What is it about Christianity that inspires such bland, uncreative, unthinking, and unfeeling art? While undefined strands of spirituality are often cited in conjuncture with rousing free jazz, heavy psych, or mystic folk, doctrinally defined "Jesus-music" seems to come in only two forms: there’s browbeating proselyting -- more concerned with creating propaganda than art -- and there’s generic mumbo jumbo that drapes messages in a barrage of bad metaphors, with vague poetic license obscuring any real concession to the subject matter.
That hippie/folkie/Jesus-freak outsider Larry Norman is often referred to as the “Father of Christian Rock” is baffling. Here we have a crazy long-hair who was also crazy about Jesus, but rather than following course and pumping out bland praise and worship, he cranked out consistently electrifying rock ‘n’ roll. Instead of handing out easy-to-digest “God is Love” anthems, we have a dude who passionately gave a middle finger to the church-going status quo -- whose vision of Christianity included letting in the hippies, prostitutes, and unwashed. His music was creatively restless, positively un-white in its incorporation of blues and gospel sounds, and, even when he left the psych rock band People! in 1969 to start making solo albums, utterly unlike what was expected of a Christian singer-songwriter.
Larry Norman is best remembered for Only Visiting This Planet's “I Wish We’d All Been Ready”: a creepy, end-times number, made all the more foreboding by Norman’s creaky, high voice. It’s the kind of Rapture warning that gives right-wing wack-jobs like Tim LaHaye (author of the alarmingly popular Left Behind series) a hard on, but its context in the album is easier on the skeptic. Only Visiting paints a more complex picture. “The Outlaw” portrays Christ as a true outsider, while “I Am the Six O’clock News," a fuzzy psych/blues jam, vividly describes the bloodshed in Vietnam from the view of an observant but uninvolved news reporter. “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music” is a hilarious Little Richard style scorcher, putting conservative Christians on blast for giving Norman grief about his hair.
“The Great American Novel” describes the state of the nation in ’72, with all its racial strife and political upheaval. “You say you beat the Russians to the moon/ I say you starved your children to do it.” It rambles on in true Dylanesque fashion: “You kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter/ Well my phone is tapped and my lips are chapped from whispering through the fence.” Ironically, Dylan would later go on to cop Norman; his “Christian” albums -- Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love -- all owe a considerable debt to Only Visiting.
It’s hard for the lyrical content not to overshadow the sonics of the album, but Norman and producer George Martin (yeah, that George Martin) made sure that their record was just as interesting to listen to as its message was to ponder. Fuzz guitar, strings, piano, and hard-edged drums underscore Norman’s singular voice; at once comforting yet unsettling, melodic yet discordant, plaintive but never pandering. The Pixies' Frank Black was one of the most outspoken appreciators of Norman’s music, his own songs often concerned with the sacred and profane, but he’s also joined by Steve Albini, U2, and Van Morrison as members of a wide fan base.
Larry Norman passed away in February, and Arena Rock Recording Co. recently issued the stellar Rebel Poet, Jukebox Balladeer, an anthology of his work. While that set might serve as a fantastic jump-on point, Only Visiting This Planet remains the definitive Larry Norman album -- almost frightening in its relation to these modern times. Christian rock wants its performers simple, digestible, and uncontroversial. Norman refused to be any of those things. He was interested in caustic humor, stinging wit, disarming tenderness, and passionate humanitarianism, and he was too rebellious to be placed in a box. In those ways, he was a lot more like Jesus Christ than the industry he accidentally helped spawn, and regardless of one’s religious convictions (or lack thereof), that’s a hell of a trick to pull off.