Fishin For Religion

Recently I began a trek through almost 70gb of music located on my iPod.  The purpose of this was to re-discover some of those old hidden gems, and songs I love that I’ve forgotten about, and to maybe uncover some new unheard stuff from deeper cuts on albums I bought for only 2 or 3 songs.  So far I’m only at the letter “C”.  But not to long ago, I came across a song that I haven’t heard in so long, and it’s lyrics have been stuck in my mind ever since.

The song is off of the album 3 years, 5 months, and 2 days in the life of… by Arrested Development.  An album originally released in 1992.  This album is full of powerful lyrics, and the subject matter in the songs is provocative and important.  I have always thought that Speech was an amazing lyricist, but to re-listen to some of his words, and the deepness of their meaning has been pretty incredible.  Something I didn’t really understand as a 16 year old in 1992.

Anyway, back to the subject… The song Fishin’ 4 Religion came up on my iPod a while ago and it really stood out to me.  Not only some of the phrases, but just the overall tone and message of the song.  It seems to me that Speech isn’t happy with the message and passivity of most churches (Baptist in particular).  Instead of being change, or making change occur in this world, they just talk about it, as if taking or shouting will change things.  Here are the lyrics so you can see for yourself (Emphasis is mine on some of my favorite lines)…

Grab the hook, grab the line
Grab the bait, grab the box and wait
Tackle and shackle the topic the faculty has chosen
Chosen by many, chosen by plenty, chosen by any
man or woman who can’t understand
the topic that’s known and
[Go by the dock] flock and clock the topic
as I drop my hook and get a bite
The reason I’m fishin’ 4 a new religion
is my church makes me fall asleep
They’re praising a God that watches you weep
and doesn’t want you to do a damn thing about it
When they want change the preacher says “shout it”
Does shoutin bring about change ? I doubt it
All shoutin does is make you lose your voice
So on the dock I sit in silence
staring at a sea that’s full of violence
Scared to put my line in that water
coz it seems like there’s no religion in there
Naively so I give it another go
Sitting in church hearing legitimate woes
Pastor tells the lady it’ll be alright
Just pray so you can see the pearly gates so white
The lady prays and prays and prays and prays
and prays and prays and prays and prays…it’s everlasting
There’s nothing wrong with praying, it’s what she’s asking
She’s asking the Lord to let her cope
so one day she can see the golden ropes
What you pray for God will give
to be able to cope in this world we live
The word “cope” and the word “change”
is directly opposite, not the same
She should have been praying to change her woes
but pastor said “Pray to cope with those”
The government is happy with most baptist churches
coz they don’t do a damn thing to try to nurture
brothers and sisters on a revolution
Baptist teaches dying is the only solution
Passiveness causes others to pass us by
I throw my line until I’ve made my decision
until then, I’m still fishin’ 4 religion

Anyway, Do yourself a favor and download this song, hear it to the music and check out how good Speech is.  In fact I’d encourage you to download the entire album and check out some of the other gems on there, such as; Mr. Wendal, Give a man a fish, and Tennessee.  Take a trip back to 1992 and check out just how deep some of this album goes!