When the Angels Sing

truly a great... shows some of the spiritual questions everyone struggles with... even with all the crappy christian music out now, very few songs written about God can dare to touch the honesty of this one.

"The primary focus of the album is a mixture of feelings, from the deeply personal 'When the Angels Sing', a heartfelt homage from frontman Mike Ness to his late grandmother (whom would even wear the band's t-shirts while shopping in support of her grandson) …"

https://www.punknews.org/review/1510/social-distortion-white-light-white-heat-white-trash

Social D played this song when I went to their show last year, and after it was over, Mike pointed to a kid that couldn't have been more than 7 years old and asked him to come on stage. Some of the elders in the crowd started laughing and pointing and shit...and then Mike began explaining how "This child will carry on the messages of our generation. All you older people out there need not pull the superiority-granted-by-age shit, because this child can't help how old he is. This child is our future, and rather than expel him, we must accept and teach him." Stuff like that. Almost brought me to tears. Mike Ness is truly a great man.

I agree with HayseedPunxGirl This is one of the best songs written that has to do with God.

Mike Ness wrote the song after his grandmother passed away. It isn't really so much about her as it is about how no matter what you believe, you'll never have definitive answers until you die yourself.

"...life and death don't mean a thing Till the angels sing." - you can believe whatever you'd like, but nothing really has any meaning for anyone until "the angels sing" - you die. Answers aren't really available until then.

Mike says he hopes he was everything he was supposed to be - he hopes so because he doesn't know exactly what he was supposed to be and nothing has any real, tangible meaning until after death. There's much that even people of faith don't understand - prisoners on death row pray, junkies cry for love but can't get any, and it's cold on the street when you're all alone. No one can really understand the why until "the angels sing".

The lyric is "Who am I to question you?" not "I like to question you." Questioning God is not an enjoyable pasttime of folks. Even theologians and preachers would rather declare what they think and believe instead of deliberately inquiring of God.

Punk rock isn't just an image of callousness and violence. The truth is it comes from people cast off by society so there is a strain of deep sympathy and conscientiousness beneath a lot of these songs. There's a lot of music out there that's just about touring or about abstract things like consciousness or pop music that's directed straight at the ego, sensuality or at people's desire to divide up and form cliques, parties, nations, etc. There's a lot of music that's played just to isolate people from their troubles by entertaining them with music that has all the complexity of a nursery rhyme (Christian rock, contemporary, etc.). And then there's punk rock which is honest and truthful about the realities of people with all their inner neuroses, feelings, complexities.

We don't always have all the answers to our present day to day drama, and sometimes it's the strangest things that awaken us to that transcendental reality of what exists beyond our present. I think that's the theme of the song. Let yourself feel God's presence in all those moments.

It's not your typical punk rock song, but that's why it had to be written.

this song...shows a diffrent side of mike ness...makes me want him even more~:)

that is fucking awsome all hail mike ness

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this song about a child Mike Ness had and died? That's what my cousin, a huge Social D fan told me. I remember he later played it in dedication to Dennis, founding member of the band, when he passed away.

dont forget...the old school has a responsibility to raise the new school the right way....