March 9: War pigs
Before I was born, the English heavy metal band Black Sabbath
recorded a song called War Pigs, which appeared on their 1970 album
Paranoid. I saw a video for it once and in it, Ozzy Osbourne was dancing
onstage while a giant lit-up cross hung over him. My best friend was a
HUGE fan of Ozzy and he gave me a used cassette tape of Black Sabbath's
1971 album MASTER OF REALITY for my birthday one year. I was intrigued
by the lyrics of After Forever, which went, in part, like this:
Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is He a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?
Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love
That means when I was a teenager, I believed I knew two things about Black Sabbath:
1. They were a Christian band.
2. That Ozzy Osbourne couldn't sing.
-
My best friend's name was Jason and he could pretty much quote any Black Sabbath or Ozzy song verbatim. We walked home from school one day and he sang War Pigs a capella. He did a pretty darned good job too.
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees the war pig's crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
In the 70s, Black Sabbath caught a whole lot of flack for being Satanic. But I'll tell you something friends and neighbours, I'd have no problem hearing War Pigs sung in church. St. Augustine was right in that there probably is such a thing as just war (World War II would be an example) but most of the wars fought are because humans haven't learned to share. I'm pretty sure World War III will be fought over drinking water but Ozzy Osbourne probably won't be alive to see it.
-
Is War Pigs a hymn? No, it's not. The lyrics to After Forever were written by Geezer Butler, an Irish Catholic vegan who hates fois gras (I love meat but I think fois gras is incredibly cruel.) If you were raised in Christianity, you can't get rid of it. The late Russian communist party organizer Yemelian Yaroslavsky said "Christianity is like a nail, the harder you strike it, the deeper it goes." So I'm not surprised the faith stuck with Geezer, Osbourne et al long enough to influence some of Sabbath's catchier tunes.
But you know what I have seen in plenty of hymnals? The Star Spangled Banner. Ain't no mention of God there, at least not in the first verse - the only one 99 per cent of us know. (George Carlin said he could happily do without people who actually know the second verse to the Star Spangled Banner.) So if the National Anthem of the United States can make it into a hymnal, I think we should allow War Pigs in there too. Jesus told us that we shouldn't be alarmed when we hear about wars - that war was inevitable - but He never told us that we should jump up and down and be excited when we learn that a whole lot of people (who aren't us) are about to die.
-
Heavy metal was a popular bogeyman when I was a teenager. Ozzy had already left Black Sabbath when I was old enough to get interested in popular music but there was still Motley Crue and Iron Maiden and Ozzy himself for me to contend with. I declared myself a fan of Quiet Riot - a move that made me no tougher than it would had I become a fan of Duran Duran. But I think I can safely say that Ozzy didn't worship the devil. He probably did a few too many drugs, as did the people who went to his concerts, and that probably stopped a few of them from really paying attention to the lyrics and saying: "Wow. This isn't just stoned brainfarts coming out of these dudes. This is powerful crap."
It is a bad thing that on Master of Reality, After Forever immediately proceeds a song called Sweet Leaf, which is about marijuana. This is the equivalent of having Bob Marley open for Charles Spurgeon.
Both men are dead now and I can't help but wonder what they would think of this essay.
-
Inspiration: Alex S
Also tagging Hendrik because I want to know what he thinks.
Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is He a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?
Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love
That means when I was a teenager, I believed I knew two things about Black Sabbath:
1. They were a Christian band.
2. That Ozzy Osbourne couldn't sing.
No, I'm not John Lennon
-
My best friend's name was Jason and he could pretty much quote any Black Sabbath or Ozzy song verbatim. We walked home from school one day and he sang War Pigs a capella. He did a pretty darned good job too.
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees the war pig's crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
In the 70s, Black Sabbath caught a whole lot of flack for being Satanic. But I'll tell you something friends and neighbours, I'd have no problem hearing War Pigs sung in church. St. Augustine was right in that there probably is such a thing as just war (World War II would be an example) but most of the wars fought are because humans haven't learned to share. I'm pretty sure World War III will be fought over drinking water but Ozzy Osbourne probably won't be alive to see it.
-
Is War Pigs a hymn? No, it's not. The lyrics to After Forever were written by Geezer Butler, an Irish Catholic vegan who hates fois gras (I love meat but I think fois gras is incredibly cruel.) If you were raised in Christianity, you can't get rid of it. The late Russian communist party organizer Yemelian Yaroslavsky said "Christianity is like a nail, the harder you strike it, the deeper it goes." So I'm not surprised the faith stuck with Geezer, Osbourne et al long enough to influence some of Sabbath's catchier tunes.
But you know what I have seen in plenty of hymnals? The Star Spangled Banner. Ain't no mention of God there, at least not in the first verse - the only one 99 per cent of us know. (George Carlin said he could happily do without people who actually know the second verse to the Star Spangled Banner.) So if the National Anthem of the United States can make it into a hymnal, I think we should allow War Pigs in there too. Jesus told us that we shouldn't be alarmed when we hear about wars - that war was inevitable - but He never told us that we should jump up and down and be excited when we learn that a whole lot of people (who aren't us) are about to die.
Yemelian Yaroslavsky - glasses = Kurt Vonnegut
-
Heavy metal was a popular bogeyman when I was a teenager. Ozzy had already left Black Sabbath when I was old enough to get interested in popular music but there was still Motley Crue and Iron Maiden and Ozzy himself for me to contend with. I declared myself a fan of Quiet Riot - a move that made me no tougher than it would had I become a fan of Duran Duran. But I think I can safely say that Ozzy didn't worship the devil. He probably did a few too many drugs, as did the people who went to his concerts, and that probably stopped a few of them from really paying attention to the lyrics and saying: "Wow. This isn't just stoned brainfarts coming out of these dudes. This is powerful crap."
It is a bad thing that on Master of Reality, After Forever immediately proceeds a song called Sweet Leaf, which is about marijuana. This is the equivalent of having Bob Marley open for Charles Spurgeon.
Both men are dead now and I can't help but wonder what they would think of this essay.
-
Inspiration: Alex S
Also tagging Hendrik because I want to know what he thinks.
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