The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday: A Modern Day Version of the Prodigal Son?

This weekend I started listening to the 2nd Hold Steady release, "Separation Sunday" for the first time. I have been wrestling around with this band's music all month. After hearing this CD, I think I am starting to get it. Or at least get why Andy Whitman said In Christianity Today that The Hold Steady, "might be playing the best and most important rock 'n roll in America."

On this CD The Hold Steady chronicles the lives of some very messy people: Hallelujah (named Holly), Charlemagne, and Gideon (who all show up on other Hold Steady albums). To me these downtrodden characters are modern day prodigal sons and daughters. They are looking for a good life in all the wrong places. Their salvation is hard to come by if they can even find salvation at all. They look for it in drugs, sex, and in their rock-n-roll parties. They dabble in religion but it seems a toss up as to if they really believe or if it really matters to them. The broken characters lead depressing lives seeking after something that they can't seem to find. Holly is the main character here. She seems to have left behind her Catholic upbringing and hangs out with these unsavory characters doing some unsavory things. Holly's journey then is the focus on this album. Craig Finn doesn't condemn his characters for the lives they choose, neither does he offer easy or even full solutions. He just takes you along for the ride and offers an unflinching view of some pretty destructive living.

By the last two songs on the album, something interesting happens. In "Crucifixion Cruise" Holly ends up back in a church.

"Hallelujah came to in a confession booth.
Infested with infections.
Smiling on an abscessed tooth.
Running hard on residue.
Crashing through the
vestibule.
The crucifixion cruise.
She climbed the cross and
found
she liked the view.
Sat reflecting on the resurrection.
Talking loud
over lousy connections.
She put her mouth around a difficult question.
She said, Lord what do you recommend?
To a real sweet girl who's made
some not sweet friends.
Lord what would you prescribe?
To a real
soft girl who's having real hard times."

Is this the prodigal daughter finally arriving home?
The last song "How A Resurrection Really Feels" start off with:

"Her parents named her Hallelujah,
the kids all called her Holly.
If she scared you then she's sorry.
She's been stranded at these parties.
These parties they start lovely
but they get druggy and they get ugly
and they get bloody.
The priest just kinda laughed.
The deacon caught a draft.
She crashed into the Easter mass
with her hair done up in broken glass.
She was limping left on broken heels.
When she said, father can I tell your congregation

how a resurrection really feels?"

and ends with,

"Hallelujah was a hoodrat.
And now you finally know that.
She's been disappeared for years.
Today she finally came back.

Walk on back. Walk on back.
She said don't turn me on again.
I'd probably just go and get myself all gone again.
Holly was a sexy mess.
She looked strung out but experienced.
So we all got kind of curious."

Here is a video that has both songs on it. The video however is part of an interpretation of the album by a group of teenagers.

Holly's return to her church reminds me of what The Prodigal Son would have looked like when he returned to his father in the parable Jesus told. Somehow I think of these characters in The Hold Steady songs as modern day versions of the people who inhabit the Bible: sinners in need of redemption. And the Bible is full of them! And so is our world.

It makes me think of the Bruce Cockburn Christmas song, "Cry Of A Tiny Babe".

"...There are others who know about this miracle birth
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth
For it isn't to the palace that the Christ child comes
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums
And the message is clear if you've got [you have] ears to hear
That forgiveness is given for your guilt and your fear
It's a Christmas gift [that] you don't have to buy
There's a future shining in a baby's eyes

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe. "

Now I don't believe that Craig Finn has in any way joined forces with the likes of Billy Graham proclaiming, "You must be born again!" Nor do I gather that he embraces a redemptive relationship with God himself. However, I do feel that he looks at religion in all its goodness and badness and throws it out there because it must be something tugging at him deep down in his soul so much that he just can't just leave it alone.

As I have said before this is not Christian rock (and that is a good thing!). But I don't think it is worth averting our eyes and ears away from the music of The Hold Steady when we can listen to these songs and realize that these are the people the Christ Child entered into the world to redeem. Somehow, I think that Jesus would be spending more of His time with these types of characters, if He walked the earth today, rather than sitting through church services, Bible studies, and Pot-Luck dinners. Finally I believe that these are the people that Christ Himself climbed onto the cross for and when they join Him there, man, can they "appreciate the view". So I would guess that these are characters under construction and who knows where they will end up, but The Hold Steady at least makes us take a look at people as they really can appear in all of their gritty messiness. And if this is a modern day version of the prodigal son then the only thing missing is the Father waiting with open arms for the son's (or daughter's) return.