click Either you have no opinion about the subject matter, or you do, and are offended, or possibly angered, or disappointed by it. Good! My intention when I wrote things like "HOLY HOLY HOLY" and others was to get your attention. The purpose was to mix positive and negative subjects into one single picture, and to draw a parallel to what I saw going on around me, and still see going on around me.
Good people doing bad things. Honest people being dishonest, and my favorite: spiritual people being hypocritical. I was a walking target for the hypocrisy of many, and remain so to this day. If you remember the beginning parts of this story, I had to endure the likes of Tony Alamo, one of the world's great con men, who became a so-called born again believer. He used his new found transformation to become an even bigger con man.
Presidents who lied to get us deeper into war, like Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam. The practice of mixing religion, patriotism, and morality to hide the treachery of the so-called good and decent people. Much like today, the same mixture of Jesus and America, or God and country, was intermingled by some to pressure the rest to go along with the great big lie, Iraq.
I was fighting this shit in 1967-68. The beginning of the "Jesus Movement" started in the late 60's. In 1967 I ran into Tony Alamo at Canters Deli on Fairfax Ave., a big hippie, and street people gathering place. He was out rounding up hippies for the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation.
He saw me about the same time I noticed him, and when we got close enough to each other he gave me the famous Tony Alamo stare and yelled, "There's only one Jesus and you're not him." This immediately brought back memories of the day Tony told someone that I was Jesus Christ.
The point is that the subject of Jesus and Bobby Jameson had a history that hasn't gone away. I liked Jesus Christ, but I don't like Christianity. Jesus, was a prophet in my way of thinking, not the head of some man made religion that twists everything into a state of mental illness, which is then used to back up every piss poor idea we as a country came up with, or continue to come up with.
Remember! George Bush was an alcoholic, born again christian, who used his beliefs to do more Goddamn damage then anyone I have ever seen in a long time. Conversely, the opposition has it's religious beliefs doing the same dance of death from the opposite end of the spectrum.
Again, the point is that beliefs, because they are beliefs, are dangerous. They allow people who believe in something, to justify behavior that is completely destructive and probably a state of mass nationalistic mental illness. I took the subject of Jesus and/or religion, and placed them in the most unlikely places I could think of for the purpose of examining the absurdity of what we do all the time.
Because we believe in God, we are right. Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side." But if you place God, or religion, in a setting where you do not expect to find them, everything changes. If we could look with an objective point of view at what we do, as a result of what we believe, we might well be horrified at what we see.
The trouble is that all of this is a taboo subject. No one wants to talk about certain things, like priests who molested children, so it just continued on for decades. My use of taboo lyrics was an attempt to break open the box. I don't really think God is threatened by me, but people certainly were, and probably still are.
It is the easiest thing in the world to dismiss differences by suggesting that the subject is without merit, and or purpose, in your or someone's opinion. I attempted to write an entire album of this kind of material that would have knocked your fucking head off, but I was systematically prevented from doing so by the powers that be at the time.
The fact that there was a market for this kind of material was made clear after one incomplete play of "Holy HoIy Holy" on a San Francisco radio station.
This is just one of many demos I made in the 1967-68 time frame. I will post others from this period as well since there are so many....
I hadn't left a comment on the"junkie jesus" post 'cause I hadn't gotten to see it till now!;-)
ReplyDeleteI thought the song was fantastically written, and seems like it would have been very popular at the time (and probably today). I think the problem, though, is the getting across of the message. The song is presented (fairly obviously to me) as a yin/yang descriptive attempt at opening up a dialog. But you know how lyrics like that had to have been seen by someone already convinced that hippies, in there upheaval of popular convention, were heralding in the age of satan and sin. From that particular veiwpoint, it was easy for it to be seen as a song written some young person being disrespectful of christian icons just for the hell of it. Stuff I've read by non-countercultural, status quo type people written at or about that time period has shown tells that stuff-shirts just never really *got* hippies, or what it was you all were trying to do. They just saw the People as a bunch of mixed-up kids whose minds were confused by drugs and sin, not as the revolutionaries they were, in truth.
Your lyrics remain amazingly relevant and poignant in these times.
I can always dream that my music will piss people off as much! (ok, well, not to the point of it never being heard. But enough.)
V
Junkie Jesus is one of my favorite songs of all time. It makes the subject of addiction so very real. And who better to describe that than Jesus on the cross. Very cool. You have a way of piercing truth like no one I have ever seen. Maybe some see this as being "too" bold, but I have seen you capture a whole crowd by it. You love to make us think. Which is a very good thing.
ReplyDeleteTerri
I'm a little confused by the order of the material on the blog. Though this blog, Part 52, is dated 2008, was it posted today? Or re-posted?
ReplyDeleteClearly, there's a lot more story to tell but the only material I can find online goes to Part 52, late-60s or thereabouts.
Your vocals are really strong on this track. Did you play gigs with a group during this period?
Keep writing and posting.
I pulled the lyrics to Junkie Jesus because at the time of the original post I didn't have Holy Holy Holy. Since that time I have found a demo of Holy Holy Holy and posted it. Junkie jesus will appear again later when it was written in 1970. It was somewhat out of context the way I used it here so I moved it to where it should be. Thanks
ReplyDeleteR, this is an edited reposting of the original material which is indicated by the post date. I am editing the entire blog and reposting with new material...that is why it is confusing.....
ReplyDeleteBobby—
ReplyDeleteThe reposting with the new chronological videos is definitely worth the effort from the reader's standpoint. The new stuff is a revelation and a joy! Thanks for going the extra mile.
Tim