Water”:
“Missouri”:
“Walk Into the Sea”:
Just A tidbit on the Chubawumba (a song may of us would like to forget). The wife of my bishop in my singles ward loved that song. She thought the lyric was “kissing the night away”, we couldn’t bear to break it to her.
Talking about Rush – I always liked “Freewill”
“You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
Steve, every time I listen to “Illinois” all the way through, I think that there may be obscure references to Joseph Smith and/or Nauvoo, but I can’t really pin them down.
Also, Joan Osbourne’s “One of Us”: “What if God was one of us?”
And Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars”: “Tell me all your thoughts on God, ‘cuz I’d really like to meet her.”
Greg, I keep looking for them too, but I can’t find them. I’m too busy trying to figure out what the Chickenmobile is.
I once heard a girl mistakenly sing that Chubawumba song: “I get knocked up …”
I kid you not. She was surprised when I started laughing … I had to explain to her what the problem was.
I used to DJ youth dances after my mission and everytime I played Dead Eye Dick’s “New Age Girl”, the advisors requested that I turn down the part where they say, “She don’t eat meat, but she sure likes the bone.” Funny thing, though, was that the kids would shout out the lyrics when I turned down the sound.
So much Nick Cave. For example, “Are You the One that I’ve Been Waiting For?” Consider these lyrics:
It’s almost like the guy’s read Moroni, right? At least, ripped horribly out of context, it is…
Or “Into My Arms,” which often sounds so much like a dialogue between a traditional believing Mormon and his/her newly liberal/questioning/doubting/whatever spouse:
One last example, snippets from “Get Ready for Love.”
The first segment seems just about to capture modern Mormon notions of revelation, doesn’t it? The second, with the hankie-waving, needs no comment, I hope. For the third, well, what other religion besides Mormonism makes it quite so plausible that there might be brochures that govern the heavens? A Celestial CHI?
Thinking Over by Dana Glover (who is Southern Baptist- I checked). It was never very well known, but was used in an ad for a movie. Lyrics include:
a friend of mine introduced me to Pixie’s Palace of the Brine:
I may just be partial to it ’cause hey, I grow sea monkies for my research, but it is a song that always reminds me of home.
The Cure “Primary”
I’ve always thought Supertramp’s Fool’s Overture had some LDS (or at least Christian) themes:
Rob Wells? you didn’t by chance graduate in 1996, did you?
Great thread.
Being a begrudgingly aging boomer, I’ve always liked the Who’s “Bargain” about sacrificing just about anything for love: “I’d do anything to win you, sacrifice my good life for bad…I’d stand naked, stoned, and stabbed; and call it a bargain, the best I ever had.” Could be about a woman, could be about the Savior.
Also, a gospel/county rock song by Jim Messina from Poco’s 1989 album “Legacy”, called “Look Within”.
Some of the lyrics:
“When you’re down, felling low,
and your faith don’t cut it, you’ve got no place to go.
Don’t feel sad, you’ve got a friend, look within, look within.”
Chorus:
“Within every soul, was born the seeds of need,
as in the soil of the earth they are concealed.
Prayer is the rain, that makes them all grow.
Water them well, and they shall yield.”
Pretty sure Pete Townsend has said “Bargain” is about God. I always figured he meant his own desire for God (ie, Pete is the narrator, not Christ).
I like your commentary on everlasting love. Oh and make sure the building coordinator doesn’t double book the building or in my case leaves the building locked and no one had a key.
How about “Instant Karma,” by John Lennon? “We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun….” D&C 76 anyone?
I cannot believe nobody has mentioned Love and Rockets – God and Mr. Smith. The title speaks for itself. It is an intrumental that, with lyrics is called “If There’s a Heaven Above”
Throw the world off your shoulders tonight mr. smith
Throw the world off your shoulders tonight mr. smith
He’s been looking now
For a long time
It seems the more he looks
The less he wants to see
He turned to the west
For a long time
He turned to the east
Then he turned to the west again
If there’s a heaven above
In the meantime
If there’s a heaven above
Let it be near
If there’s a heaven above
In the meantime
Then let it be near
Let it be near to me
We’ve been talking now
For a long time
It seems the more we speak
The less we seem to say
If there’s a hell below
In the meantime
Then let us shut up
Unless we want to pray
He saw everything real too clearly
So close that the bones would show
And to see everything so clearly
Isn’t always the best thing you know
If there’s a heaven above
In the meantime
If there’s a heaven above
Then let it be near
If there’s a heaven above
In the meantime
Let it be near, let it be near to me
Ahhhh
Ahhhh
Throw the world off your shoulders tonight mr. smith
Throw the world off your shoulders tonight mr. smith
Then there’s the obvious ones:
by the Doobie Brothers (which was always a little hard for me to accept when I was a kid, becuase pot and Jesus never went very well together in my mind) and
by Norman Greenbaum (I think of these lyrics every time I read Lamoni’s questions to Ammon about the Great Spirit).
It’s tempting to start thinking of all the church dance songs (Forever Young by Alphaville, Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners).
I remember wishing that someone would complain about the music I listened to so I could point them at the Truth’s “Spread A Little Sunshine” The song’s all about it’s title.
Does Depeche Mode’s Blasphemous Rumours count since I thought some of the key lyrics were “I think that God’s got a sixth sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him loving”?
I find myself going through my music collection trying to find a way to make Oingo Boingo count (Wild Sex in the Working Class just resisted all twisting to a gospel theme ;)
How about Talking Heads (Nothing but) Flowers as a metaphor for the progress of the earth to its paradisaical glory
“Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers”
Admittedly far from the expected suggestion, but nonetheless:
Tool, “Lateralus”:
“To feel inspired
To fathom the power
To witness the beauty
To bathe in the fountain
To swing on the spiral of
Our divinity and
Still be Human”
Tool, “Right in Two”:
“Angels on the sideline
Puzzled and amused
Why did Father give these humans free will
Now they’re all confused
Don’t these talking monkeys know that
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden
Silly monkeys, where there’s one they’re
Bound to divide it
Right in two…
Angels on the sideline
Baffled and confused
Father blessed them all with reason
And this is what they choose…
How they survive so misguided is a mystery
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to
Lift an eye to heaven conscious of his fleeting time here”
Tool, “Reflection”:
“And in my darkest moment
Feeble and weeping,
The moon tells me her secret
My confidant:
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own
A million light reflections
Pass over me
The Source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopless
Without Her we are lifeless satellites
Drifting
And as I pull my head out
I am without one doubt
Don’t want to stay down here
Serving my narcissism
I must crucify the ego
Before it’s far too late
I pray the light lifts me out
So crucify the ego
Before its far too late
To leave behind this place so
Negative and blind and cynical
And you will come to find
That we are all one mind
Capable of all that’s
Imagined and all conceivable”
Eric N. : I can’t wait for the new Rush! There are many of us! ;) I quoted “mission” at my missionary farewell. I’m not sure I buy the temple square story, I’d like to see a source for that tidbit, but the song sure fits…
Low also have a new album coming out called Drums and Guns that I’m excited about. Very excited.
My contribution here will be “Randy Described Eternity” by Built to Spill, one of my favorite songs of all time:
“every thousand years
this metal sphere
ten times the size of Jupiter
floats just a few yards past the earth
you climb on your roof
and take a swipe at it
with a single feather
hit it once every thousand years
`til you’ve worn it down
to the size of a pea
yeah I’d say that’s a long time
but it’s only half a blink
in the place you’re gonna be
where you gonna be
where will you spend eternity
I’m gonna be perfect from now on
I’m gonna be perfect starting now
stop making that sound
stop making that sound
I will say I forgot it
but it was only yesterday
and it’s all you had to say”
U2, One Tree Hill: “You run like river, on like a sea / You run like a river runs to the sea”
1 Ne. 2:9: “And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying: O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!”
Kristine, I certainly did. Is the N for Nielsen?
“Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin to describe how the lost tribes will descend from the north at the final battle:
Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive their ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying:
Valhalla, I am coming!
On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.
Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green,
Can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war.
We are your overlords.
On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.
So now you’d better stop and rebuild your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite all your losing.
And “Gold Rush Brides” from 10,000 Maniacs for the pioneer women:
Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairie roads. Pass the lone church spire. Pass the talking wire from where to who knows? There’s no way to divide the beauty of the sky from the wild western plains. Where a man could drift, in legendary myth, by roaming over spaces. The land was free and the price was right.
Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly. Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man’s family. I see Indians that crawl through this mural that recalls our history.
Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides? Does anybody know? Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages they wrote? The land was free, yet it cost their lives.
In miner’s lust for gold. a family’s house was bought and sold, piece by piece. A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name, so painfully. In letters mailed back home her Eastern sisters they would moan as they would read accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides? Does anybody know? Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages they wrote? The land was free, yet it cost their lives.
Rob–Yes! you should email me–kristine dot nielson at gmail dot com
on this note, I’d like to add “It’s a small, small world” to the list :)