Overheard

On Saturday we went to see Mason's karate graduation where he received his purple belt. Graduation is a big event with hundreds of parents and family members there to watch these kids get new belts. The event includes videos and music playing while the classes demonstrate different techniques. As I was listening to this music play, I initially thought I was hearing well-known popular music. Then I started paying more attention and realized that the tunes were those I was familiar with, but the words had been changed. The words had been changed to something more in line with evangelical christian tastes.

My favorite example was the song where this band had taken the song "Pour some sugar on me" and turned it into "Learn some Deuteronomy." But since "Deuteronomy" has one more syllable than "sugar on me," it came out sounding like, "Learn some dude-er-om-ny." At first, I wasn't sure whether the song was some strange joke, or whether the song was supposed to be serious. I found the song on iTunes, and supposedly the song is meant to be a parody, though I suspect the song is not meant to be as big a joke as it comes out sounding like. It goes to show that sometimes you don't have to try to be funny to be funny.

In case you are thinking that I am being a little too harsh on the tune thieving evangelical christian crowd, feel free to check out this column printed in September 2000 where I pillory the Mormon crowd who brought us Book of Mormon action figures, among other things. Boy I sound like a hothead.

I've never quite been able to get into the christian rock thing. I think the mix of religion and heavy metal is just too much for me to wrap my mind around. And I will admit I feel the same way about Mormon attempts to mix religion and popular music. (See the paragraph on Afterglow in the above column.) This experience has done nothing to sway my opinion.