Don't Pray on Me Lyrics
Told a story about human rights
So all of Kings horses and all of Kings men
Had a riot for two days and nights
Well, the city exploded but the gates wouldn't open
So the company asked him to quit
Now everybody's equal
Just don't measure it
And Mark David did it to John
And maybe Jack dit it to Marilyn
But he did it to South Vietnam
For beauty and glory
For money, love and country
Now everybody's doing it,
Don't do that to me
Fly in tandem like two precious babes
While the former gets warmer it's the latter that matters
Except on the nation's airwaves
And custodians of public opinion stay back after vainly discussing her rights
Lay hands off her body
It's not your fucking life
From turning every hungry stone into bread
And I don't remember hearing how Moses reacted
When the innocent first born sons lay dead
Well I guess God was a lot more demonstrative
Back when he Flamboyantly parted the sea
Now everybody's praying
Don't prey on me
I think hes trying to say, Everyone over the years have prayed to god as an excuse for their own mistakes, but what Bad Religion is trying to say is not to turn them into ssome stupid excuse for something that happens to then or someone they know. THIS SONG FUCKIN RULES
Jesus' purpose is irrelevant. If you could make an unlimited amount of food, it'd probably be nice if you did.
This is one of my favorite Bad Religion songs.
To help you understand the meaning of this song:
"The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world." - Karl Marx
This is that part right before "opiate of the masses," and blah de blah. Anyways, I think Greg Graffin was quoted once saying that religion stood as a symbol for the band for many things it seeks to criticize. Not for itself but for something within human nature that drives it toward its own self-ruination, like the thanatos or death drive of Freudian psychology.
The first part of the song speaks about the gross violations of human rights based on color. George H.W. Bush was a former director of the CIA "the company" so this is a reference to him putting pressure through various channels on Rodney King to call for peace without restitution for the wrong that was done to him.
The second part of the song is about "doing it" whether it's exploitative sex, murder, assassination or colonization, again touching on the thanatos that drives us to ruin ourselves and others.
The third part touches on the topic of abortion and, I believe, rape as well. "Lay hands off her body" suggests a pregnancy a woman doesn't want because it was forced on her, the irony of course being that right-wing Americans want to ensure the will of the rapist comes to pass through the birth of his child and having to raise that child in shame rather than the woman resuming her autonomy over her body and being able to recover from that traumatic experience and have a normal life.
The fourth part speaks to the "miracles" of God which would be seen as horrible tragedies in the media if they occurred today. Voltaire once said "those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." If you believe in a God who truly killed all the firstborn sons of Egyptians in an act of genocide, then actually going to war and committing genocide isn't a far cry.
FYI: There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus taking place, and from Cairo to Jerusalem is about 470 miles / 750 km which is about two weeks of walking with rest and breaks for food. It doesn't take forty years. Jews know this of course ... but to them the traditions and customs matter more than the supposed events that prompted them.
But let us ignore the humanistic rationalizations of those within a certain minority religion and focus on how Christians read the Bible like it's yesterday's newspaper ... and think about how it's always the right wingers who want violence to occur to those they believe are enemies of God, instead of wanting people simply to be fed and clothed. I don't think this is a direct criticism of Jesus as a person but of people who take all the wrong lessons from religion, people who would rather see a bomb dropped than a hungry person fed.
The end refrain being "don't pray on me" as in "don't prey on me" - revealing the true meaning of "doin' it" in the second verse. Dimmesdale (literary mistake, perhaps) preyed on Hester Prynne being a single woman seeking solace while her husband was away. Mark David Chapman preyed on the fame of John Lennon, trying to see depth where it wasn't there and eventually took his life out of anger that his man crush wasn't interested in him. Jack (John F. Kennedy) supposedly had an affair with Norma Jean Mortenson / Marilyn Monroe, and the fallout from that basically led to her killing herself. The final example of preying was is how John F. Kennedy's policy got us into the Vietnam war, and all the lives that were lost as a result of that.
[Edit: expansion and clarification of comments]
the lyrics are missing a part
I love it too, the last verse especially, but can someone explain to me why, even in the CD booklet, the second verse isn't listed? Greg sings so fast, ennunciates (sp?) so poorly, and uses such a vocabulary that I can never quite tell exactly what he says. Help me out on this, please, because this is what I hear:
A bitter debate
and a feminine fate
lie entangled like
two precious babes
While the former gets warmer
It's the latter that matters
Except on the nation's airwaves
Custodians of public opinion (???)
aqrwhvbcvbzvcx discussing her rights
Lay hands off her body
It's not your fuckin' right (life?)
i'm a christian and i love bad religion, and this song. It's pretty damn witty, and the folk kinda style of the song is fun too. The bible for the most part is a bunch of padding and garbage, but BR hits the Jesus part wrong. His purpose wasn't to cure hunger, or save the world "literally". But hey, the rest of the song works.
@ShesMyAlcatraz Why wasn't curing hunger his purpose though? Why does unjust suffering exist? That's rhetorical, btw.
@ShesMyAlcatraz Why wasn't curing hunger his purpose though? Why does unjust suffering exist? That's rhetorical, btw.
@ShesMyAlcatraz Well, I think as a Christian you would probably understand the meaning of that passage being that Jesus came to cure our spiritual hunger. Jesus didn't send manna down from heaven like God did with Moses and a lot of Christians take this and other statements like "the poor you will always have with you" to mean that the Church ought to give zero shits about alleviating poverty. In the Gospel story, Jesus was being tempted by the Devil to turn stones into bread as part of the three temptations (the second one being to attempt suicide and the...
@ShesMyAlcatraz Well, I think as a Christian you would probably understand the meaning of that passage being that Jesus came to cure our spiritual hunger. Jesus didn't send manna down from heaven like God did with Moses and a lot of Christians take this and other statements like "the poor you will always have with you" to mean that the Church ought to give zero shits about alleviating poverty. In the Gospel story, Jesus was being tempted by the Devil to turn stones into bread as part of the three temptations (the second one being to attempt suicide and the third being to bow down to the devil in exchange for worldly power. So the New Testament story is a little misinterpreted in this song, but Gurewitz means it in context of the church's actions in society I think viz a viz women's rights to abortion, human rights and the imperative for society to provide for the poor (and the failure of the Church to do so).
A bitter debate and a feminine fate lie entangled like two precious babes While the former gets warmer It's the latter that matters Except on the nation's airwaves And custodians of public opinion state fact After vaguly discussing her rights Lay hands off her body It's not your fuckin' life!
That's the lyrics to the second verse. I think the meaning of this song is pretty self-evident.
Actually, it's probably "lie in tandem" not entangled.
Thx for printing out the missing bits of the lyrics. I couldn't find them anywhere else on the web. You guys ROCK! As for the lyrics: They are pretty clever, at leas so far as I get them. The first stanza probably refers to http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=4180; at least that's how I understod it. What puzzles me though are the allusions to Hanson, Hester, Mark David, John, Marilyn. Are all of them actual people, if so who is meant (full names &/or short bio, plz!) and what is the link between them (i.e. what did they do)?
I think the implication is that each of those people f*&ked the other one... Hanson and Hester are fictional characters from the scarlet letter, mark david is the guy that killed john lennon, jack kennedy maybe killed and definately screwed marilyn monroe and he screwed south vietnam - i'll let you google the specifics as i'm sure you're quite capable :) - oh and i agree, this song is the bomb
Pretty much except, that Lars Hanson was an actor who played Dimmesdale (the actual character who F**ks Hester) in an older production of The Scarlet Letter. And it just gets better and better. great song.
Pretty much except, that Lars Hanson was an actor who played Dimmesdale (the actual character who F**ks Hester) in an older production of The Scarlet Letter. And it just gets better and better. great song.