Jesus, etc.: 5 Songs on the Existence of God

This week's songs are from Etta James, Cameron Winter, Good Looks, Joe Pug, and Bon Iver

Note: I put 90% of this together before Pope Francis died on Monday, making the theme of this a little more topical than I expected…

Easter and Passover were observed this past weekend. One commemorates the resurrection central to Christian belief; the other, the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, marked by a deadly plague. They reflect two profoundly different expressions of divine intervention: grace, judgment, rebirth, and retribution. Both stories serve as evidence of God’s existence to believers—yet they sketch radically different portraits of what God is, what God does, and how (or whether) that God intervenes in human lives. It’s an interesting contrast, especially with so many people around the world reflecting on these stories within a matter of days. But this isn’t a theology seminar, so let’s move right along to the music.

It goes without saying that there’s a lot of religious music out there. Most of it not at all concerned with questioning God’s existence or parsing doctrine. A prerequisite to making much of it listenable is that the above is taken as fact. Instead, its job is to inspire awe, to emphasize divine greatness, to present itself as something so transcendent and moving that only a God could have inspired it. The hit rate on that music being genuinely compelling? Pretty low. On the one hand, you have Handel’s Messiah; on the other you have church songs, which are often bland on purpose, and Christian rock, which is bland on accident.

But as pop music matured in the latter half of the 20th century, aspiring to high art and addressing more serious subject matter, music became a more risk-tolerant medium. Songwriters started interrogating the self, the state of the world, and ultimately, ideas like morality and faith. More often than we realize, secular music—pop music—is quite comfortable with addressing the God question. Artists working within folk traditions create new fables, using Biblical imagery or retelling its stories. Singer-songwriters explore and express their own beliefs. Others use the idea of God as something to take stock of the condition of the world, looking to hold someone accountable. And then there is also Gospel music, which despite being a church-based genre, informed much of R&B and remains a foundational influence on rock and roll.

Here are 5 songs that interrogate the idea of God and belief.

“Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy
Just waiting until the part where they start to believe
They're at the center of everything
And some all powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning” - Father John Misty

Etta James - “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)” (Randy Newman Cover)

I recently read A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, which does a fantastic job of reminding you not only how brilliant a songwriter Randy Newman is, but also how gifted a satirist he was. Like, put him up there with Mark Twain. I spent a lot of time in his catalog while reading and what really stands out is how sharp his aim is at America’s (and the world’s) ills, and how he can also shade in the nuances of the subject, and yet still be so economical with his words. A large portion of his catalog is sadly as relevant today as it was 50+ years ago. There’s an odd reassurance in knowing how these aren’t necessarily new problems, but they’re woven into the fabric. I suppose the reassurance comes from Newman’s unassailable moral clarity, which was there then, and forever since.

A decent songwriter can write a song that challenges the faith of believers, or one that questions why a just God would allow such human suffering, or confront humanity with its own foolishness and cruelty, often inflicted in the name of religion. Newman is able to do all three at once, in under 250 words. Newman’s original recording is a funeral march, primarily from the perspective of God dismissing the pleas from humans seeking relief from violence, cruelty, and disasters they’ve likely brought upon themselves. The framing allows Newman to have it both ways—God exists, but human misery is self-inflicted, and so pervasive that God can’t understand why anyone would still believe in one. Where Newman spread his disappointment around equally, James takes God to task, particularly as she hits the final passage:

I burn down your cities, how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say, 'How blessed are we?'
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me

Newman considers James’ version among his favorites of any covers of his material. “It took some courage because the song is pretty rough for the community she comes from. And her version really takes God on more than mine does. I didn’t hit him hard at all.”

“If I upset you, don't stress
Never forget that God isn't finished with me yet
I feel his hand on my brain
When I write rhymes, I go blind and let the Lord do his thing
But am I less holy
'Cause I choose to puff a blunt and drink a beer with my homies?” - 2Pac

Cameron Winter - “$0”

Cameron Winter is the lead singer of the gonzo art-/post-punk band Geese. Their first album was like Television’s Marquee Moon on acid. The second was an interesting genre hop into country-soul that brings to mind the more-is-more excess of Exile On Main St….also with a touch of psychedelia. While genres and song structures slam up against one another, the loose thread holding it all together is Winter’s rubber-band voice. That voice is the lead instrument on his first solo album, Heavy Metal, which came out earlier this year.

Even as their two prior albums are very different from one another, Heavy Metal stands in stark contrast to both. It reminds me a little bit of early TV on the Radio, in that the instrumentation throughout feels scotch-taped together. It’s sloppy and pure intuition, like a toddler’s artwork—and I mean that in the best way. Put it on the fridge. The singer in “$0” sounds like the inner monologue from someone who knows and loves themself, but finds they are in terrible company, and desperate to get out; or maybe the trip they’re on took a turn for the worse—or both. That is, until they reach an epiphany:

God is real
I'm not kidding
God is actually real
I'm not kidding this time I think God
is actually for real God is real
God is actually real God is real
I wouldn't joke about this
I'm not kidding this time

It’s that sort of lucid, yet stream-of-conscious; intimate, yet seemingly uncontrolled rambling, that makes Winter so compelling.

“Every time I take a look inside that old and fabled book
I'm blinded and reminded of the pain caused by some old man in the sky” - Sturgill Simpson

Good Looks - “If It’s Gone”

I’ve been trying to find a way to weave a Good Looks song into one of these for a while. Chatting with a friend about Cameron Winter earlier this week, the connection—both artists declaring their religious beliefs—dawned on me and here we are. Is it Next-generation Dad-rock? Maybe. Definitely, maybe. The album cover for Lived Here For a While is a snapshot of what you should be looking at while listening to it: the back of someone else’s fence. You’re in your yard having a great time, probably annoying those neighbors over there with slightly-too-loud, but inoffensive good-ass Dad Rock.

Another song on the album seems more concerned with our collective fate on the day of judgment, with the hilarious verse:

We’re all helpless with the Wheel of Fortune still spinning
My plate’s full of Spam and Ranch-style Beans
You tell me Vanna White dresses like a whore
The things you say are so obscene
and always backed up by the Lord

But I’ve opted for album opener “If It’s Gone” instead, because it’s got that driving-with-the-windows down momentum that can take one out of themself; it’s got energy you can tap into. The song is less concerned with faith, dogma, or religion than it is with someone feeling entirely untethered after a break-up. The singer’s beliefs are but one factor among many:

And I always feel so lonely
When a lover leaves my life
I already lost my mother
Left my family far behind
And I don't believe in Jesus
God, or Buddha, or beyond
Okay, a little bit in Buddha
Trying to keep from hanging on

It reads a little heavy and sad, but it plays as catharsis—relieved and free. And if it’s not exactly convincing, there he is at the end of the song, repeating a little mantra, trying to re-center himself, maybe to regain the sense of self that he’s lost.

“He said, ‘Allahu Akbar’
I told him, ‘Don't curse me’,
‘Bo Bo, you need prayer’,
I guess it couldn't hurt me
If it brings me to my knees
It's a bad religion” - Frank Ocean

Joe Pug - “Hymn #101”

I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone perform live on accident more than Joe Pug. As an up-and-comer in Chicago in the late aughts, he always seemed to have the slot at street festivals just before the headliners. There are far worse ways to spend a late afternoon or early evening in the summer than kicking back with Joe Pug.

“Hymn #101” is probably his signature song as far as I know, and it’s one I keep in pretty regular rotation.

You can interrogate the meaning of every line; the song is a spool of contradictions and conviction from someone who knows they are far from perfect. Taken together, it paints a portrait of emerging adulthood, with that blend of unabashed idealism and utter certainty that comes along with it. To carry all of that, and declare it with such abandon—to family, the law, businesses, and romantic prospects, as he does—requires a good deal of faith.

And you've come to know me thankless as a guest
But will you recognize my face when God's awful grace
Strips me of my jacket and my vest
And reveals all the treasure in my chest

It’s the repetition of phrases mirroring the repetition in the fingerpicking, and of course the sincere abandon with which he sings each declaration that reinforces a belief in himself first and foremost.

“I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you” - Nick Cave

Bon Iver ft. The Staves - “Heavenly Father” (Live)

There’s a scene in Rattle & Hum where U2 describes “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as a Gospel song at its foundation, then they join with a Gospel choir at a Baptist Church in Harlem for what is a superior version of the song compared to the original recording. Only with U2 would adding a Gospel Choir make them sound less grandiose. It sounds less self-assured that they’ll find what they’re looking for, and yet more determined to make it happen. I’m reminded of that half-acapella version when watching this performance from the Sydney Opera House, in that both songs are Gospel songs delivered with sincere abandon.

The story goes that Justin Vernon watched whatever forgotten movie he was asked to write a song for and cranked out “Heavenly Father” in a matter of hours. Because it’s in some forgotten movie, the original version isn’t on streaming services, which is a goddamn shame. I had never heard the song before Bon Iver, along with the Staves, opened their set with the arrangement seen here at the Eaux Claires Fest in 2015. It’s an absolute knock-out, mostly due to those close-part harmonies and vocal arrangements by the Staves. It lands so hard here that you can hear someone chuckle in disbelief before the full audience applause kicks in. Like “God’s Song” and “Hymn #101,” a listener can take this as a song about rediscovering faith, breaking away from it, or the struggle in between—an arc similar to that of a father and child. Hear what you hear. Listen for the signs. Make of it what you want. It’s all just safety in the end.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.

Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs:

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