Sorry to break it to you, Jesus doesn't Rock.

Dec 2, 2005

Okay I saw this guy wearing a shirt that read “Jesus rocks" in big yellow and red letters in the font that will forever be known as the AC-DC font. I had to shake my head in disbelief. Silly Christians rock is for Satan. Now for the record Ozzy Ozborne can't walk on water, Alice Cooper can't heal lepers and Jesus can't write a good rock song. Cases in point, Highway to hell, Hells Bells, Sympathy for the Devil, Running with the Devil, ect, ect. All songs for the Devil. Everybody knows the best rock music is associated with Satan, or things Satan would endorse. After all its sex, drugs and rock n' roll not abstinence, sacrificial wine and rock n' roll. Robert Johnson infamous blues legend whose music is widely heralded as the starting point for rock n' roll supposedly sold his soul to the devil to get his guitar and songwriting skills. When Ray Charles added R&B to gospel tunes the church threw a shit fit. They called it the devils music and five decades later we still like it that way. Now don't get me wrong I'm not doggin' Jesus, if you're into Jesus more power to you. He was a groovy dude but he simply does not Rock. For one thing, Jesus is all into peace and love while rock is about anarchy and sex. Peace and love is all fine and good but “Anarchy in the U.K." is rock n' roll. In fact the first line of said song is “I am an anti-Christ." so there you have it. Yes there have been songs written about peace and love but it's safe to say none of them Rock, at least not in the way “Sympathy for the Devil" rocks. Rock is hard and raw, peace and love is squishy and soft like puppies and bunnies, and everyone knows puppies and bunnies are what people who Rock eat for breakfast (raw and bloody of course washed down with a fifth of J.D. and a cigarette). Now I use the devil as a metaphor to prove a point, not all music that rocks has to be about Satan or evil, but in the least rock is about the struggle between the good and evil sides of our nature. In Jesus there is no struggle, Jesus is peace and love absolute, Rock n' Roll cannot be about absolutes it's about the complexities of the human soul and psyche. Rock n' roll is about breaking down old boundaries to define new ones, about taking things to the edge, pushing them over the edge and then lighting them on fire. In a sense "to rock" does not have to mean "to be evil" it's simply challenging the old ideals that promote: no sex, no drugs, stand up straight, cut your hair, and be good at all costs, and all else is not good so it's by default evil. Rock n' roll does not classify itself as evil the people who don't approve of rock classify it as evil and the people who rock never said otherwise. I think the people who do rock generally believe that if you call me evil than that's what I'll be, and I'll take it to such an extreme that even I won't believe it. So in a way the people who think rock n' roll is evil are probably the ones that caused the whole satanic shift by getting their panties all bunched up. It seems to me Kiss, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, Danzig, are all evil in the horror movie- drive in triple feature kind of way more so than the Ted Bundy- Hitler kind of way. Silly, Campy, Theatrical, tongue in cheek kind of evil, I mean who past the age of 17 can take Manson seriously. This is the in joke that people who rock play on squares and rubes. So what if people who rock generally partake in things the religious mainstream would consider evil, drinking, drugging and sex of all kinds, things that if the religious mainstream hadn't deemed deviant anyone would even care. If you draw a line in the sand people will flock to it, cross it and then light it on fire. More on this later until then keep rockin' in the free world and I'll catch you on the flipside