Re: Good Dog Bad Dog classic album

["GiNa" <purpleonion at prodigy_net>]

From: John Paul Davis <johnd at antioch-college_edu>

> > http://www.thunderstruck.org/overtherhine.htm
> What a strange web page... Yet another one of those evangelical web
> sites (like: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/ or http://www.theooze.com)
> that works hard to put forth a veneer of coolness and hipness and which
> ends up just coming off as a sort of apologia for a strange synthesis of
> conservative Christianity and consumerism.

I must say that when I read the Pancella's article, I was confused.  From
the tone of the e-mail, I was ready for something incredibly lame, yet as I
read, I thought the author did a decent job of expressing her take on the
album.  Perhaps a key phrase is that it was *her take,* and I think she's
entitled to it even if she does fall short of realizing the album's full
scope.  As someone else mentioned, good art leaves room for any number of
interpretations, Pancella's included.  Who knows where she is in her own
personal life?  Who knows that she's not trying (even subconsciously) to
break out of religiosity and/or consumerism and dig a little deeper?  I
think she deserves the room to explore, the room to express her views
without being being slammed for her "strange synthesis" of ideas.  Maybe her
critique is not as "intelligent" as someone might like, but I think the most
important thing is that she was *moved* by the album.  Let her be moved in
her own way.  Isn't that what it's all about anyway?...exploration,
discovery, and growth through art?

> (What does she mean by "they are literate?" The lyrics can read?) That's
> intended, I think, as a selling point, which suggests something about
> who their percieved audience is, people who want justification for
> consuming mainstream "pop" culture (and fast food! and getting tattoos,
> explicitly forbidden in Leviticus!)but who also want to feel good about
> getting some kind of undefined spiritual cash value.  The songs are
> "pop" culture but they have a whole bunch of Biblical references so
> they're "ok" for gelicals to consume?

I think this kind of judgmentalism is worse than the consumerism, etc. being
bashed.  Does love leave room for this kind of arrogance?

> I wonder if the writer has thought more deeply about the ongoing
> undercurrent of doubt that is in GDBD, esp. in songs like "Happy To Be
> So" - the whole entire point of the song is that prayers aren't
> answered, and the song's character has to come to terms with that (see
> "I Radio Heaven" for another example of that).

Maybe, given time, the writer will come to experience the songs in a deeper
way, and realize more of the many layers they contain.  I still believe she
is entitled to her own experience of the work, though.

> GDBD's main spiritual force is *community* more than any church or deity
> - almost all the songs on GDBD deal with human relationships, and the
> divine enters in to some of them, but songs like "The Seahorse",
> "Everyman's Daughter", "Etcetera Whatever", "Latter Days" and
> "Faithfully Dangerous" all deal with the spiritual as realized in the
> nexus of human relationships- the community.

Are we promoting "community" when we rob someone of the dignity of their
experience?

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I feel strongly about this, and felt
compelled to respond.  "We all know in part..." and only in part.  We need
to cooperate, not criticize, toward a fuller knowledge of Truth, don't you
think?

~Gina



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