Article

Culture

Music

Wildness

17 December 2024

6 min read

Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion

How popular music conjures sacred space.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

Rapper Stormzy raises a hand to heaven as he sings with a gospel choir on the Glastonbury stage.

Blinded by Your Grace, Stormzy, Glastonbury 2019.

BBC.

In Faith, Hope and Carnage, his book of conversations with Seán O’Hagan, Nick Cave said: “Music plays into the yearning many of us instinctively have—you know, the God-shaped hole. It is the art form that can most effectively fill that hole, because it makes us feel less alone, existentially. It makes us feel spiritually connected. Some music can even lead us to a place where a fundamental spiritual shift of consciousness can happen. At best, it can conjure a sacred space.”

That’s because, as Elvis Presley stated during his ‘68 Comeback Special, "Rock and roll is basically just gospel music, or gospel music mixed with rhythm and blues". Following in the wake of key precursors such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Rock ‘n’ roll merged Blues (with its spiritual strand) and Country music (tapping its white gospel) while Soul music adapted much of its sound and content from Black gospel. For both, their gestures and movements, and sometimes the songs too, were adopted wholesale from Pentecostalism. Some, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Cooke, felt guilt at secularising Gospel while others, like Johnny Cash, arrived at a hard-earned integration of faith and music.

All experienced opposition from a Church angry at its songs and influence being appropriated for secular ends. This opposition fed a narrative that, on both sides, equated rock and pop with hedonism and rebellion. The born-again Cliff Richard was often perceived (both positively and negatively) as the only alternative. Within this context the biblical language and imagery of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison was largely overlooked, although Dylan, in particular, spoke eloquently about the influence of scripture within the tradition of American music on which he drew.

However, this changed in two ways. First, the Church began to appropriate rock and pop to speak about Christian faith. David Wells has explained that: “The American branch of the Jesus movement effectively started in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, but there was also a parallel development in the UK that slowly evolved from beat groups performing in church coffee-bars. By 1971, leading British Christian rock band Out Of Darkness were appearing at notorious countercultural gathering Phun City, while Glastonbury introduced a “Jesus tent” that offered Christian revellers mass and holy communion twice a day.”

This development led eventually to the emergence of a new genre, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and a consequent oscillating movement between CCM and the mainstream. Mainstream artists such as Philip Bailey, David Grant, Al Green, Larry Norman and Candi Staton developed CCM careers while artists originally within CCM such as Delirious? Martyn Joseph, Julie Miller, Leslie (Sam) Phillips, Sixpence None The Richer, Switchfoot, and Steve Taylor achieved varying levels of mainstream exposure and success.

Second, the Hippie movement expanded the spirituality already inherent in rock music through the visionary aspect of drug culture and a wider engagement with religion which included significant connections with Eastern religions but also, in part through the Jesus Movement, with Christianity. This was the period of songs such as 'Presence of the Lord' by Blind Faith, 'My Sweet Lord' by George Harrison, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor, 'Sweet Cherry Wine' and 'Crystal Blue Persuasion' by Tommy James and the Shondells, 'Let it Be' by The Beatles, 'That's the Way God Planned It' by Billy Preston, 'Hymn' by Barclay James Harvest, 'Jesus is A Soul Man' by Laurence Reynolds, 'Are You Ready?' by Pacific Gas & Electric, 'Spirit in the Sky' by Norman Greenbaum, 'Put Your Hand in the Hand' by Ocean, 'Jesus Is Just Alright' by the Doobie Brothers, ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’ by Argent, and both ‘My Life Is Right’ and ‘Try Again’ by Big Star.

This was also the period of musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and, from the Jesus Movement, Lonesome Stone and Yesterday, Today, Forever. Among the most interesting, but then relatively obscure, examples of albums connecting faith and music were Electric Prunes’ Mass in F Minor (written by David Axelrod), C.O.B.’s Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart and Bill Fay’s Time of the Last Persecution. Gram Parsons drew heavily on the Gospel music tradition in Country Music, also taking The Byrds in the same direction, while many of the songs of Judee Sill dealt specifically with Christian spirituality.

It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature.

With the majority of Soul stars having begun singing in church, many of the most effective integrations of faith and music were also found there, with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and the Gospel-folk of the Staple Singers, such as Be What You Are, being among the best and most socially committed examples. Gospel featured directly with Preston, Edwin Hawkins Singers, Aretha Franklin’s gospel albums, and Green's albums from the Belle Album onwards.

The biblical language and imagery of stars like Cave, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Morrison and Bruce Springsteen began to be understood and appreciated. This was helped to varying degrees by explicitly ‘Christian’ periods in the work of Dylan, Van the Man and, more latterly, Cave. Dylan’s conversion came about through the Vineyard Church movement which also impacted musicians such as T Bone Burnett, Bryan MacLean, David Mansfield, Maria McKee, and Stephen Soles.

Musicians such as After The Fire, The Alarm, The Alpha Band, Burnett, The Call, Peter Case, Bruce Cockburn, Deacon Blue, Extreme, Galactic Cowboys, Inner City, Innocence Mission, Kings X, Lone Justice, McKee, Buddy & Julie Miller, Moby, Over The Rhine, Phillips, Ricky Ross, 16 Horsepower, Mavis Staples, U2, Violent Femmes, Gillian Welch, Jim White, and Victoria Williams rather than singing about the light (of Christ) as CCM artists tended to do, instead sang about the world which they saw through the light (of Christ).

As rock and pop fragmented into a myriad of genres, this latter approach to the expression of faith (which was first articulated by Burnett) continues in the music of Belle and Sebastian, Eric Bibb, Blessid Union of Souls, Creed, Fay, Brandon Flowers, Good Charlotte, Ben Harper, Held By Trees, The Killers, Michael Kiwanuka, Ed Kowalczyk, Lifehouse, Live, Low, Neal Morse, Mumford and Sons, Joy Oladokun, Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, SAULT, Scott Stapp, Sufjan Stevens, Stormzy, The Welcome Wagon, and Woven Hand.

With his latest album Wild God, Cave is using rock music to conjure sacred space. ‘Joy’ begins, “I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head” but its key moment of transition comes when he falls to his knees calling out “have mercy on me please” and “a voice came low and hollow” saying “we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy”. In ‘Wild God’, the antidote to “feeling lonely” and “feeling blue” is to “Bring your spirit down” so that He moves “through your body like a prehistoric bird”.

In his examination of the roots of rock and roll, James Cosby notes that the entire purpose of Pentecostalism was to play music that most let its adherents feel the Holy Spirit in their bodies. It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature. This is where “the heart, joy and sheer exhilaration of rock 'n' roll comes from” and it may also be “one of the best examples of America’s ability to draw from both the sacred and the secular”.

Many of the artists mentioned above feature on the author's Closer to the Light playlist on Spotify.

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Review

Culture

Film & TV

Identity

Weirdness

9 December 2024

5 min read

Nightbitch’s metamorphosis of motherhood

In parenting the best things in life cost everything and nothing.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A woman runs down a street at night accompanied by dogs

Amy Adams, running with the dogs.

Searchlight Pictures.

With birth rates declining, family breakdown increasing and what has been called an anxiety epidemic amongst children, a film about the raw challenges of motherhood – aimed at men as much as women - has to make us sit up and take notice.

Nightbitch does exactly that. Based on Rachel Yoder’s lockdown novel of the same name, it tells the story of a stay-at-home mum who, faced with the brutal realities of modern-day mothering, discovers her feral side – and transforms into a dog.

The film stars Amy Adams, an exceptional actress known for her roles in Arrival—a Denis Villeneuve masterpiece about aliens arriving on Earth—and other iconic films like Man of Steel (as Lois Lane), Enchanted (where she plays the central character), and Night at the Museum (as Amelia Earhart). In this film she delivers a powerful and deeply emotional performance as another alienated character, once a successful artist with a promising career, now reduced to part-parent, part-nightbitch.

The plot has echoes of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, where travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find himself transformed into a giant insect. While Samsa’s arthropod transformation signifies entrapment and helplessness, Amy’s canine alter-ego provides a contrasting sense of liberation, offering her an empowering path of fierce self-assertion amid the demands of motherhood that have become overwhelming and suffocating. Nevertheless, both magical realism narratives use animal transformation to explore profound feelings of loss of identity, isolation and inequality - themes that are especially relevant in a time when pressures on families are immense.

Identity loss

Introducing herself to a group of new mothers, Amy’s character, who remains nameless throughout, says, “I used to be an artist.” Her inability to articulate who she is reflects so much: her loss of purpose, loss of social identity, loss of external validation, loss of financial independence, loss of cognitive functions, loss of self-worth. But it is not only her transformation into a dog that depicts this. There’s a poignant moment as the film opens when Amy bumps into the woman who has taken her old job. The stark contrast between their appearances—Amy looks pretty rough compared to her perfectly turned-out replacement—highlights just how different her life now is. It seems to me that this image of identity loss will resonate with all who face the struggle to reclaim oneself after a major life event, but especially with new mothers.

Isolation

Though Amy’s character is married, her husband is often absent, working long hours to provide financially. When he is home, he seems to want the pre-motherhood version of his wife, engaging only in the lighter aspects of parenting while avoiding the ongoing challenges. This dynamic leaves Amy’s character feeling alone and disconnected from her husband. Not only that, Amy’s initial attempts to connect with other mothers at her child’s nursery fall flat. Although they share the bond of motherhood, she finds their conversations unfulfilling. Similarly, when she reconnects with her old work friends, she discovers their lives have moved on without her, deepening her sense of displacement. She doesn’t fit in at home, at work, or in her community. She is trapped between worlds and is deeply isolated. Nightbitch offers a powerful antidote to Insta-perfect images of parenthood. The stark visual this film provides of the mother running away from the home at night as a dog challenges us to take seriously the need for mothers to escape claustrophobic societal expectations and to find autonomy, community and support.

Inequality

The third key theme explored in the film is the inequality between the male and female experiences of parenthood, as it portrays how much of the burden falls on women. Statistics only confirm the ongoing gender disparities, with women far more likely than men to reduce working hours and sacrifice their career prospects. Women disproportionately shoulder the long-term economic and professional consequences of parenthood, as well as the day-to-day duties of parenting. Add to this the emotional impact of isolation and identity loss, and the burden becomes almost insurmountable. This cumulative strain is faced by all those who are expected to seamlessly transition from independent individuals to selfless caregivers, often with little structural support. The film lays bare how these pressures, left unaddressed, can fracture not only individual lives but the entire stability of the family.

The film left me with questions:

Have I played my part?

As a father, watching this film prompted me to reflect deeply on my own family dynamic. Do we divide responsibilities fairly? Have one person’s dreams or ambitions been side-lined for the sake of the others? Do I overlook or undervalue what my wife does? What happened to the balance we originally envisioned and agreed upon as a couple?

Where is the support?

I also wondered about the structural support needed for those beginning their parenting journey. Then I remembered who facilitates tens of thousands of parent and toddler groups each week across the UK – the Church. Over a third of children under four attend these groups, translating to millions of parents and carers finding access to a lifeline – a welcoming environment and space for connection and mutual support. Do churches know what an important role they are playing? Do new parents know what is available to them there?

Is parenting only a burden?

While the film expresses brilliantly the challenges of parenthood, does it do so at the expense of expressing its joys? In my own experience parenting 30 children through birth, fostering, and adoption in almost the same number of years, I am still trying to work through the paradoxes. How can it be both overwhelming and overwhelmingly enriching. Both lonely, and connect us to the privilege of unconditional love? How is it that in parenting the best things in life cost everything and nothing?

At the London Film Festival Premiere that I attended, Amy Adams also reflected personally on the film:

“It gave me an opportunity to not only tell my relationship with my mother but also my sister and my friends…. There was a deep universality to the experience of motherhood but also the exploration of relationship inside of parenthood,, the relationship with husband. Everything just fell so true, relatable, and funny.”

In the end, Nightbitch is more than a dark, fantastical, funny tale of transformation; it’s a powerful mirror held up to modern family life that everyone can benefit from considering. It challenges traditional gender roles and expectations, inspires reflection on sacrifices and struggles, and provokes important questions about identity, privilege and partnership in the complex journey of parenthood and beyond.