29 March 2013 (Day 88) – A Day For Reflection

It’s Good Friday the one day of the year where I do not think about playing music, at least until well into the afternoon.  This reflects my Catholic upbringing and education and the influence of “M”.

I’ve been fortunate in that my religious upbringing and views have never brought me into conflict with my choice of listening matter.  There has rarely being an instance where I’ve felt my faith being challenged by a song or musician.  It’s all a question of context; I simply don’t read lyrics on a page and get outraged. Sometimes I understand that the musician is playing a role.  I can remember one of my religious teachers launching an attack on Alice Cooper in class.  Even then I understood that Alice was a character and that he was drawing inspiration from horror movies and the like.  I also understand that some artists have views that they work into their music but I realise all they’re doing is trying to express their own inner feelings and are not necessarily seeking to convert the listener.  It’s easy to tell the difference; those seeking to convert the unconverted are usually fanatics in the first place and thus put the message first and the music second.  Inevitably, with very few exceptions, they turn out to be quite boring.

I also generally do not seek to endorse or condemn any musician for their chosen lifestyles.  As I see things, musicians are no different to any other group in society be they actors, painters, authors, footballers, politicians or priests.  In each of these groups there will be individuals who will break the law and commit unspeakable deeds.  All are in positions within society which gives them the opportunity to influence others through their actions but to single out any one group to the exclusion of others is simply unfair.

Certainly there are some musicians out there who produce entire bodies or work or individual albums, songs, verses or lines with which I disagree.  But we do live in a society that encourages freedom of expression and there are various ways that I can respond.  I can choose to ignore the musician with the body of work with which I disagree.  There are songs on albums that I can skip on the CD player and there are verses or lines that I can simply ignore.  Obviously the situation would be different if I were a parent but I would hope that I’d understand that no amount of parental supervision and positive action is going to shield my child away from music I might not agree with. (Well, I’d try to shield him or her from some acts but this would be purely on musical grounds.) But such concerns also apply to anything in the modern word – TV programs, news reports, radio airplay lists, video games, internet use etc.  All I think I could do is to take the action I think is appropriate, educate the child as to why I think this action is necessary and develop their critical mindset so that they can eventually take what I hope will be a responsible decision.

The absolutely worst thing to do, I think, for anything attractive to kids is, unless what’s being espoused is illegal, to seek to ban something without explanation.   From what I’ve seen in my life all this does is to turn the item into forbidden fruit that children then actively attempt to seek out.  And the explanations better make relative sense.  The attack on Alice Cooper I mentioned previously, made by one a religious Brother went something like this; “Now look at that Alice Cooper and what he’s doing.  He’s coming into town, makes you pay money to see him and then he leaves.”  That was just about it; I remember everybody looking at each other in class thinking, “Is he arguing that it is a sin to hold a concert?”  A few nights later I stayed up late to watch a TV screening of the Welcome To My Nightmare concert movie and still couldn’t figure out what the Brother was on about.  The key thing here was that I hadn’t planned on watching it until the Brother voiced his concerns. 

There are some things that I would never choose to listen to under any circumstances, for example, anything deliberately racist or sexist (both with exclusions for time bound “historical” recordings such as that found in 1920s or 1930s blues or Americana), promoting Satanism (and which doesn’t have a nudge and a wink attached) or sacrilegious (that is, anything which deliberately sets out to mock people’s religious beliefs). But mostly these would probably belong to extreme musical genres, such as Norwegian death metal, that I won’t think of exploring in the first place. 

By the time we returned from church, it was time for our time honoured Easter tradition. “M”and I sat down to indulge in our annual viewing of Ben Hur with Charlton Heston. (Now there’s a good anology – should I ban watching Ben Hur because of Heston’s support for guns?)  By the time that finishes I discover there will be a 9.30 screening of the greatest film in Hollywood history – The Godfather.  What the hell it’s doing screening on Good Friday has me beaten but it ensures a music free day other than for its memorable score.