Up until at least the mid-’90s, every Slayer album featured some kind of pentagram or other form of Satanic imagery, which was essentially a marketing gimmick, but one that worked pretty splendidly for a while. But hey, this kind of heresy is also pretty damn catchy, as when the song transitions into an upbeat, yet still somber chorus of “ I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours/ But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor.” Not a bad rhyme scheme, either! – JT It’s a none-too-subtle thrust of irony which, from the band’s perspective, a loving God would never allow. Dave Gahan sings a pair of tales, one of an unsuccessful suicide attempt (“ Thank the Lord/ For small mercies“), and the other of a girl who dies from a horrible accident, despite a promising life ahead of her.
The ideas at play in “Blasphemous Rumours” are pretty heavy-handed, and while the song comes from the same sessions that produced the kinky, kitschy “Master and Servant,” the group sounds particularly gloomy. When Depeche Mode recorded “Blasphemous Rumours,” they were working out some socio-political ideas that they mostly abandoned later on for ironically more profound personal statements. It’s all summed up succinctly in the final verse, which was borrowed about 25 years later by Spoon: “ Religion don’t mean a thing/ It’s just another way to be right wing.” – JT Dave Vanian notes that he’s going to church “to nick the collection plate.” And then has some fun at the preacher’s expense: “ Let’s spread the news around town/ that the vicar’s a transvestite/ With a fetish for ropes and gowns.” Though that’s where the ridicule becomes especially situational punks dressed in drag all the time, but such a thing could never happen in polite, moral religious society. There is such a thing as Christian punk rock but it never made a lot of sense - if punk is about individualism, and being a bit of a snotty bugger, then how does religion factor into that? These are questions for another time, perhaps, but one of the funnier takes on religion in punk is The Damned’s “Anti-Pope.” Essentially, it’s two minutes of juvenile delinquency at the expense of conservative church-going folks. – JTįrom Machine Gun Etiquette (1979 Chiswick) “God,” weighty as a title as it is, is merely acceptance of the matter-of-fact, and that sometimes those things we’re taught to believe in - whether Elvis or I Ching - are really little more than a myth. To Lennon, at this stage, putting such faith or belief into idols like The Beatles may as well have been like giving oneself over wholly to religion, and neither one sat too well with him, particularly since the Beatles ended on such lousy terms.
In any case, “God” isn’t so much about a direct denial of particular deities or ways of belief, but rather at the entire idea of worship at all. I’m not sure what the greater sacrilege in “God” is: That John Lennon sings “ I don’t believe in Jesus” or that he sings, “ I don’t believe in Beatles.” Because, by his account, the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, after all. Here are our 10 sacriliciously blasphemous songs. We’re not advocating for any particular faith or absence thereof, mind you, just some good old-fashioned musical blasphemy.
In fact, looking back, there’s a much richer history of skeptics, heretics and provocateurs in rock music, and we’re choosing, instead, to celebrate them. (We’re only human!) But while piety is all well and good, it rarely makes a good pop song. We’re in the midst of a holy season, with Easter just around the corner, and a brand new Pope getting situated in the Vatican, which means on Monday we’ll probably be hungover from too many Cadbury creme eggs and chocolate pontiffs.