David Bazan, Could You Play This Week’s Offering Song? 2 comments

By Lucas Kwong

David Bazan, ex-frontman for Pedro the Lion and current solo artist, has the distinction of being the only living songwriter whose cumulative discography charts, with frequent bleak hilarity, the slow and agonizing loss of faith in Jesus. Christians have never known what to make of Bazan, who has written lyrics ranging from “You know I want to be like Jesus” (“Lullaby”) to “What a Cruel God We’ve Got” (“Cold Beer and Cigarettes”). In a December 2007 interview with the Seattle Weekly, Bazan, the son of a pastor, pretty much squelched all hope that his latter-day lyrics are just ironic: “I have faith that to the degree God does exist, he’s not this vindictive little b---h Christianity has made him out to be.”

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the Bazan Christmas family dinner.

The point of this post isn’t to bemoan the fact that Bazan is no longer on “our team,” nor is it to debate the artistic value of Bazan’s agnosticism (although I think he is as penetrating a songwriter today as he was when Pedro the Lion debuted with 1997’s “It’s Hard to Find a Friend”). Instead, Bazan’s recent interview left me, once again, wondering how the songwriter of faith relates to the macrocosmic church. For me, the most provocative quote in the interview wasn’t the aforementioned coup de grace, but an offhand description of Bazan’s conservative upbringing. “I had grown up with the idea that music’s purpose was to proselytize—to try to convince people to become Christian.” Bazan’s early and constant immersion in such damaging reductivism, I’m sure, has much to do with his subsequent hostility towards orthodoxy. Indeed, to label a serious songwriter as merely a mouthpiece for doctrine is probably as damaging to that songwriter’s spirituality as it is to his craft.

Unfortunately, in this respect, I suspect songwriters face an uphill battle in a way that artists working in other forms do not. Unlike, say, interpretive dance, music is front and center in the life of the church. Moreover, it’s usually either the easy-listening variety that explores the depths of synth cheesiness, or curiously neutered alt-rock that treats The Joshua Tree as Holy Writ. Either way, the lyrics usually amount to paraphrasing the Psalms or putting the phrase “I love you Jesus” through endless variations. Literalism is the name of the game, and all hints of ambiguity—the source, I might add, of the Psalms’ savage beauty—are mercilessly expunged.

Having led praise and worship for most of my life, I’m familiar with the pastoral reasons why musical complexity during worship is discouraged: community, accessibility to the average attendee, etc. Nonetheless, the typical church service fosters a widespread assumption on the part of congregants that Christian songwriters are tethered to a very narrow range of melodic and lyrical motifs.

What, then, is the proper relationship between a songwriter and the larger body of believers? Should songwriters who aren’t interested in paraphrasing Scripture restrict their contact with the church to furtively ducking in and out of Sunday service, lest some well-meaning pastor try to cajole him into writing hymns? Or is there a more productive way that a songwriter working in Bazan’s vein can contribute to the body of believers?

As a budding songwriter myself, this question isn’t merely theoretical; I started out writing songs for liturgical worship, and have recently shifted my focus to narrative-based forms. While I certainly don’t think I should be expected to toe the doctrinal line, neither do I think that my life as an artist is one thing, my life as a congregant another, and never the twain shall meet.

Ideally, the story-songwriter would provide regular ballast to “vertical” songs of worship; whereas the latter places emphasis on the communal religious experience, the former resists the effacement of the individual within that experience, reminding the congregation that we are, each of us, unique and idiosyncratic selves, and that each person ultimately must grapple with life’s mysteries individually. Should the songwriter’s lyrics prove bitter medicine, of course, it would be the pastor’s duty to urge his congregants to keep listening, rather than tune out because they don’t find the music comforting or familiar.

To be sure, the eternal struggle between pastoral concerns and artistic liberty makes the above scenario easier said than done. It will take vision on the part of pastors and songsmiths alike to ensure that the church’s range of musical creativity is given full, vibrant expression. Till then, I’ll enjoy David Bazan’s deadpan prophecies not on Sunday morning, but on Sunday evening, when all the glory and fire of the Gospel story collide with harsh reality in the recesses of private thought.