Christians in Black

idk wat this song is really about but its one of my favs rite now

i really like this song, gives me peace

I think this song is about hypocrisy and how fake and mechanical people can be. Shuttled between LA and Oakland, drinking on the bus or plane or whatever mode of transportation it is, people don't even care what they've become. Faked an election...everyday is just like the next. Do we really stop and think to understand who we are anymore, or what kind of life we live? We are Christians in black, living a hypocritical, empty life.

The melody for this song was heavily borrowed from XTC's 'Sacrificial Bonfire' and normally that kind of thing puts me off. ...but this song is so horribly stuck in my head it's unbearable. I've put it on repeat and played it probably several hundred times within the last few days but it won't burn out. sigh yeah it's great.

As for its meaning, it looks like it's calling back to a particular personal a experience in a vague and cryptic way so I don't think we'll get any insight from the lyrics unless the writer decide to elucidate us. However the only Christians that often wear black that I can think of are Nuns. Did this guy go to Catholic school perhaps?

Who knows? Get out of my head!!!

I feel as though this song is original in anyway possible. Rogue Wave has their own style, they don't utilize the riffs from other bands.

I listened to XTC's sacrificial bonfire, and the melody/timing is very similar, but the rhythm, chord progression, and tone all sound very different. I agree these lyrics come off very cryptic because of their sparsity, but there may be enough to spindle together a bit of insight. The most tangible clue to its meaning may be the image of Christians in black, which make me think they're at some kind of funeral event. From this we may presume the subject of the song has passed away.

When each stanza is broken down, we have a fragmented mosaic: the first shows a selfish mother, the second shows tension (perhaps from visiting divorced parents?) that inevitably lead to alcoholism for comfort, and the finally we are shown a death-like isolation, a meaningless and banal existence that does not resemble life, we are told it ought to be. I think this song is about a suicide.

This is becoming one of my favorite songs ever. It's very relaxing, but not boring.

I think this song is speaking about hypocracy in religion, specifically modern day Christians. People who live one way in the open, but behind closed doors are living a life in contrast to what Christianity teaches. It’s interesting how each stanza explores a different grammatical person; talking about the mother, talking to the alcoholic, then finally talking as the speaker.

“look what I did so I could feed them”

• The mother is only taking care of her kids to receive praise, and she’s not feeding them anything substantial if the roll is the only thing of value (I’m unsure if the apostrophe is part of the lyric, because if so that line could have a different meaning). Doing things just for praise goes against Christian values

"shuttled between LA and Oakland miles and miles between and above them born and raised to be an alcoholic were you too old or young to stop it'”

• The “Shuttling” references a service helping people make the trip from LA to Oakland. I’m unsure of the specifics, but shuttles are usually free which makes it sounds like a charitable act. The distance is both geographical (LA to Oakland) but also symbolic, as though the distance between the person in this story and God above is also very far. Despite the acts of charity, the person lives a life of “Drunkeness” which is a sin. S/he was at one point young and watched helplessly as a parent drifted into alcoholism, or is now an alcoholic parent so its too late.

"faked election" is also a religious reference. "Election" is when God chooses someone for a particular task, for example a TV Evangelist who claims God chose him to preach or take people’s money to build a super church. In any case, he’s faking it and people may look to him for help but his idle eyes aren’t going to meet their true needs even though they’re expressing their feelings out in the open. He’s not an honest person, so for him, it’s just another day... business as usual.

I don't know the meaning of the song, but in Christianity black would generally symbolize mourning, not hypocrisy. So I interpret it to mean something about Christians mourning.