More Game Listings
or
MAIN MENU
FREETHUNK BOOK!
The Complete Edition
By Jeff Swenson
160 pages, Jam-Packed
Purchase your collectable copy!
"JUGS, BEAVERS and EXPLODING BALLS"
by Jeff Swenson
First Cynic Comic Strip
collection now in print.
2004-2005
Buy it now for
below retail.
|
| NO LAUGHING MATTER - Christian Band |
| From their album "Monstor, " a love song for all those who are so insecure they have to hand love over to God |
Remember cassette tapes? I do. I have a whole box of them filled with early Christian bands.
I came across this tape which I had recorded onto a CD to rescue and was listening to it again while jogging. Monstor was No Laughing Matter's debut album and as far as I know their only album on a mainstream label. Even the label R.E.X. is an obscure one but at the time it was handling a lot of well known Christian metal and alternative bands--well known in the Christian music underground that is.
I did a search on No Laughing Matter after wondering what happened to them. Many Christian bands have survived in various forms doing reunion albums and shows or continuing their music with small releases here and there. I could only find 2 entries in Google about No Laughing Matter the band and they were junk. No one seems to be writing about these guys so I figured I could at least post them here so they're not completely forgotten. Christian or not, I hate it when a piece of art is lost--one can argue that it was propaganda too, but then so is a large percentage of classical music which promotes religion. There's always a mixture of art and propaganda in most religious art--unless you're talking Stryper and then it's pretty much crap (and yes, I listened to them too, I was a fool).
As I recall, No Laughing Matter was even an outsider to the growing Christian Alternative Scene. I don't think any of the early bands ever thought there would be much money in that scene because they viewed with hostility the excesses of secular music which was leading us all to hell. These early bands did not water down their lyrics like the cash cows of today. If they felt you were sinning, they told you the sins. They criticized society and even Christian Society.
No Laughing Matter, from what I remember reading in some 'zines (the old kind, on printed paper) criticized their fellow bands for giving in to secular ideas and for some reason I remember a discussion on masturbation and not to do it--or was that Lust Control (another band that turned out to be headed by Doug Van Pelt of the longtime Christian Metal magazine Heaven's Metal, another story for another time).
The music on Monstor is good in my opinion, but I'm talking from a nostalgic perspective. It's very dark music with a catchy beat. You feel like the world is coming to an end through mankind's apathy towards God and that life is really hopeless. I know Christians don't mean to do that but a lot of the alternative bands, many of which emulated Depeche Mode and The Cure genre played up on teen angst in order to turn people to God. Now, looking back, I think it just made God kind of a dark figure--not evil, just empty. Your life on earth is not going to be good until you kick the bucket and go to heaven to be a drone praising The Almighty. Nihilistic is the best word, which is often thrown at atheists. Atheists have hope for this world. They aim to work hard to make this a better place. Christians work hard to make the world a better place too but then you wonder why when they said the world will be destroyed by sin? Christianity is very nihilistic. There is nothing you can do to stop the end of the world. You can only enter the next and hope that God doesn't allow for the same mistakes--because if Adam and Eve were given freewill in the garden to show that they weren't robots of God, then what's to stop freewill from screwing the whole thing up again--or are we to truly become "robots of God"?
But I digress. The reason why I was posting this article was to give an example of a love song that will leave you wondering how any one could have a relationship with the opposite sex if they have this mentality. The singer assumes he can never provide what his potential mate needs and so to hell with it, you need to go date God. But God can't provide physical love or emotional love for that matter so really everyone is left alone or delusional that God is with them. I think this is a clue as to why my early dating life sucked--that and a bad hairdo and ugly glasses.
BTW, the song is catchy if not simple.
IF THE TRUTH BE KNOWN by No Laughing Matter
From the album Monstor - 1990, R.E.X. Records
(I copied the lyrics word for word)
Well, I'm not too good at loving you
I don't do the things that I should do
and many times my heart's untrue, if the truth be known
You can count on me to make you cry
and leave you with your hopes denied
and hide behind a wall of pride, if the truth be known
(chorus)
If the truth be known
There ain't nothin' I can do for you
If the truth be known
You wouldn't want me around
If the truth be known
You better find someone else to love you
Cuz' I'm sure to break your heart and let you down
No I'm not too good at loving you
but I'm sure there's someone who's right for you
somebody who would die for you, if the truth be known
Waiting patiently for you
wanting to give his love to you
a Superman who can turn your charcoal skies to blue
You need someone who will treat you right
someone to hold you through the lonely nights
someone who'll stay right by your side
And baby, it ain't me...If the truth be known
you better find somebody new |
|
Return to Main Menu |
