This Means David Jackson is the Antichrist

Via Pandagon, here is a YouTube video in which a very uptight person explains to a church what makes music "Godly" or sinful. The short answer: if it makes you want to dance, it's not Godly. Or, as Amanda puts it:

The first part of the video, he tries to explain the difference between godly and ungodly melodies, which is a little hard to understand, but it seems that the main signal that a melody is ungodly is it has any kind of soul.

That first part of the video includes a demonstration of Godly versus unGodly melodies on a sax. The "good" melody is bland as white bread on a rainy day. The "bad" melody, on the other hand, sounds like something David Jackson would unleash all over a Van der Graf Generator album.

But the meat of the video is the preacher's extolling the benefits of the march, while demonstrating the Devil's rhythms - boogie woogie, backbeats, and break beats. Exhibit A in the unGodly musical world? "Heart and Soul." Such non-marchy rhythms, he explains:

That’s not gospel music. It might be good for Elvis, it might be good for Jimmy Swaggart, and a whole bunch of other people, but that’s not gospel music.

There's something inherently amusing about a fundy Christian taking pot shot at Lonesome Cowboy Jim, but we'll leave that for another day. What becomes increasingly clear is that, for the preacher, he doesn't prefer march tempos for some aesthetic reason. March tempos are Godly because they propel Christian soldiers, marching unto war. More militant Christian militarism, just what we need!

The whole thing is alternately humorous and pathetic, as this poor guy - who clearly enjoys playing the "bad" stuff (he probably sneaks hits of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" late at night) - tries to convince himself and the congregation of the dangers of enjoying most modern music. Again, from Amanda:

I do sort of agree with Ives that backbeats and upbeats and every kind of toe-tapping, hip-shaking kind of tune does in fact present a real threat to a rigid, fundamentalist worldview. Pleasure and beauty are constant threats, because they give people something to live for, and a sense of self that gives them space to question authority. If anything comforts me in the face of the increasingly agitated fundamentalism in America, it’s that they have no clue how to compete with the pleasures of living available to most of us, pleasures that help assist us in telling them all to fuck off.

Amen. If life in this world is only a preparation for some kind of eternal paradise, than the pleasures and beauties of this world - which might make one hang around in it - must be tools of the devil.