One of my favorite new rock bands is Dead Sara. This is the rare sort of rock music that just explodes out of the speakers. Is lead singer Emily Armstrong the new Janis Joplin?

Their song “Monumental Holiday” contains two mentions of a provocative phrase scream: “Save Jesus!” The relevant verses are:

“It’s just a matter your violence
Save Jesus
Laugh loud, pretend to let go
Live your life like an Eskimo!”

and later

“Slow down children, save Jesus!
Your body clock, tick-tick-tock
Abstinence and contraceptives”

I’d like to think out loud a little more about the song, especially the lyrics. Here is the video for the song:

I can’t help wondering about this saving of Jesus business — what an evocative and provocative term.

Meanwhile there is the chorus:

“Fall down, this is kinda useless
You drive me home, drive me insane
Time out, get me while it’s worth it
Come in, come in, it’s a monumental holiday!
Holiday!”

And there is this bridge:

“Hey, your love was to pay their bills
I see good looking people, looking for clues
I see you, I see you
I see you, then I see from sea to shining sea!”

And this coda:

“Scratch the surface
Nothing is perfect
Scratch the surface
Nothing is perfect”

What do these lyrics add up to, if they add up to one thing or to anything? “Save Jesus” could mean “except Jesus” or “save him from…” or “redeem Jesus” or…?

I notice the meritorious-suffering, sacrificial, or “atonement”-sounding theme of the lyric “your love was to pay their bills.” Many of the lyrics seem gnomic to me, like “Laugh loud, pretend to let go / live your life like an Eskimo.”

My general impression, especially given the aggressive punk feel of the song, is that this is a critical take on religion (“good looking people, looking for clues,” “scratch the surface / nothing is perfect”), but it doesn’t resolve so neatly or cleanly for me. After all, something is going on there to “drive me home” and at the same time “drive me insane.”

What is this “monumental holiday”? Is it Easter?

The stanza about “abstinence and contraceptives” suggests a force field that both inhibits and incites sexuality, wherein young people learn a religiosexual grammar (“slow down children, save Jesus”).

But the notion of “saving Jesus” is the one sticking with me right now. I do not know of any theological work (in Christian tradition, anyway) that works through the paradoxical idea of Jesus himself needing to be “saved.” However, I suspect that there may be some, perhaps in a radical mystical tradition. There are certainly historically-minded works in theology that argue that Jesus learned from and was corrected by his environment, but that seems different from the stronger “saving Jesus” language.

The song seems to say that dangerous games (learned violence and sexual struggle) are ways that Christians “save Jesus” (that is, prove his presence — like some kind of theodicy christodicy), but the imperative tone in the sung lyric suggests something else, something like Jesus needing to be saved: “Save Jesus!” What sort of images and feelings come up for us today around the idea of saving Jesus? What stories can be excavated about Jesus’ fundamental dependence on a reality that exceeds him? What illicit imaginings, among Christians as among many other non-Christians, are thus evoked, and what do those imaginings have to teach theology — and have to teach us about how we might make sense of these lyrics?

It could also be that the specific lyrics and their phrasing are less important than the overall effect of the lyrics on listeners, especially in context of the feel of the song. (On a related note: The temptation to systematize song lyrics for the sake of making theological sense is strong — and should always be suspected if not resisted. Theological significance can appear through a lack of system as much as through structural coherence.)

Anyway, I see no rationale for being finally afraid of asking such “saving Jesus” questions.

Artists often bring the larger world face to face with questions too-long hidden or never-yet-invented. Theology is not — or should not be — in the business of coming up with unassailable “answers,” but rather of deepening whatever is significant about the question for the sake of a deeper claim on/toward/of life’s power(s).

Whenever questions of ultimate reality are glimpsed through something as evanescent as a song lyric, we are on the cusp of something more. It in that event that we have at hand a strange holy-day, or in the words of Dead Sara, a “monumental holi-day.”

Tommy Beaudoin, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

2 Comments »

1. 

   The lyrics refer to several “things” and evoke thoughts of many more.
   Some are theological; most point specifically to the human condition; “…live your life like an Eskimo…” is a critical assessment and pronouncement against first-world materialism – the lyrical line admonishes we live simplistically.
   Interviews exist where Emily Armstrong, lead vocalist & lyricist, share some of her intent within the lyrics.
   Continue listening, you’ll find all of Dead Sara’s music to be lyrically & conceptionally much more complex than at first, cursory listen. All four members of the band are intelligent and authentic.
   Happy to know you are a fan!
   Pax

   Comment by Dariel — March 4, 2013 @ 9:28 pm

2. 

   You can definitely see your expertise in the paintings you write. The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to mention how they believe. All the time go after your heart.

   Comment by Nauru wakacje — March 9, 2013 @ 5:09 am

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