“Is This the Real Life?" by Emery, Sunday, January 10, 2021


I have to admit I have a love-hate relationship with this band. I've been a listener to The BadChristian Podcast since 2015, but there's something about their musical structure that I fail to resonate with most of the time. What The BadChristian Podcast did for me, though, was opened up a dialogue about faith beyond the Family Christian/Lifeway brand. I'm sure I'll talk more about this as the year goes by. I'd like to talk about a few themes that this song brings to my mind.

I STAY IN MY DREAMS, BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. Reality is a theme that Matt and Toby talk about a lot on The BadChristian Podcast. How do we know that life isn't just a simulation? How do I know that I am real? How do I know that you are real? Are you just a program in the simulation? Am I? I've spent a lot of time wondering about these things myself. We only really get one perspective in this life. And the human experience is at most 100 years out of thousands of years in earth's history. I am one of 7.8 billion people alive today. Trillions have lived before me and trillions will live after me. I read somewhere that it only takes 3-4 generations to go by for you to be completely forgotten. That is unless you do something great or notorious, but even then only a small percentage of people will be educated enough to know about your dot on history only if it was significant enough. And I think about how I don't know much about my great aunts and uncles. And even if we can see their names, we can't know their daily lives and struggles unless they happened to keep a journal. And even if they did leave a journal, there are so many journals to read. With trillions of lives lived, who could ever have the time to appreciate all of them and move us forward as a species. And I'm going to stop starting my sentences with and.

CALL IT TRASH, I CALL IT PEARLS. Another theme that always comes up with Emery, especially recently, is what is Christian music? The band continues to push the envelope in the definition of Christian music and Christian content for that matter. When I was growing up, there was Christian music and secular music. Of course secular could mean the Carpenters which was ok, but it could also mean Korn or Eminem. Christian music was a safe spot where you could buy just about any CD without parental objections, unless of course your parents were anti-rock music. There was no cursing, sex, or violence. There certainly were no naked people on the album cover. There were some anomalies to this. P.O.D. had album artwork reprinted. Evanescence and MuteMath sued to be taken out of the Christian bookstore and section. A few early Tooth and Nail bands contained strong language (the label wised up to the money-making opportunity to keeping a clean nose for the Christian bookstore). But in all of this heavy branding, how realistic was it to how adult Christians really acted? The Christian music industry promoted a lifestyle in the fans that many of the bands didn't even realize that they were promoting. Emery comes along and breaks free of the bullshit and starts to question whether Christian music can be Christian without the censorship. And this journey continues on this album with its provocative cover.

For a breakdown of this song, I will link to the Break It Down Podcast with Matt Carter. 

Lyrics


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