|
|
The Anglican Church in Tasmania Search |
|
a healthy church...transformingLIFE |
|
|
|
|
|
April 2006 |
|||
|
|
||||
Review - Call Me the SeekerBook reviewed by DaveO A great deal of popular music is based on story telling of romantic loves, lost, unrequited and fulfilled. But there is also popular music which covers other topics, expresses other understandings and sometimes even truths. The recent Australia Day address by the Governor General referenced song, as he sought to understand contemporary events. Today popular song is fulfills a role which in previous cultures may have been carried in myth, story and poetry. Whilst TV and movies are more often seen as carriers of culture, (and are more extensively discussed and reviewed), their cost and complexity limit the number of voices being heard. Popular music in all its forms, but particularly in radio broadcasting, is a broader and more representative voice, and an almost universal ear. This shared dialogue of ideas and experiences is the background soundscape of today and because of that is perhaps less consciously considered. Seeking to redress this neglect, Call Me the Seeker is a book which as its subtitle states is 'listening to religion in popular music' and is based on the 'assumption that insight and profundity can be found not only in the traditional canons, religious or otherwise, but also in unexpected places.' Whilst the title is intentionally broad, it is a collection of 16 essays, written from a North American perspective. Obviously with only 16 essayists more is omitted than included, but with U2, Sinéad O'Connor, Nick Cave, the Rolling Stones and Metallica as well as Woody Guthrie and Country Music, generally the book describes a commendably broad sweep of popular music today. The essays are collected into three sections - Religious Sources in Popular Music, Religious Themes in Popular Music, and Religion and Popular Music's Audience, but beyond that there are no overarching themes. One of the strengths of the book is to hear musicians discuss their perspective of their music. In an essay Nick Cave is quoted as saying: 'The Old Testament spoke to that part of me that railed and hissed and spat at the world. I believed in God, but I also believed that God was malign', followed by a discussion that 'Cave, like the Gnostics… is seeking to dismiss the deity of the Hebrew Scriptures as a demiurge and a deceiver.' It gives an interesting insight in then considering Cave's Into My Arms in which he sings, I don't believe in an interventionist God, But I know, darling, that you do. An unexpected highlight in the Sinéad O'Connor essay is the focus, not on the musician, but on the audience response (as seen through forum discussions). Listening to the audience themselves debate the religious significance of the both the words and actions of Sinéad, was intriguing. Call Me the Seeker as a book is 'pick and mix', much like the theology of the authors and subjects. There are insights gained and there are essays that, (for me at least), failed to connect. In encouraging 'listening to religion in popular music' Call Me the Seeker is a good, if not great, addition to the shelf.
|
|
|||
