I've just got the new Ian Brown album, The World is Yours. It's a great album full of political and anti-establishment rants, included within that is, of course, a rant about Church. Whilst i think that musically the album is great, i have to confess to initially finding the lyrics a bit passe. To rant about the church is fair enough, to rant about the war in Iraq is fine but I was initially struck by the naïvety of the rants and their lack of thought through political comment.
This from MusicOMH.com 'Street Children puts forward the rather simplistic idea that people with big houses should open their doors to homeless children and let them live there, while Save Us criticises "those whose eyes are closed to the plight of the African child" - laudable sentiments to be sure, but ones which leave Brown with an even bigger messiah than the likes of Bono'.
However, i also wonder whether there is more going on that initially meets the eye. I wonder if the depth comes through listening to the whole album and the subtle theological messages that are coming out through it. I wonder if it's an anti-established religion rant but one that gives a positive message about Christ and God. For example the song before Street Children is called 'The Feeding of the 5000' which is obviously about the miracle of Christ. In it he describes the two fishes as the spirit and the five loaves of bread as the soul, Jesus is referred to as reaching through the darkness as the king of golden rays. The song that follows is street children that starts with a rant about the wealth of the church. It also has a line that says, 'that if i had a home with 10 million rooms i'd open it up for them'. I can't help but make the connect to John 14:2 ' In my fathers house their are many dwelling places'.
There seems to be a movement that goes like this: Jesus feeds the starving 5000 - the church closes it's doors to the starving millions and keeps it wealth - God opens the heavenly mansion to all people...
