God Gave Rock and Roll to You
First shown on Channel 4 in December 2006
In this Channel 4 documentary, Robert Beckford explores the uneasy relationship between religion and popular music.
Pop music can have a powerful influence – on what we wear, how we speak and even what we believe. For the most part, Christian churches have been hostile to the music that young people choose to listen to, and the music industry has responded with equal hostility, believing that any song with 'Jesus' in the title will sink without trace.
The reality is more complicated, says Beckford, as he traces today's rock music back to its roots in the southern states of the USA. There, he says, slaves who were forcibly converted to Christianity combined African melodies and rhythms with English hymns to create spirituals. These developed along two separate paths: one was religious, leading to Gospel music (Mahalia Jackson took this to the top of the charts); the other was secular, leading to the blues (epitomised by Robert Johnson), though sometimes the blues contined religious ideas, too.
The 1950s brought the generation gap, teenage rebellion and overt sexuality on stage in the form of Elvis, though his music was rooted in his Pentecostal church background. Sam Cooke transformed Gospel by giving it secular words. Soul had arrived, bringing Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and many more Black singers to a mainstream audience over the following decades.
Then the Beatles arrived on the scene. John Lennon's claim that they were 'more popular than Jesus' caused a storm of protest in the USA, but they were part of a current among young people exploring eastern religions, questioning the values that they had grown up with and, in many cases, embracing atheism. The Rolling Stones built on Robert Johnson's tradition of blues and bad behaviour, playing songs such as Sympathy for the Devil and revelling in a lifestyle that included drugs and wild parties.
Building further on Robert Johnson's foundations, Led Zeppelin developed Heavy Metal, and, in line with the occult teachings of Alistair Crowley who said, '"Do what thou wilt," shall be the whole of the law,' the band became renowned for its backstage debauchery.
The Birmingham band, Black Sabbath started a trend for satanic bands which, in 1981 were brought to a much wider audience with the launch of MTV in the States. Christian groups were frightened and President Ronald Reagan set about 'cleaning up the moral rot'. The Christian Right developed its own rock music with bands, such as Stryper, who threw bibles into the audience.
This new Christian music may have suited the middle classes in the white suburbs but the poor young people in Black ghettoes saw Christianity as the religion of the slavemasters. Gangsta Rap, with bands like Niggers With Attitude, told their story on their terms. Many young Black people were drawn to Nation of Islam, a controversial rebranding of Islam for an African-American clientele led by Louis Farrakhan, whose ideas were built into the lyrics of bands such as Public Enemy.
In the 1990s Satanist bands grew. In Norway the Black Metal scene was linked to the burning of churches and in the USA Marilyn Manson brought Satanism to the mainstream. This ran into big trouble when his influence was blamed, quite unjustifiably, for the high school murders at Columbine.
Who would have thought, though, that by 2,000 years after Jesus, religion would top the charts? None of the music channels wanted to play Cliff Richard's saccharine setting of the Lord's Prayer to Auld Lang Syne in his song Millennium Prayer but it reached number one. Today, Matisyahu, a Hasidic (orthodox Jewish) reggae star is gaining a massive following. Young people want to know about religion and the music industry is giving them what they want.
