“I’m So Sick” by Flyleaf, Tuesday, October 26, 2021

 

Flyleaf was one of the most diversely connected bands from their debut album cycle. The band started by opening for bands like Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, and Seether as well as Christian Active Rock bands like P.O.D. and Skillet. Songs like "I'm So Sick" and "Fully Alive" were played frequently on the radio, and the band even had a Top 40 pop hit with "All Around Me." But if you happened to catch a Flyleaf show, headlining, or opening for a band like Korn, you'd hear lead singer Lacy Mosley (later Sturm after marrying Joshua Sturm in 2008)  preach charismatically. She'd throw her hands into the air, nervously talking about her relationship with Jesus, gaining confidence as she spoke. Lacy turned the darkest concert venue into a church service for the high and intoxicated who, in any other context, would go nowhere near a church.

LET ME LIVE WITHOUT THIS. I first saw Flyleaf in September of '06 or '07 in Spartanburg's Ground Zero, a graffitied building in the center of urban decay. Inside, it looked rough, too--black-painted cinderblocks and metal poles. The crowd was different from the Charlotte concert venue where I watched most of my alternative bands. Flyleaf headlined that night, playing a long set of songs that never made it onto their albums. Mosley told stories between the songs. These were songs about her or people the band had met. "Jesus loves you," she'd scream from time to time to the intoxicated audience. The message was well received by most of the concert-goers, confirmed by the beer bottles raised into the air and the sound of cheering the band. Before Flyleaf received heavy mainstream radio promotion, RadioU, and TVU promoted many of the band's demos as singles. Christian radio loved Mosley's testimony. She told the story that on the day she had planned to kill herself, her grandmother dragged her to church. Lacy claims that the message of the pastor and the interaction she had with a church member in the foyer as she was trying to leave the church changed her life. With a high-profile salvation story, Lacy began speaking for the Billy Graham Foundation and a foundation called the Whosoevers, founded by Sonny of P.O.D. In addition to rock album features like Apocalyptica and Breaking Benjamin, she was featured on the CCM album Revelations by Third Day--an interesting collaboration, but it didn't sound half bad at the time.  

YOU SINK INTO MY CLOTHES. "I'm So Sick" is a grungy song. The radio single edits out the scream. As much as everyone was screaming on their 2005 records, the radio usually wasn't playing those screams. Flyleaf was one of the most mainstream female-fronted rock bands that used screaming. Lyrically, the song fits into the themes that Flyleaf talks about low self-esteem and dark feelings. There is something extremely Christian, yet extremely secular about this song. Being surrounded by a toxic environment, but also realizing that you are a part of the problem was the sum of Hybrid Theory and so many other rock albums. "I'm So Sick" isn't a song that offers a solution. Lacy will give you her solution to the problem, but she will be respectful of the listener who draws their own conclusion, at least that's what she says in interviews. Today, Lacy Mosley Sturm writes books and music apart from Flyleaf. The grueling tour cycle of the band and her desire to spend time with her husband and children caused her to step down as the band's lead singer. Her solo record, Life Screams, became the first #1 Billboard Hard Rock album spot to be held by a woman. Lacy was an inspiration to my evangelical days, and I can still respect her earnestness. I'm not sure if we'd still come to the same conclusions, but we can all agree that this world is so sick.

Read “I'm So Sick” by Flyleaf on Genius.