The party band of eclectic soul-funk vamp walks into the place, and perhaps you’re ready to think that there’s not much substance in their rap. Are the Constellations just another band walking on good times without a way to connect to something deeper than “fist fights, late nights, and rock and roll shows”? The track, “Love is a Murder,” from Southern Gothic is certainly worth another look, because the actual lyrics don’t point so much to the “fist fights, late nights, and rock and roll shows” as the problem. The problem is love.
Love will leave you broken hearted with a hole in your chest
Like you’ve been shot-gunned down and left for dead.
Which brings us to the R&B-like chorus that sways its way into a biblical turn of phrase and leaves you wondering if we’re talking about something more than the Constellations’ normal stuff of chasing devil’s music and whiskey.
if you really want to live
you gotta be ready to die
every single love is a murder
you gotta commit to survive
Jesus didn’t call it murder, but He did say that anyone who wants to live must die. Jesus didn’t call murder love, but He did say that one must set aside your own hopes and desires in order to serve others, in order to love others as you love yourself.
So what are the Constellations saying? I’m not sure if it is the Gospel or if its just the Gospel twisted. Certainly there’s plenty of pain in this vision, pain that I’m not sure Jesus intended, as the Constellations say:
along your path, feel the wrath of the reaper; he will kill you and laugh
and when it’s all over with a smile on your face,
wipe the blood from your wounds and give it a taste.
So we’ve got the Grim Reaper stepping up to bring pain through love. In fact, the song almost implies that love carries this pain with it like poison. And yes, even followers of Jesus admit that with love comes the pains of this world, the pains brought on by the fact that love goes contrary to the selfishness that is pre-programmed in our brains. But love ain’t poison. I know that for certain. God’s love, true love, does not come with poison on its arrow tip.
So the song reveals a Scriptural truth in that in order to live you must be prepared to die—die to self, die to sin, die to this world, die to selfishness. And then we are made alive again in Christ—alive for eternity, alive to love, alive to truth, alive to righteousness.
Is love a murder? I’m not sure about what the Constellations mean by that as they groove out on some R&B, rapping, soul-funk jams, but hey, at least they started the conversation. The conversation goes the wrong way in plenty of places on Southern Gothic, so please be aware. This ain’t a Gospel record. But “Love is a Murder” is a common ground which cries out for more discussion.
The Constellations
Virgin Records