A Little Fire, Not Enough Brimstone
Arts, Featured, Music — By Josh Langhoff on February 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Patty Griffin
Downtown Church
(Credential Recordings)
I’ll start by damning this album with not-so-faint praise. Patty Griffin’s new one, Downtown Church, makes for uniformly pleasant listening. It’s made up mostly of gospel covers, with a couple originals and Big Mama Thornton’s “I Smell a Rat” thrown in for good measure. Griffin’s voice is a beautiful instrument, swerving between an almost piercing clarity on the high notes, and a swinging huskiness down low. She and the band sound good-humored throughout. From all accounts, recording this album with Americana stalwart Buddy Miller, in an actual downtown church in Nashville, was a great time. That sense of fun carries through most of the tunes, especially when gospel luminaries Ann and Regina McCrary offer up some smoky, murmuring background vocals. Aside from a couple REALLY SLOW songs, it’s an impeccable overview of gospel classics, varied and well-recorded.
Now. That may be what you want from a gospel album, or from an alt-country album or NPR album or Starbucks album or whatever else this thing is. If so, enjoy with my blessing, because enjoying music is always more enjoyable than not. (That’s from a fortune cookie.) But consider the fourth song, “Death’s Got a Warrant.” It’s basically drummer Jay Bellerose (or someone) banging on the fours while Griffin and the McCrary sisters harmonize precisely on lyrics like,
“You can’t hide because you don’t know how/
God’s got your number and he knows where you live/
Death’s got a warrant for you.”
Those words, previously sung by the Dixie Hummingbirds, are basically a call to repentance by means of abject fear–”if you don’t repent GOD WILL KILL YOU.” Repentance through fear is an effective tactic; it got me through 18 years of Missouri-Synod Lutheranism. And indeed, reviewers have called Griffin’s rendition of this song “chilling,” “body-slamming,” and “brimstone fearful.” Oh, please; if Patty Griffin scares anyone into repenting, I’ll eat a Chick tract.
But my problem isn’t just with Griffin’s reviewers overstating their cases because they like her. Griffin and Miller could have come up with something truly, viscerally scary for “Warrant,” whether they believe its message or not. For the record: I don’t believe its message, except maybe on some far out symbolic level, or as directed at the heads of Goldman Sachs. But I at least want to believe the song. Remember Keith Green’s “To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice”? When he portrays God, singing,
“And I’m coming quickly/
To give back to you/
According to what you have done!”
I don’t really believe a word of that either, per se, but I BELIEVE it when he sings it. That’s a song that’ll at least make you pray, if it doesn’t drive you to quit your job and enter the mission field. As a symbol of divine judgment in pop music, it’s unsurpassed. “Warrant,” on the other hand, is a sign of God’s judgment without being a symbol, as Paul Tillich might say. Griffin and Miller’s rendition points to judgment without participating in it. In my musical judgment, it’s a curio.
That’s my main problem with the rest of the album, or at least with those songs that aren’t REALLY SLOW. Griffin, Miller, and the band present us a treasure trove of songs, flawlessly performed–but the presentation seems to be the point. Very few of the songs actually say anything other than “Dig what a great old song this is.” It’s not that these musicians are show-offs, because every gesture is in the service of the songs, almost painstakingly so. In fact, they could probably stand to show off more.
Take Griffin’s take on Dorothy Love Coates’s “Strange Man.” I could happily listen to Coates sing this song until the day God comes to kill me. Her voice is a panoply of voices–shouts, asides, craggy straightforward readings that sound almost like speech–and it’s hard to predict which voice will appear next, or where it’ll go. She hits the unlikely line, “deFENDing a WOMan that had been CAUGHT in the VERy ACT– of adultery,” like you might hit an angry mob you were desperate to fend off. Griffin scans the line like a pro, which she is, but her voice treats this song like all the others. It’s loose and it swings, but it tells me absolutely nothing about the strangeness of this man who keeps popping up all over Judea, blessing souls and then running away.
Of course, few singers could equal Coates’s amazing performance, but Downtown Church’s shortcomings aren’t just matters of virtuosity. The beauty of Hank Williams’s “House of Gold” is in the strident vowel sounds, the way he savors that feeling in his voice as he gradually ascends through the verses, until he’s singing the word “world” with all the bodily conviction of a doomed felon at the noose. Griffin doesn’t hold her notes to the breaking point, and her tasteful melismas turn an anguished howl into a museum piece. I could go on, but you don’t want to hear me knock all these songs, ESPECIALLY the done-to-death “Wade in the Water,” which, among other complaints, has nothing new to say on the subjects of wading or water.
The one cover that Griffin and Miller really put over is the fast-simmering “If I Had My Way,” which benefits from some choice guitar reverb, and from the fact that it’s a feel-good story song that’s suited to the curio treatment. It has no pretensions to real-life application. (Both Dylan and the Dead have done it as “Samson and Delilah,” not nearly as well as Griffin sings it.) “I Smell a Rat” is fine, a sub-Chicago worthless-husband novelty, but Thornton’s original didn’t set the bar real high. The comforting “Coming Home to Me,” an original with a great counterpoint from Julie Miller, is also among the highlights. Griffin sure knows how to write a song.
With that in mind, I should add that she also knows a thing or two about viscerally delivering those songs. Go back and listen to 2004′s “Top of the World,” which the Dixie Chicks also knocked out of the park. It’s a hard, bitter monologue that makes you hate and pity a narrator who ruined his life, and possibly the lives of his family. It’s quite a feat; maybe not body-slamming, but definitely chilling and brimstone-fearful. Patty Griffin can do all that stuff, given the right material. She’s able to make her own songs speak with an urgency she can’t find in these gospel covers. There’s no shame in that, and I don’t begrudge her the attempt. But there’s no shame in proselytizing either, when you’re singing a proselytizing tune.
15 Comments
So you don’t like the songs themselves, or just the theology? Not sure what your point is.
By the way, if you don’t believe that death and destruction awaits those who don’t accept the free gift of salvation made possible through the work of Jesus on the Cross, then you might have to start marking hundreds of verses out of your bible. Start with John 3:16.
I guess I should let Josh speak for himself, but it seemed to me his main complaint was with the sound of the album:
“That’s my main problem with the rest of the album, or at least with those songs that aren’t REALLY SLOW.”
I can’t even begin to address your second paragraph, so I’m going to go get a soda from the fridge instead.
Oh man, my Bible’s already marked up enough as it is. All that stuff about gay people is pretty much GONE.
That said, I don’t have a problem with the songs or the theology. (I’d say the two are inseparable, wouldn’t you?) My problem’s with the performances. Patty didn’t really sell me on the death and destruction.
As far as what I believe, I think you’re putting words in my mouth there, James. Neither of the two “death and destruction” songs I mentioned say anything about “accepting the free gift of salvation made possible through the work of Jesus on the cross.” They’re pretty works oriented, as the Keith Green I quoted demonstrates. My favorite line from that song, and the most controversial, is where he spits out,
“If you can’t come to me every day/
Then don’t bother coming at all/
La la la…”
“Death’s Got a Warrant” basically equates God with Death. How’s that the same as “accepting the free gift of salvation made possible through the work of Jesus on the Cross”?
Josh, I wasn’t putting words in your mouth as much as asking what you were saying, because it wasn’t that clear to me.
Fair enough! Peace.
@JamesW:
“By the way, if you don’t believe that death and destruction awaits those who don’t accept the free gift of salvation made possible through the work of Jesus on the Cross, then you might have to start marking hundreds of verses out of your bible. Start with John 3:16.”
Extrapolating out a theory on the writer’s theology based on absolutely nothing he actually wrote is pretty much the definition of putting words in someone’s mouth. You can call it asking for clarification, or whatever you like, but it happens quite regularly, and simply owning up in this instance would be a great way to go.
Jordan, if I had anything to own up to, I would. I am being honest here. I can’t help the way you interpret my post, although I admit it wasn’t worded very well. But I really was asking for clarification. Thus my first sentence about “not sure what you meant”, and the key word “if” in the second paragraph.
If we’re talking semantics, “Not sure what you meant” and “Not sure what your point is” don’t say the same thing.
So let me put it this way: if you were simply asking for clarification, you’re right, there’s nothing to apologize for.
I read this and wasn’t sure what was being relayed too but again, not that smart so wasn’t sure if that factored in. Either way, no problem as it’s nice to just share too.
I enjoyed the video and gonna look into her songs.
When it comes to that whole fire and brimstone discussion (and still not sure where you were going with that so this isn’t necessarily reflective of what you wrote) I do feel that sometimes the wrong thing is stressed but I also feel that at times by looking to avoid past mistakes, we rob the gospel of its beauty and power. There is a way that we can share the message without watering it down. And God may have us just share one aspect when ministering to someone that just needs to hear that one aspect at that time, but I like the overall message for a more general discussion.
In today’s society the idea of sin is an offensive one. We don’t want to admit that it exists, nor that we “of ourselves” are no good and all deserve nothing less than hell. This is what I love about two of my brothers that are big time into grace. This part some that have that seem to miss, but not them. They like to say, “The problem with people is that they think they are good.” That’s true and then we condemn God in our hearts like He’s the bad one. I been there done that when He took a route I didn’t like but I open up and share with him instead of hiding in shame and He loves that and sheds His Light as He sees fit. Oh, we miss those treasures when we look to defend God by our own knowledge and when we hide.
That’s one of my favorite parts in the book of Job, when Job says something to his friends about the error of defending God with their knowledge (or something like that, read for accuracy).
We compare ourselves to society’s standards, or the neighbors, and forsake the actual standard, a heart connected to God’s as displayed in his Son Jesus Christ. The mishandling and abuses of the past have done their part in encouraging darkness over Light. And some of us, in our own efforts to avoid loading others with guilt and condemnation, compromise the truth. As such, instead of doing people and the gospel a service, we actually rob it and them the essence of its beauty.
If we will come to trust in the truth, we will come to see the real beauty of God. Sometimes the outward appearance isn’t very pleasant but until we have dived into the deep to hear his heart and view the scenery from there, we won’t recognize how beautiful it really is. The truth is that sin does exist, and we have all fallen short of the glorious standard of God. But herein lies the greatest love of all that is revealed in the deep where the heart of God lies-while we were yet sinners Christ took upon Himself our punishment so that we can be made right with God. To bring down the wall that separated us and Him so that we can now draw close to Him.
There really isn’t a grey area when it comes to God and his truth. There is light and darkness, good and evil, life and death. We can mistake grace for grey but until we are faced with the reality of the truth and the very evident difference between the Kingdom of Light and the kingdom of darkness, we will not truly see how beautiful the heart of God really is. The gospel will not move us as it should.
Romans 5:6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
The beauty in the gospel lies in its simplicity. That man did rebel and sin against his Creator. As a result of his own choices, he severed his relationship with God and sold himself to a life of sin and death. Yet Father God took it upon Himself to pay the cost that we were unable to pay, through Christ who has become our door. And entering through that door we can now draw near to Father God.
The good news of the gospel is one of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Not one of no sin. Not one of condemnation. But one of reconciliation. The gospel in its simplest form is the most powerful. We can trust it to accomplish its purpose.
And it really isn’t the fear of hell that keeps drawn to God. It is the fact that I cannot live without Him and his Love. Compared to that, this world has nothing for me.
Love in Him,
Jo
Oh, forgot to say, thanks for the article. It probably would have helped to know her music and style to understand the article better (at least for me) but either way it peaked my curiosity and love the video. I enjoyed it and loved her range, amongst other things so will be looking into her music further. I love good music and have found it to be a wonderful tool that ministers to me at times too. I just love when your heart connects to a song and it ministers in that special way.
Love in Him,
Jo
With all due respect to all, seriously, James, I got your comment.
Hey, can we see that this comment fits just after James’ comment on Feb 5 at 11:31pm?
I am looking to give the benefit of the doubt that this re-arranging with posts that keeps happening may be due to flow of conversation rather than to serve anyone’s self-interest.
Thanks.
Love in Him,
Jo
I don’t care to step into this debate, but this line: “Oh, please; if Patty Griffin scares anyone into repenting, I’ll eat a Chick tract.” is gold.
I’d rather eat a “Testa-mint.” Wintogreen flavor’s not half bad.
Patty Griffin, Keith Green. I like your points on conviction and compulsion.
Howdy. First I desire to say that I actually like your blog, just observed it last week but I’ve been reading it sometimes since then.
I appear to consent with most of your ideas and opinions and this post is no different.
Thank you for a fantastic weblog and I hope you preserve up the very good do the job. If you do I will keep on to browse through it.
Have a excellent day.