Saving Rock and Roll

Rock and roll has a rebellious sound. I write that
hesitantly, because there is really no such thing as rock and roll, in terms of
having a permanent nature or ongoing essence. Speed, loudness, and distorted
acoustical effects do not a musical genre make. Rock is a mishmash of various
musical traditions—Gospel, blues, jazz, folk, country, swing—rather than a
tradition of its own. Like
a vampire, rock needs fresh blood to survive, and it leaves its victims forever
altered by draining their lifeblood. When bands began using string instruments in the late sixties, for example, they changed the way most people hear classical music, and classical music, to the extent that it is still culturally relevant, has had to adapt accordingly. Even calling rock rebellious is a dated description. But what will happen when all music
becomes, to one degree or another, rockified? Can rock be, musically speaking,
everything and still be rock and roll?

Monopolies have no
competitors, but there is a competing brand to rebellious rock, and that is contemporary
Christian music. Once derided not just by traditionalist Christians but also by
rock devotees, Christian rock has come of age. Precisely because it tries to
sound different from the rock mainstream, much of it is as good as or better
than secular rock—although it is still tightly segregated, like Christian
fiction, from the mainstream markets.

If
I were a trend-spotter, I would wager that secular rock will increasingly look
to its Christian rival for new infusions of creativity and power. Take, for example, Patty Griffin’s
“Wild Old Dog,” an intensely meditative song that gains in theological power
with each new hearing. It begins:

God is a wild old dog

Someone left out on the highway

I seen him running by me

He don’t belong to no one now.

The song tells the story of a family that pulls over on the
side of a highway in order to abandon their mangy and nearly blind old dog.
When they set out for the ride, one of the family members tries to kick him
into the car, but “He just climbed on in just like he knew.” He is a willing
victim. Indeed, his destiny is to have his broken bones crushed and whittled
down to nothing.

The pathos in this song is heavy, but it is redeemed from
its own melodrama by the soaring quality of Griffin’s voice. She can be
uplifting even when the words are driving you down, while the gracefulness of
her singing sounds utterly forlorn. I know nothing about Griffin’s religious
beliefs, but she has written a great religious song that begs to be interpreted
theologically.

When the dog is let go, to the surprise of the singer and
against all expectation, he tears “off runnin’ like we set him free.” The dog is
not running away from the family, nor is he blindly running around, with
no direction. In fact, with bad hips and knees, it is a miracle that he is
running at all. It is uncertain what this does to the singer’s faith. The dog
disappears right in front of her and leaves her thinking about how

Sometimes a heart can turn to dust

Get whittled down to nothing

Broken down and crushed.

The dog’s fate
deeply wounds the singer, and this song is her attempt at healing.

But what about the dog, who is, after all, identified with
God? The dog never loses his dignity. In fact, his sudden running seems to be
telling the family that it is all right that they have kicked him out. The dog is
old, but by embracing the wildness they have forced on him, he takes away the
consequences of their cruelty. The dog is not just any kind of God, but the God
who died to set us free.

We live in a world where sound has become a salvific
commodity. Plugging in is how many people escape the drudgery of the ordinary
and everyday. Favorite songs provide three minutes of transcendence.
Nevertheless, rock is so ubiquitous that it is in danger of becoming musical
wallpaper, with one style looking like another and none looking all that
interesting, which leaves you wanting to tear them all down just to see the
wall again.

Music lets us hear ideas that can be hard to grasp on an
abstract or conceptual level. Griffin’s voice in this song, for example, makes
the sadness of her words come alive in a way that expands our theological
senses. We can hear in her voice the sound of the loss she is describing. More
specifically, we can hear in her song the hard truth that Jesus Christ was
never more like us than when we abandoned him.

Griffin is not Christian rock. But secular rock will
increasingly look like Griffin, or it should. The future of rock is either to
suffer a slow cultural death or be saved by more satisfying sounds by rebelling
against its original rebellion and becoming more explicitly spiritual. Even if
I am wrong about that prediction, the possibility that the best popular music
can carry rich theological themes is something to celebrate.

Stephen H. Webb is a columnist for First Things. He is the author of Jesus Christ, Eternal God and, forthcoming, Mormon Christianity. His book on Bob Dylan is Dylan Redeemed.

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