Mister Faded Glory #1: Growing Up With Christian Rock
“My first brush with creating anything related to music was something that can only be described as a ‘religious Weird Al Yankovic’ ripoff,” he continued, with a raspy chuckle. “I’d take popular songs and mutate them with christian lyrics. Same cadence, same rhyme scheme, but with an entirely wholesome religious message. The easiest were love songs, of course. God and lovers are so easily transposed.”
“Why Christian lyrics?” the reported asked, her voice reflecting genuine curiosity and ignorance. The notion of Taylor Jansen writing anything religious seemed downright impossible.
“Hmm. Simple, it’s all I knew. Secular music was, as you’d expect, a tool wrought by the devil’s own hands,” Taylor said, dripping with sarcasm. “Perverting youth! Causing suicides, rebellion, and debauchery! The world needed more christian rock.”
Taylor smirked, took another deep drag from his Camel, and continued.
“You know, I often passed them off as originals and my family was none the wiser. I mean, they were original words, but not remotely original songs. I’d sing the altered lyrics to myself with the original melody, but emulate Michael W. Smith, Stryper, or Petra. Even recorded them on this monstrous boombox. Somewhere — hopefully in a landfill — there are a few Maxell XL-II cassettes with real high potential for embarrassment.”
He leaned in, eyes shifting left to recall a memory. “Also, remind me to tell you about the Amy Grant mock rock. If you wanna hear it. I played a mean broom guitar. Kim played a Wurlitzer. Heh, Wurlitzer. What an amazing name.”
Taylor paused and started to scribble something into the air.
“I even had a fake label for my fake music: ‘Honor By Father Music.’ The logo was just a simple pencil sketch of a child looking up into the sky with a single ray of light cracking open the heavens and illuminating the path ahead. There was probably a massive cross in the background.”
Taylor visibly collected his thoughts, then shook his head as if in disbelief of his own memories.
“We place an incredible amount of trust in the people who raise us, don’t we? We rely on them to tell us these universal truths, give us a moral compass, protection, growth, education, survival. I’ve always wondered if that isn’t a massive mistake. After all, how long do they perpetuate the whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny lie? How many other lies and mistruths seep into our daily childhood lives? How have they irrevocably shaped our ideals and our daily lives? How we interact with every single person around us?
“When we’re young, we accept the reality we’re presented with. Expose us to evil with a smile and a loving embrace and we might embrace evil without a second guess. Teach us that blue is actually red and we’ll defend it with every breath until finally deciphering the illusion so many years later.”
The journalist glanced at her voice recorder, triple checking that it had enough battery. Then she quietly set a second phone on the oak table between them and opened its sound recorder app, implementing an increasingly necessary contingency plan. She couldn’t take any chances.
“It’s not just the voluntary campaigns of misinformation that are the problem. It’s the fact that our parents have the power to shield us from certain layers of reality, with varying degrees of success.”
Beads of sweat started to materialize on Taylor’s forehead and his voice gained a few decibels from the enthusiasm.
“One such reality was the mysterious, dirty world of secular music,” he said. “Instead of me graduating from Raffi or Barney to Michael Jackson, I graduated from Psalty The Singing Songbook to Michael W. Smith and Petra, until my thirst for ‘harder-edged’ rock eventually led me to discover stuff like White Heart, Stryper and P.O.D.
“I’ll never know if the bands that dominated eardrums as a teenager were meticulously crafted clones of existing platinum-selling secular successes, or… there were just that many religious musicians unwilling to dip their toes into the secular waters and forcibly limit their audience and chances of exposure? I suspect the former. If you couldn’t listen to AC/DC, just swap in X-Sinner. Not allowed to indulge in Metallica? Go buy some Deliverance.
“One thing was certain: They couldn’t use sexual energy to their advantage like the David Lee Roths of the world, or extol the mind-altering benefits of drugs. But they could sure as hell tap into our proclivity for violence, inviting us along for an epic God versus Satan hate-fest.”
The journalist thought about her brief brush with Jesus music and said “They weren’t all like that, though. I remember it being so much…tamer.”
“True!” Taylor exclaimed. “Other Christian musicians tried to usher in more positivity and less fire and brimstone. The Michael W. Smiths and Amy Grants of the world, opting for a blend of pop-tinged worship songs with lyrics designed to inspire, heal, facilitate worship. I don’t fault them for that. But they were so much worse in retrospect.”
She tossed Taylor a quizzical look.
“See, I needed to feel something deeper when I listened. On a superficial level, sure, I guess the music was good. The quality was there, the production values. They were talented. It delivered that adrenaline rush sometimes, that rock and roll surge that catapulted you into another world, and caused instinct to override all those annoying internal filters governing things like appearance and self-control. But the mellower stuff? One dimensional bullshit.
“Something inside was nagging at me, these ephemeral bursts of insight. Hinting that music should allow you to feel a wider range of emotions. Rage. Regret. Anguish. Lust. I hadn’t really discovered those yet, but I knew they existed. I couldn’t articulate any of this back then, but it must be why I did everything in my power to explore that certain layer of reality I’d been so carefully shielded from.”
Taylor’s effusive and philosophical ranting gave way to a prolonged silence.
“So, how old were you exactly when you aspired to be the Weird Al of Christian Rock?” she asked, failing to contain a playful laugh.
In jarring contrast to her air of playfulness, Taylor’s facial muscles tensed, conveying utter seriousness. “I was 12. And I think I was already going crazy.”
