Ten Songs That Are Brilliantly Honest About Sin

“If you really want to know something about me, you should know this: I like my music loud. I mean loud. I’m not talking about the kind of loud where your parents knock on your bedroom door and ask you to turn it down. Please. That’s amateur hour. When I say loud, I mean you-can’t-hear-your-parents-knocking-and-the-neighbours-are-putting-a-FOR-SALE-sign-on-their-house-and-moving-to-another-block-because-they-can’t-handle-the-constant-noise-any-more-loud … If you are not this kind of person, then I don’t think we’ll be great friends.”

Robin Benway, Audrey, Wait! (2008)

 

Thanks to Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net for this rather pretty assortment of vaguely musicky-type things.

According to Spotify’s Year in Music tool, I listened to thirty-five thousand minutes’, or five hundred and eighty-nine hours’, or twenty-five days’ worth of music over the past year.¹ My housemates know from trying to communicate with me while I have my headphones on² just how frequently I do have them on. And I tend to feel that if I spend that much time pumping content into my ears, it really should matter to me what that content consists of, and that it’s consistent with the kinds of things I want to be occupying my thoughts. So it’s probably no surprise that I’m quite a fan of the ‘Christian music’ scene.

However, it seems to me that quite a lot of Christian music frequently tends to preoccupy itself with reassuring us about how special and loved and important we are, and largely skip over the whole sin thing.³ This I find problematic; first, it’s spiritually dangerous, since acknowledging our own wrongdoing is entirely key to accepting salvation from it;⁴ second, I’d actually find it more reassuring for Christian artists to tell me that they also sin and struggle with sin and get incredibly upset over sin, than for them to constantly thrust overzealous self-esteem boosts in my direction. In case you were to by any chance feel the same way, I have compiled a (by no means even slightly exhaustive) list of some songs that I appreciate for their head-on confrontation of sin.

1)      House of Heroes, ‘Choose Your Blade’, The Knock-Down Drag-Outs (2013)

“It was a coward’s decision when I offered you sanctuary.

I knew it right then and there that our cartel would be my undoing,

But I rationalised and believed every mangled half-truth.

Choose your blade; we shall dance in the blood and the rain.

I grow sick of your whispered betrayals.

Go where the dead go; tu estas muerto.

Choose your blade; I won’t be held as a prisoner of shame.

I grow sick of your lies and your games.

Get thee behind me; you shall not bind me.”

I recall reading somewhere that the brief use of Spanish in this song’s chorus is incorrectly conjugated, but, not knowing Spanish myself, I really can’t comment.

2)      Remedy Drive, ‘The Cool of the Day’, Commodity (2014)

“What was it like before the war?

What was it like before the use of force, before the great divorce?

What was it like before the curse began to take its course?

In the cool of the day, in the cool of the day, we walked together in the cool of the day.”

First Remedy Drive made a few albums of pretty decent but hardly revolutionary Christian music. Then lead singer David Zach spent some time working against human trafficking in Southeast Asia, and suddenly the masterpiece that is the album Commodity happened.

3)      Jonathan Thulin, ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, Science Fiction (2015)

“All I ever wanted to be was me, now I know not who I am.

One day I’m Lex Luthor, the next I think I’m Superman.

I was walking on the water, now I’m sinking in the sand.

Dang, I thought was innocent, but there is blood all on my hands.

This we needs to become a me,

Because I’m a fraud, I’m an impostor,

I’m a fraud, ’cause, you see, there’s two of me.

Jekyll and Hyde, that’s what my name is.”

One of my favourite things about Jonathan Thulin is the way he still really showcases his rather excellent voice despite the heavily electronic nature of his music; many artists, by contrast, seem to autotune and edit their vocals into total obscurity.

4)      Icon for Hire, ‘Off With Her Head’, Scripted (2011)

“I know they’ll come with what I’m owed: guilty as charged.

My enemies belittle me, reminding me the penalty of all my deeds, despite my pleas, is death.

Don’t let go, ’cause I don’t want to be this.

Death is mine, I know.

Don’t let go; save your own.”

Icon for Hire have said that their goal as a band is to make honest music and play that music for anyone who wants to hear it. I really think they do extraordinarily well on the honesty front.

5)      KB, ‘Open Letter (Battlefield)’, Weight & Glory (2012)

“I tried talking to the people at church,

But they just look at me funny, only adding to the hurt.

Now I’m torn, ’cause, the other day, I stumbled over porn.

I’m supposed to be a leader, man – how can I move on?

I know this is a lie, that’s why I’m coming to you praying.

I’m praying that you can pray for your sister to make it through.

I’m crying as I write, ’cause I want to be right.

Many girls have fallen and I don’t want to fall too.

There’s a war inside my heart and mind; every day, I fight it.

So make me align to the truth and rely on your Spirit inside me.

It’s time to make war, ’cause life is a battlefield.”

This song essentially takes the format of two versified (rap-ified?) versions of letters written to KB, interspersed with the chorus and a prayer for the authors of said letters.

6)      Andy Mineo, ‘Tug of War’, Heroes for Sale (2013)

“I wear a cross and give you thanks for my blessings – ain’t that enough?

Why do you want everything? Can’t you leave this part of my life untouched?

I thought following you meant I only had to say yes once.

Now every day I wake up, you give me some cross to take up.

You really want me to break up with my girl? Now that’s too much.

I know what’s best for me. You don’t understand my complexities.

See, I’ve got to make a living, so don’t ask where my cheques come from.

Now I hear you talking, I ain’t gone numb.

I know I’m in the dark and I’ve got to find my way to the Son,

’Cause he’s calling on my name and I know I can’t run.

I’m so back and forth like a tug of war.”

You can blame Andy Mineo for sparking off my now ever-growing fondness for Christian rap. I used to completely discount rap as a genre, but thinking about it, it’s basically just poetry (which I love) set to a backing of electronic music (which I also love). Winning combination.

7)      Switchfoot, ‘Mess of Me’, Hello Hurricane (2009)

“I am my own affliction. I am my own disease.

There ain’t no drug that they could sell.

There ain’t no drug to make me well.

There ain’t no drug. It’s not enough. The sickness is myself.”

There’s also an acoustic version of this song, with a gorgeous bridge-into-final-chorus section, that’s worth checking out if you can find it; it does appear on an album called Acoustic Live & Rare 2010, if that helps.

8)      Relient K, ‘Maybe it’s Maybelline’, The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek (2001)

“We point the finger even though it’s not polite.

We condemn the Son of God; we’re hoping two wrongs make a right.

Maybe it is them, or maybe it is me, or maybe it’s Maybelline.

The truth is excuses are lame.

Accept consequence; accept the blame.

We’re all sinners; we’re all unclean.

Well, maybe we’re born with it, or maybe it’s Maybelline.”

There are any number of Relient K songs I could have employed here, but the comedy value in this one’s title just about gave it the edge.

9)      Pas Neos, ‘The Accuser Comes to Judas’, Who Do You Say I Am? (2012)

“I’ve been working you for ages.

Every workman’s worth his wages.

Pushing buttons, vetting vices –

Subtle nudges, compromises.

Only a little leaven, and you kept letting me in.

It became less about the price when you let the enemy in on the inside.”

I’m not aware of any other band that does what Pas Neos does; every song is sort of a meditation on a particular Biblical event.

10)   Tim Be Told, ‘Not Gods’, Mighty Sound (2015)

“Atlas tried to carry all the weight of the world and it broke him like he knew it would.

Ares started wars with every rumour he heard and he did it ’cause he knew he could.

We’re not gods of the universe, we are only human.

So let’s stop trying to be superheroes now.

Freedom will come when you lay it down.”

I discovered Tim Be Told over Christmas and have since then been listening to Mighty Sound with quite ludicrous frequency. The references to Greek mythology in ‘Not Gods’ are, of course, an added bonus as far as I’m concerned.

So there you have it. Hopefully you might have found some value in at least one of the above suggestions, even if you vetoed some of them on grounds of generic taste. If you happen to have any further recommendations, there is of course a comments box hanging about at the bottom of this page.

Footnotes

¹ If you’d like to know your own statistics, the tool is available here, https://yearinmusic.spotify.com/en-GB, although it takes an absolute age to load.

² I am extremely fond of my headphones on two counts: first, they are ecologically sound (no pun intended), having been made by the House of Marley, https://www.thehouseofmarley.co.uk/; and second, they have the best noise-cancelling in the world.

³ Even some Christian bands I really like seem determined to persistently cast their listeners as admirable victims in perpetual need of being told how special and loved and important they are; try ‘Made’ by Hawk Nelson, ‘Rock What You Got’ by Superchick, and ‘Lightning’ by Fireflight, for instance. All good songs, but that sentiment by itself simply doesn’t do.

⁴ In fact, the way Jesus chose to announce the coming of his kingdom was with a call to repent, as reported in Matthew 3 and Mark 1; here’s the Mark chapter for your perusal: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+1&version=ESVUK.