Noise and Sounds: The Drums – Portamento: (Not) A Sing Along
I, your pastor of Noise and Sounds, am going to start a monthly blog series in 2012. I’m going to exercise my ‘Music Pastor’ muscles and talk about music, theology, and whatever. What I’m not going to do is post about Christian bands making ‘Christian Music’ because if that’s the way they approach it it’s probably going to suck. I also won’t be posting cool music trying to show that I am cool and I’m a Christian and Christians are cool and they’re relevant and you-should-be-one-too.
Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to talk about whatever the hell I want and it might have to do with music, theology, Mosaic, or not. I’ll try not to say stupid stuff all the time.
For today what I’ll do is talk about one of my favorite records of the last few months: Portamento by The Drums. Their last album was one of my favorite indie-pop albums, like, ever. This one is ever indie-poppier. What caught my interest the most, however, was the opening track, The Book of Revelation.
As some of you know, I spent much of my time in Seminary studying apocalyptic literature, theological anthropology, and the Book of Revelation. Chase Roden and I taught a Revelation class a couple of years ago, and I think it is absolutely my favorite text ever written. It is not, as many seem to think, a timeline telling us what the end of the world will be like. It is so much more beautiful than that, and so much more powerful. It is an epic letter of encouragement to some desperate people who were being killed because of their faith in Christ.
Back to music; I remember back in high school when The Smashing Pumpkins’ classic Melloncollie and the Infinite Sadness was released. They played the song Zero a lot on the alternative stations. During the breakdown there’s a line where Corgan whines ‘God is empty, just like MEEEEEEE’. I love singing along to my favorite songs, but was always quiet during that line. It was so hard for me to say those words.
Well, The Book of Revelation chorus so catchily says ‘Well I’ve seen the world and there’s no heaven and there’s no hell/And I believe that when we die we die/So let me love you tonight.’ At first I thought the same thing, I can’t sing this! Then, after some calculated thought I decided that maybe I could.
I do allow for a Christian faith which states that heaven is not necessarily a place we get to go when we die. Instead, the hope of the New Testament Christian is physical resurrection in the new heaven and new earth (see Book of Revelation 21). Heaven is, instead, the place where God lives. Also, it has been clear for millennia that some Christians do not believe in a ‘hell’ with fire and brimstone and eternal damnation and all that business. Some believe that all will ultimately be ‘saved’ (whatever that means), and many believe that when you die you die, unless you are granted ‘eternal life’ at the resurrection.
I would probably fall into the latter camp, at least from a Biblical perspective. Here’s a paper I wrote in Seminary that shows you what I thought about the subject several years ago, someone please read it and remind me what I think about that.
After thinking about all of this, I don’t have a problem singing along to the Drums sometimes now. I have a feeling that we are singing these lyrics for different reasons though, as the singer is using the lack of an afterlife as an excuse for copulation. I can only agree, however, with lots of theological gymnastics and caveats. Either way, listen to Portamento and listen loud, sing along if you like.