- I will be writing up my thoughts on the power metal trio in a separate post. Stay tuned. -
Call me Diesel. One day ago - never mind how long precisely - having listened to the latest round of the GMSC while driving to and from work, and having been given a brain-wrinkle by one of the contestants, I thought I would write a bit about my thoughts on it. It is a way I have of driving off my depression and regulating my day off from work. Whenever I find myself obsessing over something in my head; whenever it is a bright and sunny September day and I don’t have enough to complain about in my life; whenever I find that Judas and Knick are having a disagreement on lyrics in metal, such that they go on for a full extra page on it; and especially whenever I feel I have far too many thoughts in my head to just keep them there - then, I account it high time to get to writing them down as soon as I can. This is my substitute for doing something useful with my life. With a philosophical flourish LC throws himself into a game; I quietly take to posting. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards posting on a Maiden fan forum with me. The only surprising thing is how much worse my essay writing abilities are compared with Perun.
Having taken the previous day to read through all the posts on Theocracy and its lyrics, I feel I have a little something to add myself. This post is not intended as a response, per se, as much of it I was thinking of before I’d even read the back-and-forth primarily between Judas and Knick, but I will quote any posts I feel I have something to add to, disagree with, or which segue with my own points. My purpose with this post is, to be clear, not to criticize Theocracy on the basis of their religious lyrics. I feel that Theocracy are actually just a good springboard to discuss something larger than they are.
My goal with this post is to lay out my thoughts on the following: 1.) Lyrics in metal, and how they are used. 2.) Christian lyrics, and how they are used. 3.) Theocracy’s “I Am”, and where it stands between the aforementioned points.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
I. Lyrics in metal.
Let’s be honest: the majority of lyrics fucking suck.
Heavy metal was basically founded by a group who sang about weird sleep paralysis moments, rhymed “masses” with “masses”, and wrote love songs about weed. Objectively, Black Sabbath’s early lyrics leave a lot to be desired, but emotionally these songs connected with people. If they were a little clumsy, the heavy guitar balanced it out. And frankly, I enjoy “Sweet Leaf” a lot,
because it’s so silly and simple and played so straight. Not because it’s good, but because it’s ridiculous.
There is something about a simple lyric that is perfectly connected to its music that will drive it home to you. You can look at our collective favorite band, Iron Maiden, and see how simply a song like “The Trooper” is constructed:
You’ll take my life, but I’ll take yours, too.
You’ll fire your musket, but I’ll run you through;
So when you’re waiting for the next attack,
You’d better stand - there’s no turning back.
Steve Harris is certainly no Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose “Charge of the Light Brigade” inspired “The Trooper”. Steve’s poem is simple and straight forward, with an AABB rhyme scheme. Compare that opening stanza to Tennyson’s:
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
- Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
- Rode the six hundred.
There’s something about the way Tennyson has structured the rhymes, the words, the syllables, and the pauses, that you get the sense of the gallop of horses, the frantic nature of the charge, and the fatal end staring the soldiers in their faces, just by reading this poem. You don’t even have to see it or hear it, but you can
feel it.
So Steve doesn’t replicate this. What he does that’s cool, though, is completely shift the perspective of the narrative. When you read “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, you’re immersed in how these characters are fighting a hopeless battle. But when you’re listening to “The Trooper”, you yourself are fighting this battle, and you yourself are faced with merciless death coming at you from all sides. The lyrics are simple and straightforward, but it still hits you hard. You feel the bravado and the valour as you charge into the battlefield, and you feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins, and you feel the last gaps of breath and your life comes to a close by the end. And this is all underscored by Steve ability to accompany his ‘poem’ with
music, which also simulates the adrenaline and the galloping of horses and the excitement and danger staring you in the face. And that’s when the AABB rhyme scheme, simple though it is, clicks for you; because its simple nature adds a slight poetic flair to the narrative. You
can be a badass soldier
and a literary scholar at the same time!
And not all lyrics have to be simple. Some are much more poetic and more laboriously placed together. I think Bruce Dickinson has always been a little better about this than Steve. The whole
Chemical Wedding album is a really good example of melding poetry and metal into one sonic force that you can totally rock out to, but will also leave you thinking about the words and what they mean for countless hours. Steve often gives me vibes of just jotting down the first thing he can think of, all structures be damned. For instance:
You dance on the graves who bled for us.
Do you really think they’ll come for us?
Do graves bleed now? Who’s coming for us - the graves??
BUT. What song do people constantly bring up when you ask them what their favorite Iron Maiden song is? More often than not, the mystically religious “Revelations” and the contemplation of control that is “Powerslave” are far outweighed by those who cite the also existential but much more simple “Hallowed Be Thy Name”.
Into the abyss I fall, the eye of Horus is powerful and fun to think about, but people connect to
Waiting in my cold cell, as the bell begins to chime a lot more. Steve succeeds as a lyricist because he can fully craft an image inside people’s heads that they can connect to. (And we don’t have to get into the plagiarism arguments right now.)
Now so far we’ve gotten into the serious approaches to lyric writing, one more simple, and one more poetic. But we also have to talk about silly lyrics - the ridiculous ones. And Maiden have had a few of those (all of
No Prayer for the Dying, pretty much). But when I think of silly lyrics in metal, I think my mind goes towards Mercyful Fate and Manowar more right now, particularly since they’re more applicable within the GMSC right now.
When I listen to a Mercyful Fate song, the lyrics are helping to paint the music for me. The blazing dual guitar already brings a hellish atmosphere, but the lyrics, often about Satan, work with underscoring that. When King Diamond sings an oath about worshiping Satan, I’m on board, because it’s incredibly ridiculous and yet being sung so straight, yet orchestrated with some of the most intense and amazing guitar work I’ve ever heard. And when he’s singing about a ‘curse of the pharaohs’, it’s some really shitty poetics, but affective in giving across the campy atmosphere that I really enjoy about the song.
Away out in Egypt in the Valley of Kings,
Where the mummified pharaohs
Pretend dead in their sleep, yeah;
Well, don’t touch, never ever steal
(Unless, you’re in for the kill),
Or you’ll be hit by the Curse of the Pharaohs!
Yes, you’ll be hit; and the Curse is on you!
It’s dumb, but effective, campy in all the right ways I want my silly metal to be. Manowar, on the other hand, outline a silliness in metal that is not for me at all, and is mostly just dumb. Sure, I can laugh about how
The gods made heavy metal, and they saw that it was good, but I kinda draw the line at
May your sword stay wet, like a young girl in her prime… yuckkkk. And the song currently in play during this round, “Brothers of Metal, Pt. 1”, is a good example of how much I hate when metal bands sing about being metal. I listen to metal to listen to metal, not hear people sing about how I’m listening to metal. Just be metal and stop overcompensating, noob! This song is dumb and I will not be voting for it.
I feel like this discussion kind of opens to the door to discuss the lyrics of the other songs in this current round, too. I won’t go through all of them, but I’ll do a few highlights of which ones I don’t like, and which ones I do.
I like the lyrics to “The Wizard” in the context of the song. Something about, as Judas called it, the “stupid hippie crap” really fits the vibe of the song and moreover makes me enjoy it. They’re far from good, I mean
Me and my magic man kind of feeling fine is dumb as fuck, but they fit the vibe of the song in relation to its music. It’s the kind of simple song you could get high to, and that’s what makes me enjoy it.
I like the lyrics to “Fallen” in the context of the larger story they’re telling. It’s not a mind-blowing story, but coupled with the music the narrative really hits hard. The original person who unleashed horrors by mirroring his own image and playing god within the song itself, realizing his mistake in the final bridge, is powerful shit. It’s another case where things are simple and straight-forward, yet the narrative grips you, mostly because you’ve got Russell Fucking Allen on vocals.
Conversely, I hate the lyrics to “Wrong Side of Heaven”. Here you have a song that’s so simple that it just rings hollow. I hate the macho vibes of FFDP in general, and I just genuinely couldn’t figure out what the song was trying to say without looking it beyond “I’m not just a tough guy, I have emotions, too”. Sure, the music video may be powerful, but the song itself is just… whatever. There’s nothing in these lyrics that makes me want to dig in, and nothing in the music that will keep me there after the lyrics have already failed me. And one thing that kind of gets me is the way they call God a ‘she’ in this song. Not because I’m offended that God wouldn’t be called He like in the Bible; in fact, I really like the concept of a female God in a creative, countercultural way. But that’s the thing, nothing about this song feels creative or countercultural. Calling God ‘she’ here just feels like a cheap win for Five Finger Dip Shits to pat themselves on the back. It’s not a terrible song, it just bores the shit out of me and has nothing deeper going on to warrant it being here.
So let me finish this section by saying that, yes, lyrics are very important to me as a listener and consumer of music. No, that doesn’t mean that I need every line to be mind-blowingly complex or something; I just want there to be some meat there for me to latch onto. Whether that’s via an interesting narrative, or through simple lyrics simply connecting with the music, I want the songs I listen to and sing along to to have something worth listening to and singing along to. Lyrics can’t make or break a song by themselves, but bad lyrics that do not connect via the music will absolutely dampen my appreciation of a song.
II. Christian lyrics.
This year when I flew to Germany, I visited a couple churches that are dramatically different from each other. The first was the
Freiberger Dom, an Evangelical-Lutheran church in Freiberg, Saxony. Freiberg is where my mom grew up, so it’s effectively my German home; and thus, I’ve been in the Dom several times over the years, whether touring it or actively participating in it. Some years ago we attended a Christmas Eve service that was absolutely packed; this trip we listened to an incredible organ concert that was so loud that it felt like the building was shaking. Closing your eyes focusing solely on the music, it felt like you were in the midst of a tempest, not on land or sea, but within a magnificient and angelic fight over the battlefields of heaven itself. To me, the organ is a fantastic instrument that pretty much encapsules an entire orchestra into a bunch of pipes.
The interior of the church almost goes hand-in-hand with this. I actually have some picture that I took this trip to show you what it looks like:
This is the perspective when you stand in the front of the church and look towards the back, where the massive organ stares up at you on the second floor, as though it represents all of Heaven in one giant musical instrument. You can’t see them too clearly here, but the pillars are adorned each with a member of the Ten Virgins/Bridesmaids from one of Jesus’s famous parables. Five of them are happy, having had enough oil to last through the night; and five are mournful, and their lamps have gone out. Elsewhere in the church you’ll find a few different portrayals of Jesus, one of which I personally found to be scarier in a way than most horror films. Here’s a picture I found online:
I mean, this is like a straight-up Slayer album cover, no? Basically what I’m trying to get at is that the impressions that I get when I stand inside of this church are 1) that it’s incredibly metal as fuck, and 2) that Christianity is a mixture of majesty, but also of suffering. It’s a Serious Matter, and you need to face this suffering head-on to avoid the eternal suffering you will find should you avoid it.
The other church I visited this year was the
Dresdner Frauenkirche, a Lutheran church in Dresden, Saxony. We walked inside, and a man at the front stood at a podium and gave us a little introduction to the Frauenkirche, telling us that he wishes us not a life free from suffering or from pain, but one filled with mercy and grace. The Dom is the kind of church that I can really wander around in and try to take in every little detail, because there’s just so much that’s going on in their interior. Conversely, the Frauenkirche, to me, has one singular spectacle instead of many, and that’s the display at the very front of the church. Here’s a picture I took of it:
I mean, how amazing is that? My mom and I actually got into a bit of a discussion about it. Her argument was that this display, while cool, is so grandiose that it’s almost like an idol, taking away your mind from God and onto human achievements. I disagreed; to me, this is almost like a little glimpse into the majesty of Heaven, and if us mere mortals can craft such a beautiful work of art, then how much greater must Heaven actually be?
Basically, my impressions of the Frauenkirche were that 1) this is also metal as fuck, but in a very different way, and 2) that Christianity is a mixture of majesty, and of beauty. The glory of God must be absolutely breathtaking, and if imperfect creatures such as us can actually have a relationship with a being of that magnitude, then we are incredibly blessed to be given such an opportunity.
Okay. So what the hell do these two churches even have to do with the object at hand? Basically I wanted to mention them to showcase that people have differening approaches to how they illustrate Christianity to themselves and to others. For some, the dominant feature is the suffering. Jesus came and bled and died for you. His death was gruesome so that you might live for eternity with him. Get that through your skull! For others, the dominant feature is the beauty. There is a being who created you, who loves you, who controls everything, and he wants to have a relationship with you. How incredible is that!
I am not critiquing either of those approaches, and what I’ve outlined here is a very small example that is in no way representative of all Christians and their beliefs. There are so many ways to engage in Christianity and to be a Christian. And I think that both these ways are valid in their own right; on the way hand, it is incredible that Jesus had to suffer so much to save a sinner like me; on the other hand, it is incredible that God is so loving that he would actively want to bring an ant like me into his kingdom. Both views are valid, and both views can coexist.
But there’s just one problem. I’m an atheist.
I grew up in a Baptist church. I know most of the Bible like it’s just basic world history. I’ve heard the arguments, I’ve heard the counter-arguments. And still I just don’t believe. I think a lot of this is pagentry, I think that religion was created for two primary reasons: 1) To control others, which is what I have seen firsthand in my country and which I sorely despise. 2) To help individuals find a sense of security and peace of mind. The second reason I have no issue with. It’s hard to be a human, and if religion helps you, then by all means, embrace it. I’m the kind of person who is filled with doubts and anxieties and depression and fears. In my darker moments I have also had to just get in touch with the universe around me, as though I speak to God in my own way. The logical part of my brain knows that he likely isn’t out there, but it can be comforting at times just to talk within myself to something greater that doesn’t exist but within my head.
What I’ve found most interesting since becoming an atheist is that I feel more in touch with Jesus than I ever did while I was a Christian. When I went to church and to a Christian private school, all of this was basically just history, stuff I had to know. And I love history, it’s always been my favorite subject in school and I still get caught up in Wikipedia deep dives. But I learn history both because it’s fun and because it relates to our future in a way. Y’know, learn from the past so you don’t repeat it, etc. And that’s basically what the Bible was. This is history, it’s stuff that’s already happened, it’s stuff that’s real. Okay. Noted. I believe it.
But did I
experience it? Did I
connect with it? Not really. It wasn’t until that whole foundation disintegrated that I’ve actually been able to
understand it. To me, Jesus has become a greater person in my mind than back when I thought he was my God. Of course I view it now through a more fictional lens, but he feels closer to me now than he ever did. I think it’s because now I know that I can criticize him and not just bow before him. In that way, he and I have built up a rather good relationship together. It feels like we’re friends now.
I know I’m getting sidetracked here, but I feel like laying all my cards down on the table makes sense given where I’m about to be going forward in this post. Because now that we’ve discussed how Christianity has differing ways of viewing and experiencing it, we can discuss one specific aspect of being a Christian that is pertinent to this discussion: worship.
Why do we sing about and to God? There’s a few different ways, and I’d like to tackle three. The first takes us back to the Freiberger Dom. We sing about God to explore the suffering he went through to give us that eternal life in the first place. Here’s a song that illustrates this point:
It’s a simple track that progresses forward in a ballad-like structure. The verses detail how great God is, but the chorus clinches it by detailing how Jesus suffered, thinking of us “above all”. I still get chills listening to this song; it’s beautifully emotional. 10/10, for real.
The second is one that embraces the majesty of God. “Above All” does that in a way, but here’s another that, maybe doesn’t showcase how powerful God is as God, but how powerful God is as he moves through us:
It’s another ballad-type track, and another song I still love a lot. There’s a lady in the church my family goes to who absolutely blows everyone out the water every time she sings it. Whenever she’s on stage you can feel that full power of God moving through her. Another 10/10, for real.
Of course I also have to mention the classic hymn “Amazing Grace”, which is a simple but powerful song about how majestic God is that he can “save a wretch like me”. Classic for a reason, kind of the “Hallowed Be Thy Name” of Christian songs.
But as good as these two approaches may be, I think that the most powerfully emotional way to sing about and to God is one that eschews the soft piano and teary eyes for something that just makes you want to jump up and down. Let me give you a couple of examples:
This was always one of my favorites when I was younger. There’s something about the simple refrains throughout this song that just works as the music keeps building. I mean, it’s so simple, right? It’s based around Isaiah 40:31, which is already a beautiful passage talking about how God will lift us up on wings like eagles, and the way this song just keeps coming back around is fantastic. This Chris Tomlin version is good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to watching a worship team play it faster, with everyone singing along and each musician exploding within to create their sound.
But I’ve got an even better example, and for that I will turn to none other than the greatest piece of Christian media ever… VeggieTales! Yeah, I’m bringing out the fucking VeggieTales. Just listen to this song and tell me it isn’t an incredible piece of music:
Of course this song uses a gospel choir, which is already different from the more white-washed Protestants of my youth. In general I find that white people take this shit more seriously than most of the black people I’ve met. The latter are always in tune with the sermon, with the music, and they have
fun with it.
What I’m trying to say is, you gotta have some fucking JOY for Christ’s sake! Maybe I’m just too much like my namesake who danced as the Ark of the Covenant was being marched into Israel, but I think the most powerful way of looking at Christianity is simply that: 1) God is a magnificent being far beyond our mortal understanding that wants to have a relationship with small creatures such as us; 2) to do so, he came down and suffered the worst death imaginable so that we might live forever with him; 3) and THEREFORE, celebrate it! Make a
joyful noise unto the Lord! It doesn’t matter if you can or can’t sing, if you can or can’t play an instrument, it’s the fact that you’re leaping to worship God with the joy within your heart that makes all the difference.
So now I hope I’ve outlined what aspects I like about Christian music. Of course the metalhead in me enjoys embracing the suffering; the wide-eyed child of wonder still within me embraces the majesty; but neither are worth much if we cannot embrace the joy that is within us too. And I hope that now you also know that I am not coming from a place of hating Christian messages in music just because they’re Christian, because, while I don’t often seek out Christian songs, there are quite a few that I love, particularly ones that I grew up with as a kid and still can get me feeling and/or moving.
So, with all that out of the way, let’s finally bring this all home to the song in question: Theocracy’s “I Am”.
III. Theocracy’s “I Am”.
In 2018, a film was released called
I Can Only Imagine, an adaptation of the story behind MercyMe’s 2001 contemporary Christian hit of the same name. My family loves this film, my mom in particular, but watching it I was really struck primarily by two things: 1) I mean, nice story, but it’s not at all what really happened; and 2) this is a boring fucking song. I mean, seriously. Even the song it was paired with on the single, “Word of God Speak”, is 10x better than “I Can Only Imagine”. Sure, it’s emotive enough, but it just doesn’t do anything for me, certainly not compared to the [heavily altered] story behind it featured in the film.
Surrounded by Your glory -
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You, Jesus,
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence,
Or to my knees, will I fall?
Will I sing, “Hallelujah!”?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine… I can only imagine…
On paper it’s nice enough, but nothing about the music stirs any emotions in me. I’ve heard this song sung at a funeral before, too, and it was even worse then.
This is the problem I face with a lot of Christian songs: they try to be emotive, but end up feeling incredibly basic and hollow. The lyrics are simple and straightforward, and get shot in the knees by the similarly basic and straightforward music. And they lack any and all
joy. It's like you're
thinking about how awesome God is, but you're not
feeling it, you're not
experiencing it.
So now we come to Theocracy’s “I Am”. Well, the music is more interesting than “I Can Only Imagine”, sure, but there’s literally only one point in this song that connected with me, and that’s the chorus. It’s the one moment where I could glimpse the majesty of Heaven just as I did in the Frauenkirche. And it only comes up twice in an eleven minute song. Ouch.
Okay then, what about the suffering? Well, starting in the final stretch when the singer sings
I am humility, the one who laid it all aside, I was really starting to connect with the song at last, feeling in touch with Jesus as he made the greatest sacrifice. But then it just kept dragging on and increasing in blander ways (
Your hero in these bloodstained pages) and I lost touch with it again.
So much for the suffering and the majesty. What about the joy?
Still looking.
Still looking.
Damn, this song is emptier than the goddamn tomb.
Look, I appreciate the approach these guys took, but it just does not connect with me at all. It’s incredibly repetitive, all those “I am…” statements come flashing at you as though they’re trying to meet a quota, and there wasn’t a single moment where it finally clicked. At best, they were just lyrics. At worst, there were moments where I was rolling my eyes (
I am [...] the promise of Israel… also, frankly, if you have to say
I am humility, I don’t think that you… are humility). The two moments I liked were emphatically not where the song decided to either peak, or cycle back around to. And the sad thing is, I actually like the idea of what this song could have been, just not at all in its execution.
Because they could’ve still brought things together if the music was any good. But for fuck’s sake, this singer is annoying as shit. It really feels like they grabbed a random worship leader and put him in front of the mic. He’s a competent worship leader, sure, but this is supposed to be
goddamn metal, and he’s got all of the
god without any of the
damn metal.
The voice was an instant turn off for me, and the Dream Theater wannabe musical side didn’t help either. I’m not a big Dream Theater fan; they have a few songs I like but a lot of their ideas are dragged down also by a lackluster singer and a lot of bloat. This song checks those boxes too, but I’d still rather listen to
Images and Words in full than “I Am”.
Finally, the production. Sterile. Lifeless. Boring. Pass.
So yeah, this song didn’t connect with me lyrically, but even moreso it didn’t connect with me musically, either. I get why Judas submitted it, I get why others voted for it, but it just isn’t for me. Not because the lyrics are too preachy (even though - despite being based on literature thousands of years old - they are not for me either), but because the song as a whole is not what I want from both metal or Christian music.
And I think Judas said it himself when he said (I’m paraphrasing here) that these lyrics are just too on-the-nose in general. It’s just serious and straight-forward Bible quoting. As Jer succinctly put it, it’s “just a circle jerk for people who are already believers”.
I want to feel something, whether it’s the suffering, the majesty, or the joy of knowing Jesus. All I feel about “I Am” is boredom. 5/10.
So I’ll be voting for
Firewind, whose song “Hate World Hero” has worse lyrics than “I Am” does (oh my god, if you have to say “I’m a hero!” then you’re obviously not a fucking hero!!!), but has a really good chorus with a nice ‘80s/’90s pop feel feel. The vocalist kinda sounds like Blackie Lawless, but the music throws my mind back to another Christian song, “Place in This World” by Michael W. Smith, which is a great early ‘90s Christian ballad that I really like. It’s about… well, here’s the chorus:
I’m looking for a reason, roaming through the night
To find my place in this world, my place in this world
Not a lot to lean on, I need your light to help me find
My place in this world, my place in this world
Anyway, my place in this world is not in voting for “I Am”. Thousand year old books be damned.
Addendum
I hope the last section doesn’t come off as more harsh than I intended it to, I just figured being blunt would be better than sugar-coating it. Overall I just thought that this discussion was super interesting, Theocracy gave me a lot of thoughts I wanted to write about, and I felt like adding to the conversation with this post.
The final thing I do want to mention is that I disagree with those who said that people should keep politics and religion etc out of music. I think that music is a great way to channel your beliefs and your opinions, especially when it comes to politics and religion. Some of the most powerful songs are ones that took a stand, I mean why else does Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” still resonate with us? Why else does punk still grip us through its simplistic but bold manner? Why else do I enjoy Steve Harris talking about how religion is used for destruction in “For the Greater Good of God”?
But just as I think people should put all of themselves into their lyrics, I can also criticize lyrics, for whatever reason I choose. Whenever I listen to a song, lyrics hold just as much weight as production, as the vocals, as the individual instruments. It’s part of what makes up a song, it’s part of what holds it together. It’s part of why I love the music I love, and dislike the music I don’t. So hopefully my ramblings provided some additional thoughts in this discussion, and I look forward to the next round in the GMSC!
00 sounds way more creative though. It really sounded like they recorded in a cave, and the way the vocals kept shifting was super cool. Might have to check these guys out proper.
