Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as Gospel’s first diva, belted out songs about the Good News of Jesus, gaining quite a following from the 1930s through to the 1960s. I recently received a collection of her songs called Sing Sister Sing from Fuel 2000 Records. In the liner notes, Bill Dahl says about Sister Rosetta in the 1950s, “As the decade progressed, her vast following began to dwindle as devout churchgoers continued to debate the legitimacy of Tharpe’s concert and nightclub activities.” Gospel was great music, you could sing it with all of your heart, but you better only sing it in sacred spaces and not take it into the streets, the nightclubs. The debate led Sister Rosetta to go to Europe where people didn’t question her choice of venues. It seems like an old, Puritanical debate reserved for some more unenlightened times, but then the band Switchfoot came to Milwaukee this October (The Rave, 2003).
The concert was incredible, a great set from this Christian band that rocks hard, sings with passion, and is now taking their music outside of the typical Christian festivals and venues. It struck me how right this is for Switchfoot to go to the typical rock concert sites, how Switchfoot could bring their songs of questions, yearning, and searching for spiritual direction, to audiences that may not normally have such guides down that road. I thought the Rave was exactly where Switchfoot needed to be; I thought their lyrics were exactly where they needed to be—prying into the needs of the soul without making every song about “how perfect life is since I committed to Christ.” Songs like that aren’t in touch with real life; songs like that aren’t in touch with my experience as a Christian. Switchfoot leaves the mess even while looking for the hope and love of Christ, because life is messy—even for someone who believes in Christ.
Second-Guessing Switchfoot
Well, here I thought everything was coming together for Switchfoot to really help others know about Jesus, and I left the concert that night not realizing they’d be questioned and second-guessed like Sister Rosetta Tharpe. My friend, Josh, stayed after the concert and was rewarded at the T-shirt table when the band came out to sign autographs and chat it up with the fans. As Josh waited to talk to Jon Foreman (lead vocals, guitar, and main songwriter), a woman was telling Jon that she was disappointed in his songs. Why didn’t he talk more about God and Jesus? His songs should be more clear about Jesus. What good was it to be a Christian band if you’re not going to sing about Jesus.
Jon’s response was that he was interested in making good songs, and he feels good songs ask more questions than answer them. That’s the kind of songs that he writes. Josh waited through this exchange and then gave Jon a hug, saying that he loved his music, feeling bad for this woman’s self-righteous indignation.
As Josh told me this story, I could only appreciate Switchfoot all the more. Of course their songs ask a lot of questions, because then they lead the listener to seek out the answers. Of course the answers only come through Jesus, but Christian music often presents such a nicely wrapped up view of life that it takes all of the passion out of it.
A Production Style that Leaves You Asking Questions
Switchfoot’s newest album, the beautiful letdown, brings more of these questions, more of this searching attitude to their music again. Along with those messy questions comes production from John Fields and Switchfoot that brings back some of the live qualities of a band that can rock out. Charlie Peacock produced 1999’s New Way to Be Human and 2000’s Learning to Breathe, but he kind of took the piss out of the band. The debut album, 1997’s Legend of Chin, was such a powerhouse rocker, like three guys plugged into amps on the beach just cranking out the California rock, watching the surfers. They could really launch into it on Legend of Chin, but then the next two albums the production got too neat—a charge my brother-in-law made against many Christian bands. I had even suggested checking out Switchfoot—based on Legend of Chin—but then those next two albums were walking down that clean and neat production that makes Christian music sound like, well, Christian music.
Like the lyrics were ask more questions than answer them, Switchfoot is at its most compelling when the production isn’t quite so tight and clean. The beautiful letdown brings that passion back to the music. I place Switchfoot toward the end of the American Band Rock section. The sound comes together as a band—the guitar doesn’t overwhelm the sound, so they don’t belong in the Guitar Rock section. They are toward the end, almost in the American Dance Rock section, because Chad Butler’s drumming almost slips into dance rhythms at times. This puts them not far down the line from R.E.M., and alongside some other impassioned rock from the Smithereens, Wes Cunningham and Jason Mraz.
I don’t know what people were thinking in second-guessing Sister Rosetta Tharpe—bringing the Gospel to people who needed to her the soul and hope. I don’t know what that woman was thinking in second-guessing the lyrics of Switchfoot; I find that Switchfoot helps me to think more about my faith than many praise songs can. Praise songs are where my faith needs to end up, and that is good to help me turn my heart to worship God. But Switchfoot’s songs are where faith begins and often remains during most days: “This is your life, are you who you want to be?/This is your life, is it everything that you dreamed/that it would be when the world was younger,/and you had everything to lose?” That’s where my faith often dwells and does its work, wrestling with the questions of life and existence, the questions of daily living, daily pains and fears. Yes, my faith brings me hope and direction; I’ll never deny that. But I’m only too glad that to admit that faith in Jesus hasn’t made my life look all pretty and clean. My life is more like the distortion in the guitar breaks on “Dare You to Move.” My prayers are more about asking questions, not answering them, so when I’m looking around for a rock sound for my faith, Switchfoot is the sound, the lyrics, the passion that resonates in my heart—resonating like the wall of sound in the Rave that night in October.
