Originally written September 18, 2022, 6:51pm.
Something I've noticed about Christian music that you don't really see in any other genre is second-person songwriting. The big late-'80s arena rock bands were especially bad for this (Petra, Stryper, and DeGarmo & Key all loved this approach).
Don't get me wrong, I love Petra. But this approach to songwriting creates the tiniest 'holier-than-thou' feeling. It's always 'you feel lost and confused, your life feels empty, oh look, here's Someone who can take all your pain away.' (This also feeds into the insidious prosperity gospel that is the foundation for modern Evangelicalism, but that's another blog post.) This is why we look back now and feel a slight cheesiness in the music of Petra and Stryper, while bands like Prodigal and Daniel Amos (you knew I was going to bring them into this) still sound lyrically fresh some forty years later.
Why?
DA and Prodigal wrote in first person. Prodigal was especially good at this; it was even noted as one of their strengths by critics of the time. Pick literally any Prodigal song and you have a masterclass in first-person characterization. Their cheesiest song happens to be one of only two songs that they wrote in second person (Emerald City). (The second song was Bobby, which was written with such immersive detail that it feels like you are living that life, in first-person.)
But look at a song like Masks or Answering Machine or I Don't Know Who You Are or The Big Sleep -- all of those are emotional heavy hitters, and every one of them is in first-person. Daniel Amos has songs like Here I Am; Big Time/Big Deal; Dig Here Said The Angel; Props; Half Light, Epoch, And Phase; and perhaps the most devastatingly tender song ever written, The Twist.
But look at a song like Masks or Answering Machine or I Don't Know Who You Are or The Big Sleep -- all of those are emotional heavy hitters, and every one of them is in first-person. Daniel Amos has songs like Here I Am; Big Time/Big Deal; Dig Here Said The Angel; Props; Half Light, Epoch, And Phase; and perhaps the most devastatingly tender song ever written, The Twist.
Where Petra and every late-'80s-solo-male-CCM-radio-vocalist-ever wrote songs that kept the listener at arms' length until they repented, DA and Prodigal were taking their listeners by the hand and whispering I know. I understand. I'm here.
And isn't that really what Christianity is based on? Jesus, Emmanuel, God-With-Us, coming into our lives and taking our hands and saying I know. I understand. I'm here?
Being held at arms' length makes you a project. Being sat with while you cry makes you loved. And if God is love and we are supposed to be reflect Him, why are we holding people at arms' length? That's not at all what He did. My theory is this is why a lot of the late-'80s-solo-male-CCM-radio-vocalist songs feel cheesy or hollow today... they feel so far away, so distant, so not how the God they preach really is.
