| Bad Religion – Skyscraper Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The guy who wrote this certainly attempted to remove the song's teeth to pander to the mainstream: "There’s nothing wrong with religion, and there’s nothing wrong with having faith. I think that’s a beautiful thing. I think having a belief in anything higher than you makes you much more human. That being said, I admire people like Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, who had non-violent protests, and were very religious people. Why would I be opposed to that? That’s not really what we’re espousing. We’re not preaching dark metal, and saying come to Satan. That’s not us. I would never stand up and say religion is bad. What I’m against is what we do. That’s bad." And yet here we have a song that's pretty fucking clearly tearing apart the Christian faith itself, referring to the Christian God as presented in the Bible as a "spoiled baby" and referring to the meaning of Christianity throughout history as "a story writ that was hardly understood / and never any good". The key-phrase is "Never any good". It's not saying "oh, it was written by Our Lord And Savior but the Big Bad Greedy Humans misunderstood it". "Never" any good. NEVER. Even I wouldn't go that far! And yet I can respect the courage it took to say it. The band itself was never against religion as a CONCEPT, definitely, but they definitely had more bite in their criticism of religion in their early days. Quoting a song from their first album: "It's all right to have faith in god But when you bend to their rules and their fucking lies That's when I start to have pity on you. There's people in the world today Who say they're Jewish, Christian and such, They're all ignorant fools.' That's about as honest, simple and in-your-face as it gets; religion itself is not a bad thing, but its dogmatic execution throughout history has brought more bad than good to the human race. Is that true? I don't know, it's stupid to claim that you know everything But it feels that the only reason people like Jay Bentley change their minds is because it's more socially acceptable to say "down with hate, let's all love each other regardless of creed :):):)" I'm all for world peace and shit but that ideal is hard to reach for when the written, universally-accepted gospel of many major religions is filled with old-timey simple-mindedness and prejudice. |
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| Say Anything – Admit It!!! Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[heartilation:6654] Basically what I'm saying is, "open your mind, don't lie to yourself for approval, try your best to avoid group-think and don't worry about how 'alt' you are, if you're capable of being your own person then that's far worthier than punk/metal/hipster/emo/classical/whatever-clique acceptance" is a far more positive and constructive message than some "we're all the same :)" cliche. | |
| Say Anything – Admit It!!! Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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There is a huge hypocrisy to agreeing with this song but then saying "there's no 'better', we're all the same". That's ridiculous, self-contradicting and meaningless; the kind of non-opinion you'd find people posting on their Facebook walls. The entire point of the song, as highlighted by lionrevolt's comment which had an actual quote from the songwriter, is that the attitude the song talks about IS something harmful and bad. You're saying "no one is better than anyone else" but then basically implying "...and fuck those who think they're better" The attitude the song talks about is something we all exhibit to some extent, but it IS better to be aware of it and attempt to drive away sheepish "I agree because agreeing is the cool thing to do" thoughts whenever they pop up than to be a hive-minding identity-wanking robot who agrees with whatever their "anti-establishment" clique of choice tells them to believe. The end of the song clearly encourages the idea of opening yourself up to the world as a whole as a >better< alternative to being closed-off and cliquey and pretending your group is the best. |
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| The World/Inferno Friendship Society – Leni Riefenstahl at the End of Time Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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@Ryan In Exile I really don't think that just because the song is from the perspective of Leni Riefenstahl, they necessarily agree with her defense I've also heard that in live shows, they introduce this song by pretty much mocking her convictions - they most likely appreciate her work but it's hardly as sympathetic as you're making it out to be. |
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