“I wore black because I liked it.  I still do, and wearing it still means something to me.  It's still my symbol of rebellion ― against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.”  Johnny Cash

"Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols."  Amos 5:23

Jimmy Page is my favorite guitar player.  We used to cover "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" in my college band, one of the few songs in which I sang lead vocals.  I replaced "Johnny" in the lyrics with "Jimmy," as a tip of the hat to Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.  If Jimmy Page is my favorite guitar player, Jimi Hendrix is probably my idea of the best.  Nobody can play guitar like that.  It's cool if listening to him makes you want to try.  Good luck.

I wrote a short blog about it a few years ago, you can read HERE.

Unfortunately, I can't listen to Led Zeppelin anymore.  It's a major loss.  I had to get rid of the few songs I still had leftover on my playlist.  I sold the CD's I had for booze money years ago.  I kept a few videos, but had to toss them overboard, like a beautiful amulet made of kryptonite.  You know it's priceless and you'll never see anything like it again, but it will kill you if you continue to wear it.  It was a bummer, but into the sea it went.

These videos are the reason why:

The "Rock & Roll is satanic" movement has always been ridiculous to me.  As I wrote in Throw Me To The Doves in 2017, "I don’t believe in 'devil’s music.'  I don’t believe the devil is a creative spirit.  I don’t believe in sparks, combusting in the darkness."

It's an opinion I still hold.

Kinda.

It's hard to deny that the lyrics to "Houses of the Holy" aren't a form of unfortunate, gratuitous devil worship:

Let the music be your master
Will you heed the master's call?
Oh, Satan and man

Let the music replace God as my master?  You mean, as an act of idolatry?  Satan and man?  The master's call?

No thanks.

Nevermind that "Stairway To Heaven" is all about the "piper" (Satan) leading some chick to hell on the "whispering wind."  The Crowleyan appeal for the piper to "lead us to reason," which is classic, brazen Luciferianism, after which the forests "echo with laughter," followed by an attempt to reassure people who haven't seared their consciences and still have doubts about all this naked, drug-addled maypole dancing that "there's still time to change the road you're on,"

make it impossible for me to listen to.  I don't care how much I like the music.  The spirit behind it is terrible.  It makes me mad, because the reasons I can't listen to Led Zeppelin are the reasons I don't listen to Slayer.  Why should bands with such obviously-different artistic complexity, beauty, and merit be lumped into the same demonic puke-soup?  Hey, I used to like metal; I saw Slayer once in the late 80s (1990 maybe) and enjoyed the show, and I'm telling you:

Led Zeppelin should be ashamed for allowing themselves to be dragged to the same stinking, sulfurous pit as a bunch of guys who sing about serial killers when they could have used the SAME BRILLIANCE AND BEAUTY for something worthwhile.

The truth, perhaps.

I once attended a church in Bullhead City, Arizona, in which no instruments were used.  The music was entirely a cappella.  I noticed it, but didn't think anything of it.  They must be really into vocals, I thought.  Whatever.  Later, while talking to the ideologue in charge of the place over a plate of fried chicken in the back room, it was clear that the lack of instrumentation was a hackneyed, demonic attempt at faux-holiness. 

Completely ignoring context, Psalm 150, and other verses, the fake preacher told me the decision was based on Amos 6:5, which reads, "that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David."  Apparently, the people in the book of Amos weren't any good.  In addition to making musical instruments like David and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, they were all about themselves, and completely uninterested in God.

Not unlike people in mainline churches today.

But it was the lack of musical instruments that was going to save them.  Who needs faith and repentance, when you can simply put down the guitar and start pointing fingers to the extent that people become afraid to look at the undisposed-of skeletons behind your curtain?

Much easier.

I got into an audible-but-respectful disagreement with the guy before I left and took the van back out to Lake Mead, or whatever they call the bleak, beautiful expanse of sand and scrub brush immediately west of Laughlin, Nevada.  Another dead-end devil church, I thought.  Well, maybe somebody thought I made a good point, and quit as a result of my visit.  One can hope.  Here's a picture of my parking spot:

Another time, I met a guy for a cup of coffee at the Safeway in Cottonwood, Arizona.  He had retired to van life, and had a fancy SUV with all kinds of camping accessories, and wanted to meet me for Christian fellowship, or support, or something.  He played some unlistenable "worship music" for me, then asked about my music.  Idiotically, I played "Over The 5 And Far Away" for him, which is a long street poem about heroin use, among other things.  He listened to it for 10 seconds and told me it was demonic.  "Demonic?"  I replied.  What about the disingenuous caterwauling you just subjected me to?  I told him I'd been "wasting my time on people like you my whole life" and walked out in a huff.  I'm not proud of it, but that's what I told him. 

These days, I barely remember having written it.  I listened to it today for the first time since 1942.  I'd say it comes from a dark, wasted place, but I wouldn't say it's DEMONIC.  At least not any more demonic than the subject matter naturally demands.  Unlike Led Zeppelin, it's not gratuitous demon-worship music; it really happened.  There are events in the song that actually happened, people I really knew, things I heard and was told, from criminal job offers to homicidal junky chick noise to street wisdom from tweekers I used to hang out with.  I wouldn't say it's demonic.  No more demonic than the dark parts of the testimony of anyone who needs to be saved.  But if you do, I won't argue with you.

It does have a Zeppelin-inspired title.  Maybe that was his problem.

So, what is devil's music?  Is it Rock & Roll?  Necessarily?  I don't think so.  Neither does Wanda Jackson.

Here's Wanda Jackson playing a Rock & Roll song about not being a feminist, in which every verse contains a different Bible character and/or story, in 1958:

My kinda chick.  Marriage material, back in the day, all the way.

Here she is asking God why she gets to have any fun at all, considering what a dirty sinner she is:

And here she is covering Amy Winehouse:

One of the most-compelling examples I've ever seen of a true artist asking a true question is Wanda Jackson singing "Right or Wrong."

More accurately, the album cover is what gets me.  Look at her, sitting there with one of her shoulder straps pulled down seductively, an image which is suggestive and risqué today.  The title is an appropriately-ambivalent question, as opposed to a dogmatic beat-down about the evils of using music to tell the truth while simultaneously using it to praise a God you don't actually believe in.  Like the people in the book of Amos, presumably, and a certain church in Bullhead City.

Does God want hypocrisy?  False displays of faith under an exciting, ridiculous light show?  Disingenuous rats who drop His Son's name at the door like they're trying to get into the Playboy Mansion?  Or people who are true?

Depends on the god.

We know what Jimmy Page's god thinks, but what about Johnny Cash?

A lifelong Christian who never had an issue with his non-Christian material, Johnny Cash became unabashedly hardcore about his faith at the end of his life.  Never one to walk circles around a topic, his late-period entreaties to repent are among the strongest Christian music ever recorded.

I don't know if any artists on the Hillsong roster would have the guts to get all Book of Revelation on you, but Johnny wasn't ashamed or afraid:

I really like the lyric, "the whirlwind is in the thorn tree."  Great image.

So, what is devil's music?

Devil's music is the music of liars.  It's fake, maudlin pap from people who worship at the altar of their own reflection.  It's a cappella hymns sung from on high by people who are saved by their own righteousness instead of faith.  Like Zeppelin, devil's music can also be an act of hijacking.  Sometimes the devil will hijack a brilliant artist and co-opt their God-given talents for his own purposes.  He'll put a gun to the pilot's head and say, "I'll make you rich and famous if you drive this plane into the ground."  It's a paradoxical, long-term future-obliterating offer, but since it sometimes takes 50 years or more for the plane to actually hit the ground, and there are less-pleasurable ways of spending one's time than naked, drug-addled maypole dancing with people who think you're a god, the pilot may defer to the hijacker for instant, temporary kicks.

In God's eyes, I have a feeling it's tragic.  Amazingly, unbelievably, He actually really does love everybody.

What is God's music?  "Praise and worship" music, to be sure, but even if I can't listen to Slayer or Led Zeppelin anymore, I doubt I will ever believe God is entirely glorified by a true artist who pretends that a part of him- or herself isn't there, and doesn't find something worth repeating in an Amy Winehouse or Trent Reznor song.  People don't start popping pills or pulling down their shoulder straps because they're perfect, after all.

God bless, and thanks for listening.

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p.s.  In music theory terms, devil's music is a flatted 5th, maniacal piano and/or violin playing, and Robert Johnson.  More hijacking and 1930s, Mississippi-style naked maypole dancing, undoubtedly.