a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

We interrupt this countdown for the following important messages….

  

            OK, so it's only one message this time around.

            We’ll lead off with the more “universal” one, then come back for what, after all, is really the more important message. But I think I’ll do them as separate message at this point, so we can get on with it…. 

Pedro delenda est.

  

            That’s right, people—Pedro the Lion, that bastion or bane (pick one) of all that is pure in the CCM world, is hanging up its claws. Of course, that’s a whole lot like Bill Mallonee “breaking up” Vigilantes of Love or Mike Scott “breaking up” The Waterboys, but clearly Dave Bazan wants to head in another direction. Of course, it would need to be something other than the lyrically incisive, musically sparse, and overall danged depressing material with lots of bad words amidst the declarations of belief that we’ve grown accustomed to, and frankly I don’t see that happening. But if makes you feel liberated saying you’re broken up, go for it, Dave. (The fact that T.W. Walsh, Dave’s longtime friend who figured prominently on what appears to be the final Pedro album, Achilles Heel, is going in a separate direction nowhere near qualifies this for me.)

            Anyway, if y’r unfamiliar with Pedro’s music and don’t mind a lot of mopiness and not a lot of musical arrangement with some remarkable lyrics that you won’t hear anywhere else in the “Christian music” pantheon (and with some cause, on occasion)—and either way, could see yourself buying an hypothetical album called More Songs About Doubt, Infidelity and Murder—go to jadetree.com and snag this stuff up.

            A relatively brief primer, for the uninitated:  

            Whole (EP) — The not-yet-ready-for-prime-time Pedro, which probably got this initial shot based on the lowered expectations of CCM. That said, no-one’ll be mistaking this for Eric Cartman’s “Faith + 1.” J A mini song suite about a junkie coming to Christ, it has its moments, like the opener “Nothing.” “Almost There” also has some significance, if only for the blood-curdling shrieks that pass for singing near the end.

            It's Hard To Find A Friend — The first full-length Pedro CD. And while the arrangements are almost nonexistent in places, the wit and wisdom of Dave Bazan really begins to emerge here, as do the themes that will occur regularly if not obsessively for the rest of Pedro’s run: infidelity (“Bad Diary Days”), male impotency of the emotional kind (“Big Trucks”), female impotency of the emotional kind (“When They Really Get to Know You, They Will Run”), and the song that really announces the brilliance of Dave Bazan to the world, “Secret of the Easy Yoke”:

I could hear the church bells ringing

They pealed aloud Your praise
The members’ faces were smiling
With their hands outstretched to shake
It's true they did not move me
My heart was hard and tired
Their perfect fire annoyed me
I could not find You anywhere

Could someone please tell me the story
Of sinners ransomed from the fall?
I still have never seen You, and some days
I don't love You at all

The devoted were wearing bracelets
To remind them why they came
Some concrete motivation
When the abstract could not do the same
But if all that's left is duty
Then I'm falling on my sword 
At least then, I would not serve 
An unseen distant Lord...

If this only a test
I hope that I'm passing, ‘cause I’m losing steam
But I still want to trust You

Peace, be still. 
Peace, be still. 
Peace, be still. 
Peace, be still.   

 

            The Only Reason I Feel Secure (Is That I’m Validated By My Peers) (originally EP; released by Jade Tree in longer form) — Being an EP, it’s more of a holding pattern, but has its moments: From the cover of "Be Thou My Vision," to the acerbic "Letter From a Concerned Follower," which seems more directed at the rest of the world than God:  "I hear that You don't change/ How do You expect to keep up with the trends?/ You won't survive the information age/ Unless You plan to change the truth to accommodate the brilliance of men/ the brilliance of men." 

 

            Winners Never Quit — Wherein Ugly Dave begins taking center stage. Another concept album, this time about the rise and fall of a “righteous” man, and the fall and fall of his “failure” brother, replete with politics, spousal abuse and murder, which crescendos with the absolutely terrifying “A Mind of Her Own,” wherein the tie-in between pride and violence hasn’t been this palpable since Lou Reed’s Berlin. The protagonist’s voice goes from patronizing:

                Dear, unlock the door 

            You're acting like a child 

                To pleading:  

                How dare you turn on me now 

                Right when I need you most  

                To self-righteous blustering: 

                I wish I could have seen their faces when they heard the news 
                Now that's the sort of smack that leaves a bruise  
                The victory is ours at last 
                I beat them at their own dirty game 
                They pervert the words of godly men 
                For their own selfish gain 
                I took their wrong and I took their lies 
                And I made them right
                I MADE THEM RIGHT

                To sarcasm:
                Oh, look who it is

                It's my supportive wife                

                And she thinks she's going to squeal 

                To, at last, all-out assault: 
                YOU PUT DOWN THAT TELEPHONE 
                YOU’RE NOT CALLING ANYONE
                YOU PUT DOWN THAT TELEPHONE 
                YOU’RE NOT CALLING ANYONE
                YOU PUT DOWN THAT TELEPHONE 
                YOU’RE NOT CALLING ANYONE

                YOU PUT DOWN THAT TELEPHONE 
                YOU’RE NOT CALLING ANYONE
                (over and over until the song finally crashes to an end). 

           Control — The CD that finally alienated Pedro from the CCM community once and for all. Another album-long rumination about an affair and its ultimate results (at least in the context of a given Pedro album). It starts bad (“I could never divorce you / Not without a good reason”), and only gets worse from there — i.e., they’re already doing it by the second song, “Rapture,” the very deliberate spiritual and lustful confusion of which were the final CCM straw:

This is how we multiply
Pity that it’s not my wife…
Our bodies working
To reach the goal

Oh, my sweet rapture 
I hear Jesus and the angels singing
Hallelujah
Calling me to enter
The Promised Land.

          AAAAIII-IIIIIIIII. You can practically hear the faithin' bedsprings squeaking along to the lyrics.  

          By the album’s end, the protagonist is settling for “Second Best,” which is followed by the again-this-is-Pedro inevitable, and is wrapped up tidily if depressingly in the penultimate song, “Priests and Paramedics”:    

Husband's lost a lot of blood
He wakes up screaming, “Oh, my god
Am I gonna die? Am I gonna die?”
As they strapped his arms down to the sides
Times like these they've been taught to lie
“Buddy just calm down—you'll be alright.”
Several friends came to his grave
His children were so well behaved
As the priest got up to speak
The assembly craved relief
But he himself had given up
So instead he offered them this bitter cup:
“You’re gonna die
We're all gonna die
Could be twenty years
Could be tonight
And lately I 
Have been wondering why
We go to so much trouble
To postpone the unavoidable
And prolong the pain of being alive.”

            Happy stuff.  

            Achilles Heel — The final Pedro album, and a rather uneven affair. Truthfully, it 
sounds like Dave running out of steam (although the backlash from Control certainly 
served to take some of the steam out). On the down side, “Keep Swinging” should have 
never been recorded by anyone, even privately, and several other songs here positively 
drag (I mean, even for a Pedro album). 
            On the positive side, some of the most upbeat tunes you’ll ever find on a Pedro 
album can also be found here, including “Start Without Me,” “The Fleecing,” and the 
cream of the crop, “Foregone Conclusions,” the single-that-never-was which did Dave 
even less favors with the CCM crowd but contains what’s so far the lyric of the 
millennium:

You were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord
To hear the voice of the Spirit
Begging you to shut the **** up
You thought it must be the devil, trying to make you go astray
Besides, it couldn't have been the Lord 
Because you don't believe He talks that way

               Well, that's enough to go with or don't. Happy mopings, Dave, and see you on 
the other side.

Posted by: burninglight at 19:06 | link | comments