Well here is the official video for The Hold Steady's "Stay Positive". This is the title track off their latest release. Interestingly the song references the opening tracks on two other cds. After multiple listens the song seems to be about the band's response to success as musicians and their thanks to their fans. On their first release "Almost Killed Me" the first song was titled "Positive Jam" and so they sing on "Stay Positive".
'Cause it’s one thing to start it with a positive jam, and it’s another thing to see it on through. And we couldn’t’ve even done this, if it wasn’t for you."
Then on the "Separation Sunday" release, Craig Finn starts off by mumbling on "Hornets, Hornets"...
"She said always remember Never to trust me She said that the first night she met me She said there's gonna be a time When I'm gonna have to go With whover's gonna get me the highest."
"Stay Positive" echos these lines:
"There’s gonna come a time when she’s gonna have to go with whoever’s gonna get her the highest."
I have been wondering about these lyrics and the themes in "Separation Sunday". Holly the character who wants to go with whoever will get her the highest, ends up in church. It is there that she finally seems to get the highest as ...
"She climbed the cross and found she liked the view. Sat reflecting on the resurrection."
And therein lies the struggle throughout The Hold Steady's songs. There is a tension between the shady world the characters inhabit and a faith that just might take them higher.
Stay Positive
"I got a lot of old friends that are getting back in touch It’s a pretty good feeling. Yeah it feels pretty good. I get a lot of double takes when I’m coming around the corners. It’s mostly pretty nice. Yeah it’s mostly pretty alright. Because most kids give me credit for being down with it. When it was back in the day. Back when things were way different. When the Youth of Today and the early 7 Seconds. Taught me some of life’s most valuable lessons. There’s gonna come a time when the scene will seem less sunny. It will probably get druggy and the kids will seem too skinny. There’s gonna come a time when she’s gonna have to go with whoever’s gonna get her the highest. There’s gonna come a time when the true scene leaders will forget where they differ and get big picture. Because the kids at the shows they’ll have kids of their own and the sing along songs will be our scriptures. We gotta stay positive!
When the chaperone crowned us the king and the queen, I knew that we’d arrived at a unified scene. And all those little lambs from my dreams, well, they were there, too. 'Cause it’s one thing to start it with a positive jam, and it’s another thing to see it on through. And we couldn’t’ve even done this, if it wasn’t for you. We gotta stay positive. We gotta stay positive. We gotta stay positive. We gotta stay positive."
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.
I have been listening to The Hold Steady for over a month now: CDs in the car 0r mp3s as I run. Strangely enough I was introduced to this band through an article in "Christianity Today". The article "Debauchery and Crucifixes: the Hold Steady reminds us of "something bigger" by Andy Whitman calls the latest album "Stay Positive" an "uncomfortable masterpiece, a Christ-haunted work that finds glimmers of glory even in the gutter" and claims the band "might be playing the best and most important rock 'n roll in America." That is pretty heady stuff so I checked out the band and I do like the sound. They sound like a pumped up early Springsteen and they tell tales of hard-luck characters on the wrong side of life and town.
The mistakes and lifestyles these characters choose drive the music, as well as an emphasis on lead singer Craig Finn's Christian (Catholic) upbringing. Mentions of God and faith show up throughout his songs about sinners and saints (however the saints may not be the saints you expected: "Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher" from "Constructive Summer". The band namedrops like crazy and references to people, places, and cultural moments abound throughout their songs and it takes multiple listens to even catch a bit of what their songs are about. Then the characters in the songs turn up again in different songs and albums.
Like the characters in Springsteen's "Born to Run" the buddies in "Constructive Summer" talk about moving on from their "work at the mill until you die" town":
"We’re gonna build something, this summer We’ll put it back together- raise up a giant ladder With love, and trust, and friends, and hammers (This summer!)"...
and "Let this be my annual reminder that we can all be something bigger"
But the characters do little more than climb the water tower and drink and talk. While they may have had an inkling of faith, it didn't give them the answer they were looking for.
I heard your gospel- it moved me to tears, But I couldn’t find the hate, and I couldn’t find the fear. I met your Savior, I knelt at his feet, And he took my ten bucks, and he went down the street.
In the end St. Joe Strummer leads them to believe that you can only save yourself:
"Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer.
I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher.
Getting older makes it harder to remember…
we are our only saviors. We’re gonna build something, this summer."
The music is rollicking and the religious allusions run throughout. NPR radio has a article "The Hold Steady: Church, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll" and you can listen to three songs and see how The Hold Steady mixes religious imagery into songs on the album "Separation Sunday". You can also read additional notes to figure out all those references to people and places.
This is probably not the music for your church youth group or for CCM fans, but if you enjoy a good tune and you enjoy looking in dark places for a little bit of light, The Hold Steady may just get your attention. There are obviously things going on in the mind of Craig Finn that compels him to write, much like Springsteen, with a nod to some religious roots that keep tugging at his soul. Whether in a positive or negative direction, the hold is steady.
I took the name for this blog from the lyrics of the song "Stay Positive" a song where the group continues a lyric fisrt found in "Constructive Summer":
"Our psalms are sing-along songs"
...with ...
"There's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders
Forget where they differ and get big picture.
'Cause the kids at the shows, they'll have kids of their own
Their sing-along songs will be our scriptures.
We gotta stay Positive."
The question I ask is, "Can our sing-a-long songs be our scriptures?" Sometimes we make them out to be, but are they simply reflecting life or giving us "Life"? I will organize my thoughts about the music I enjoy on this blog and see what answers I can come up with.
"The Swish" is a great song for your iPod when you are running. Anyhow, when I was a kid, this is how we dressed for church (especially if those are clip on ties). I hated it!
The big question I have been pondering is why this cd was recommended in Christianity Today? Is the magazine trying to show it has a "cool" side? Is the the type of cd the general readership of the magazine will even appreciate? I am not sure, maybe the author, Andy Whitman, was pulling a fast one and seeing what he could get away with. The lyrics in the songs point to a dark world where people live a lifestyle unfamiliar to, I would guess, most readers of the magazine. I know the songs are not about "my world". Or maybe there is something we can learn while being exposed to and pondering the characters sung about by The Hold Steady.
"Though unconventional, this is a band that obviously takes spiritual matters seriously, and their listeners do well to follow suit...
The Hold Steady has proven to be a band that's willing to look at tough truths and go places where few others go. Their latest disc is arguably their most spiritually complicated and sophisticated set of songs yet... they also spike their lyrics with some prickly philosophical and theological exploration...
You might not pick up on that during the first listen because, well, most of their songs are about drugs and alcohol. But these aren't frat-boy anthems or celebrations of misbehavior. No, these are songs about the wages of sin and the consequences of reckless living....
But art isn't about agreeing or disagreeing; it's about wrestling with big questions and tough topics, about listening to others with an open heart and a generous spirit...
Surely there's much wisdom to be gleaned from Craig Finn; few songwriters are better at portraying the sadness and grief that come from selfish living. On Stay Positive, he wrestles with responsibility in a way that's genuinely inspiring. And as usual, there's a dialogue with the Divine that runs through the whole thing, seeming to indicate that while Finn isn't a man who has everything figured out, he's certainly a man of some kind of faith. That's one of the many things that makes The Hold Steady not just a great band, but an essential one—they're working through issues of faith not with cynicism or hipster irony, but with sincerity and big hearts. If that's not reason to stay positive, I'm not sure what is"
"As Craig Finn states in relation to the band’ 2005 album Separation Sunday, much of their music is about real people finding real redemption. "I guess a prodigal-daughter story," Finn states in his interview on NPR’s “All Thing’s Considered” “It [Separation Sunday] is about a girl who grew up in a religious background and goes off to try to find something bigger, better, or something she's missing. And [she] has a lot of experiences and ends up coming back, not only to her family and to her town, but to her church."
This “coming back” story that weaves its way through the CD is a gritty account of a girl named Holly (“Her parents named her Hallelujah/the kids all called her Holly”) who lives the life of disappointment and heartbreak many people in middle class America live out every day but rarely admit to – drugs on the sidetable at bedtime, drinking to get slightly drunk and forget the disappointments of their life, relationships that are merely encounters through sex without love. What makes Finn’s Holly such an important voice for the church today is that she can actually teach us something if the church would listen. For many CCM artists, redemption results in the ability to conform within our consumer culture rather than transform it – to be redeemed is in the mode of redeeming a coupon clipped from the newspaper – give up something only to buy something else. For Finn, it is not the type of coupon clipping painted out in the connect-the-dots redemption stories oft heard in CCM songs by the third verse. In the closing song of Separation Sunday, the aptly titled “How a Resurrection Really Feels”, Finn’s prodigal-daughter stumbles into an on-going church service:
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?
Where most CCM is only understood and therefore purchased by devoted Christians, Finn’s real life redemption strips away the abstractions and makes redemption something real people want and can experience and still remain real people."
