Complex Numbers

That's the Spirit

We all know I'm not religious. I'm also not spiritual, unless by "spirit" one means "distilled beverage." The closest I get is when I listen to music. But, of course, it has to be good music—which has nothing to do with whether it was created with religion in mind or not. So here's a Cracked article about songs you might not have realized were religious (and, somehow, Leonard Cohen isn't on the list).

    4 Famous Songs That Are Secretly Religious  
This was supposed to be a pop song. We didn’t know it was about Mormons

For example, you might realize the band you’re listening to is named “Creed,” and the song is talking about going “higher, to a place where blind men see.” Clearly, this about heaven. And yet the band actually insists they are not religious, as they’re not trying to preach anything to anyone.

Songs (and other works of art) can be religious without being preachy. However: 1) A band naming itself "Creed" and claiming to not be religious sets off my bullshit detectors; 2) regardless of their inspiration, they suck. I like to change the lyrics of their most famous song to "With Legs Wide Open."

Or, you might hear that 1960s classic “Spirit in the Sky” and note the lyric, “Gotta have a friend in Jesus.” You then might conclude it’s a Christian song. Singer-songwriter Norman Greenbaum is actually Jewish, but penning that song was a smart move.

Insert Jewish joke about "business is business" here.

4 Imagine Dragons’ ‘Radioactive’ Is About Leaving Mormonism

If you were told that one of Imagine Dragons’ songs is religious, maybe you’d go with “Believer,” because it talks about being a believer. Maybe you’d go with “Demons” because it talks about demons. Maybe you’d go with “Thunder” because that one’s so terrible that only divine intervention can explain its success.

Okay, that's funny. But... who?

The band formed at Brigham Young University, and when you go on to leave the Church of Latter-day Saints, the memory of your time there stays with you. We know for sure that one song of theirs is about that subject: “Radioactive.”

Yeah, so, kind of the opposite of religious, I guess? Hell if I know. I didn't watch the video they embedded in the article, so I still don't think I've ever heard any of their stuff.

3 Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Cecilia’ Is St. Cecilia

The idea that “Cecilia” is a song directed at a saint sounds absurd.

Yeah, it kind of does, especially since Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are in the same tribe as Norman Greenbaum. But hey, Simon said it, and while he may have been trolling, it kind of works on a metaphorical level.

It doesn't help that the song is probably the duo's least awesome.

2 ‘Dem Bones’ Is a Spiritual About the Promised Land

Unlike the others, this isn't a relatively recent pop song, but, as the article notes, an older gospel tune. Which means it's not "secretly" religious at all, but I guess there's a secularized version for broader appeal.

Today, the song is most important during Halloween, because it gets children talking about spooky skeletons. That’s fine. When you get down to it, Halloween is the holiest night of the year.

And technically, anything involving an afterlife has religious connotations.

1 ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ Is About the Greek Pantheon

This is the one I saved this article for, even though the header is misleading. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the name of Key's poem, which, as we all know, was set to an existing tune.

If you’re a fan of trivia, you might already know that this melody came from a British drinking song.

What's weird to me is, I've known this for decades, but I never could be arsed to find out exactly what the drinking song was. Well, now I know...

The song is about a bunch of Greek gods arguing with each other. When the poet Anacreon urges humanity to drink and screw, the god Jupiter gets angry and considers intervening. Apollo disagrees, claiming Jupiter's mighty thunderbolts are nothing against the power of music.

And whaddaya know; Apollo was right.

The United States may not have been founded as a religious country, but if you ever feel the need to pledge allegiance to one nation under God, feel free to specify which god that it is.

Why, Dionysus, of course.