"Day of Judgement, God is Calling"
-"War Pigs" (1970)
Nowhere is the association between religion and popular music (both positive and negative) more obvious than in the many permutations of "heavy metal." Often stereotyped as satanic and subversive, the myriad ways in which metal musicians have dealt with the theme of religion is complex and diverse, encompassing elements of parody, polemic, and piety.
One need look no further than the names of some of the major metal bands of the past 30 years to recognize that there is something going on with "religion": Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Angel Witch, Grim Reaper, Witchfinder General, Dark Angel, Death Angel, Exodus, Metal Church, Possessed, Sacrifice, Testament, Sabbat, Atheist, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, Mercyful Fate, Mystic Circle, Rotting Christ, Anathema, Candlemass, Samael, St Vitus, Paradise Lost, Within Temptation, Armored Saint, Dio, Kreator, Sodom, Impaled Nazarene, Dr Sin, Sepultura, Benediction, Avenged Sevenfold, Byzantine, Lamb of God, Trivium, Faith No More...to name but a few! Many of these monikers obviously evoke religious imagery, although through a decidedly darkened lens.
With band names such as these it's not surprising that in the mid-1980s metal music was swept up in a wave of American censorship led by Tipper Gore, wife of then US Senator Al Gore, who spear-headed the Parents' Music Resource Center. The organization claimed that heavy metal (and rap for that matter) undermined American moral values. The music was said to promote rebellion, violence, sexual promiscuity, and (of course) Satanism (Walser 1993: 138-139). This hysteria, fed in turn by the American talk-show circuit of the time, led to a great deal of public and private anxiety about this new and poorly understood musical genre.
What is it about metal that has been the cause of such concern? Other musical genres have promoted sexuality and rebellion. The use of drugs by artists is as old as art itself. To be sure, the images and personae adopted by the bands have been provocative, as has their often controversial album artwork. Moreover, much has been made of metal's use of the "tritone," the so-called diabolus in musica--a diminished 5th that can evoke feelings of doom and dread. Yet, none of these things in of themselves fully explains the degree of denigration the genre has received. It does seem as though the manner in which metal has engaged with religious themes, frequently in surprising and disturbing ways, leads some observers to a deeper level of anxiety. In a certain sense, metal shines a light into the darkest corners of human experience and what is uncovered can be uncomfortable.
IN THE BEGINNING...
Most commentators would situate the genesis of heavy metal with one British band--Black Sabbath (Sharpe-Young 2007: 12). As their very name suggests, this is a group that would appear to lean toward the darker spiritual arts. Their lyrics have been said to use "anti-Christian and quasi-religious imagery" (Cope 2010: 28) and to be driven by an interest in the occult philosophy of Crowley and the Satanism of LaVey (Cope 2010: 83-88). Such a reading would appear to be supported by the lyrics of "N.I.B" from the band's 1970 debut Black Sabbath:
Now I have you with me, under my power
Our love grows stronger now with every hour
Look into my eyes, you will see who I am
my name is Lucifer, please take my hand
Yet, as is so often the cause, the authorial voice is mistaken for the author. The song is sung from the perspective of one seducing the soul. It is an artistic conceit, not an equation of the singer with Satan. We can no more attribute the sentiments of the song to the band than we could those of Mephistopheles to Goethe. Other songs, such as "Lord of This World", also deal with the rejection of God:
Your world was made for you by someone above
But you chose evil ways instead of love
You made me master of the world where you exist
The soul I took from you was not even missed yeah
Lord of this world
Evil possessor
Lord of this world
He's your confessor now
Even when Sabbath is more overtly political, religious imagery creeps in to the mix, as it does in many of the band's successors. Such is the case with "War Pigs" from 1970's Paranoid, which presents its anti-war message in evocatively religious terms, equating the war-mongering generals with "witches at black masses":
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerer of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds...Oh lord yeah!
Such statements seem far from an outright endorsement of the occult. Rather, it's an unmasking of the uncomfortable fact that those who often claim to be doing "good" are actually engaged in profound forms of "evil." Moreover, the "satanic" reputation of Sabbath is flatly contradicted by "After Forever" from Master of Reality (1971), which sounds very much like an endorsement of a Christian perspective:
Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead
you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read
in a book when you were in school?
Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
that God is the only way to love
Again, it's hard to know to what degree this may or may not reflect the sentiments of the band itself. What is clear is that Sabbath songs see the world as "run by forces beyond our control" (Christiansen in Irwin 2010: 153), spiritual and/or political. Yet academic attempts to reduce the band's lyrical message to an expression of Marxism unjustly minimize the spiritual import (see Christiansen in Irwin 2010). Sabbath's world is one in which the forces of good and evil collide. Singer Ozzy Osborne, who happens to be a member of the Church of England, frequently appears with his signature crucifix. Not, it seems to me, to mock or even critique Christianity, but to situate himself as a Christian immersed in the dark realities of "this world"--a world so often seen as defective and disturbing.
We see a similar trend in later solo releases from Ozzy Osbourne, such as "Mr. Crowley," which examines the life of the famous English occultist Aleister Crowley in a decidedly ironic tone:
Your life style to me seemed so tragic
With the thrill of it all
You fooled all the people with magic
Yeah, you waited on Satan's call
Not quite an endorsement of the mage's legacy. In fact, as Walser explains: "Osbourne plays with signs of the supernatural because they evoke a power and mystery that is highly attractive to many fans, but his song offers an experience of those qualities and even a critique, not a literal endorsement of magical practices" (Walser 1993: 148). As Ozzy himself has been at pains to remind his audience, he sees himself as an entertainer, someone who uses dark imagery much like Stephen King or Vincent Price--to entertain, not necessarily to enlighten.
Yet, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, given how strong the satanic stereotype has been, the basic lyrical outlook of many Sabbath songs (and I would say many metal songs more generally) is basically toward acknowledging the reality of evil and starring it in the face. This outlook is even re-enforced by the imagery of the album cover for 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
Here the central figure appears besieged by demonic presences in a scene not unlike the "Temptation of Saint Anthony" frequently depicted in traditional Christian art. Deliberate or not, the resemblance is nonetheless striking and underlines the fact that so-called "popular" genres of music (like metal) are no less engaged with the classical traditions of western civilization than other "high art" forms.
"Temptation of Saint Anthony"
-Salvator Rosa (17th cent.)
THE METAL YEARS
"What do you mean, 'I don't believe in God'?
I talk to him everyday."
--Megadeth, "Peace Sells"
In 1988, a documentary was released called The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, which profiled the prominent heavy metal culture of the time. Riding to widespread popularity on the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), as well as emergent sub-genres like "thrash" and "death" metal, by the late 1980's the genre was arguable one of the most popular in the world. Its legions of fans were committed to a strong sense of individualism and non-conformity (Arnett 1995: 126) Many bands from this second generation were deeply influenced by Black Sabbath and were no less interested in exploring religious themes--again in surprising and controversial ways.
Take Iron Maiden, for instance, one of the most popular and enduring metal bands of all time. Formed in 1975, the British group's first album Iron Maiden (1980) established a punk-infused heavy metal template. The band also set a much higher lyrical standard than from what had come before. One of these early songs, "Strange World", evokes the typical sense of cosmic alienation already described:
The only place where you can dream,
living here is not what it seems.
Ship of white light in the sky,
nobody there to reason why.
Here I am, I'm not really there,
smiling faces ever so rare.
A let's walk in deepest space,
living here just isn't the place.
The band's second album Killers (1981), continued in a similar vein, but with slightly more overt religious references, as witnessed by songs such as "Prodigal Son" and "Purgatory." Yet it is only with 1982's breakthrough album Number of the Beast that Maiden truly inherited the mantel previously carried by Sabbath...and the controversy. Here we have songs such as "Children of the Damned," "Total Eclipse" (originally a B-side), and most controversially "Number of the Beast":
I left alone, my mind was blank.
I needed time to think, to get the memories from my mind.
What did I see? Can I believe that
what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy?
Just what I saw in my old dreams
Were they reflections of my warped mind staring back at me?
'Cause in my dreams it's always there
The evil face that twists my mind and brings me to despair
Bassist and principal songwriter Steve Harris has repeatedly claimed that the song was based upon either a dream or even the Robert Burns poem "Tam O Shanter". Yet, once again, an overly literal reading of the song led many to simplistically assume that the lyrics were an indication of the band's dark sympathies. Presumably, these critics didn't listen to the album's final track, "Hallowed Be Thy Name" about a prisoner waiting for the gallows:
As the guards march me out to the courtyard
Someone calls from a cell "God be with you"
If there's a God then why has he let me go?
As I walk all my life drifts before me
And though the end is near I'm not sorry
Catch my soul 'cause it's willing to fly away
Mark my words believe my soul lives on
Don't worry now that I have gone
I've gone beyond to seek the truth
Here the sense of spiritual questioning is front and centre and like many Maiden songs it is essentially a period piece. In fact, most of the band's compositions deal with some literary or historical subject, in which religion sometimes plays a role. As such, subsequent albums, like Piece of Mind (1983), would contain "Revelations" and an epic metalization of Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (from 1984's Powerslave), itself a profound meditation on life and death:
The Mariner's bound to tell of his story
To tell his tale wherever he goes
To teach God's word by his own example
That we must love all things that God made.
Maiden's spiritual speculation would reach its apex in 1988 with the release of the ambitious concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son,* a story about a divinely gifted child who must choose to use his power for good or evil. Book-ending songs such as "The Evil That Men Do", "The Prophecy", and "The Clairvoyant" is a short acoustic madrigal:
Seven deadly sins
Seven ways to win
Seven holy paths to hell
And your trip begins
Seven downward slopes
Seven bloodied hopes
Seven are your burning fires,
Seven your desires...
Maiden's more recent catalogue has included tracks such as "The Fallen Angel," "Out of a Silent Planet," "Montseur," "Dance of Death," "For the Greater Good of God," and "Lord of Light."
Other bands from the time (inspired by both Sabbath and Maiden) charted a similar course, such as Metallica and Megadeth, two champions of the American thrash metal scene. James Hetfield, singer and guitarist for Metallica, was raised by Christian Scientists, and explored religious themes on songs such as "Creeping Death", an energetic retelling of the Exodus story:
So let it be written
So let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written
So let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death
Similarly, Megadeth, fronted by Dave Mustaine (an early member of Metallica and born again Christian), has dealt with the issue of religion in songs such as "Holy Wars...the Punishment Due".
Brother will kill brother
Spilling blood across the land
Killing for religion
Something I don't understand
Fools like me who cross the sea
And come to foreign lands
Ask the sheep for their beliefs
Do you kill on God's command?
Although far from an exhaustive treatment, it at least seems clear that throughout the various permutations of metal as a genre the issue of religion has been a preferred lyrical theme. What defies the common stereotype, however, is the fact that metal's engagement with religion isn't exclusively negative. Often it is quite positive, particularly among some of its most prominent artists.
ANGELS IN A DARK UNIVERSE
When Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath at the end of the 1970's, the singer was replaced by Ronnie James Dio (whose stage-name incidentally means "God" in Italian). True to form, Sabbath continued with similar lyrical themes, releasing Heaven and Hell in 1980. No fan of organized religion, Dio, in a later interview, explained his view that "heaven and hell is right here, this is where we are. Good and evil, God and the devil reside in each one of us." Such a philosophy fits very well with metal's overall spiritual ethos, namely, that human life and experience is the site of a perennial "Manichaean" conflict between opposing forces of light and darkness. It just so happens that many of the genre's musicians have exhibited a profound fascination with the darker side of that equation, some fanatically so, as in the case of certain founders of 1990's Norwegian "black" metal, who took their satanism far beyond parody and protest to extremes that included church burnings, white supremacism, and even murder.
One might even say that metal bands have explored their own brand of "negative theology" (a tradition of highlighting what God is by focusing on what God isn't). Could it be that they immerse themselves in the darkness as a way to find the light? This reading is potentially and powerfully evoked in a 2009 documentary on the black metal scene called Until the Light Takes Us. Here, a member of the scene is described in remarkably revealing terms:
"I think for me Frost is like a dark angel.
I think he has this enormous poetic quality of him.
And also because he's really lost.
And he's like an angel lost in a dark universe."
It may be that this is how many of the musicians feel, like angels lost in a dark universe. Surrounded by chaos, war, suffering, hypocrisy, addiction, abuse...something feels amiss. The cosmos is not as it should be. Perhaps the gods have failed, or are not gods at all. As such, they rail against organized religion, which itself can be a source of evil and so often seems to sanction or even cause the violence and chaos of the world. Or perhaps some have no motive at all and nihilistically want to "watch the world burn." Either way, they will not abide the status quo and seek to undermine and invert traditional norms which no longer seem of value.
PARODY, POLEMIC, PIETY
I would say that the use of dark religious imagery in metal can be divided into three general categories: parody, polemic, and piety. Parody in the sense that many of the early metal and hard rock artists used such tropes for their shock and entertainment value (as in the case of Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, or arguably even Venom). Something fans have readily acknowledged (Arnett 1995: 127). As time went on and metal artists began to engage in political and social critique, religion was a frequent object of their polemic. Finally, piety in the sense that, as we have seen, some metal bands have sought to incorporate positive spiritual themes, but also in the sense that others at the more extreme fringe believe (or at least claim to believe) their own satanic message.
Ironically, this dark spirituality is usually expressed within a uniquely Christian framework and in parameters defined by traditional Christianity. It exists in a world of good and evil, God and Satan, inhabited by angels and demons. In fact, one might say that it is an inversion of Christianity (exemplified by the infamous inverted cross) and is an "appropriation" often motivated by a protest against established religion (Weinstein 2000: 238). We can also see this on a more specific level. A number of early black metal bands took on names inspired by the evil characters and motifs from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (such as Amon Amarth, Cirith Ungol, Uruk-Hai, Burzum, or Gorgoroth). Once again, there's a certain irony in the fact that those engaged in some of the most violent modern polemic against Christianity wrapped themselves in monikers drawn from the work of an author who has himself a deeply committed Christian.
Aside from the religious motives of the artists themselves, which can never be known in an absolute sense, the fans certainly seem to regard them with a degree of religious enthusiasm, a phenomenon not uncommon across genres of popular music. The sense of communal identity, shared experience, and exhalation all contribute to the spiritual power of the metal concert, itself a kind of "hierophany" (Weinstein 2000: 231-232). In the end, this is perhaps the true "religious" importance of the music.
*To be dealt with more extensively in a future post.
Works Cited
Andrew Cope, Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music (Surrey: Ashgate, 2010).
William Irwin, ed., Black Sabbath and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1995).
Garry Sharpe-Young, Metal: The Definitive Guide (London: Jawbone Press, 2007).
Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1993).
Deena Weinstein, Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture (Da Capo Press, 2000).
