Songs of Praise. I hated that programme! When I was younger, so much younger that before, it was about the best that Sunday afternoon telly had to offer - total anathema. It had more pearl rinses than Saga holidays and brass band music farted out of the speakers with bowel swilling gusto. And believe me, there was nothing else filling the void between Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade and bed time. It was the Sunday afternoon coma.
A few years on and the old hormones flushed me into the teenage years. Jane's Addiction and Nirvana where all I needed so the class of ’92 (allong with me humble self), surfed on the dreadlocked smellfest that was Grunge. However, Songs of Praise still stalked Sunday afternoons like some kind basilisk of boredom, threatening to petrify all who met it's gaze. Who where these people on the screen? Had they no contact with reality?
With annoying regularity these catatonic masses would serve up their visual lesson in banality. Aye, there where token young folk but they looked like ketamine abusers. “The poor swine! It must be in the only place they don't receive non-stop beatings” thought I, with genuine pity. There may have been the occasional geetar wielding hipster, but no, the damage was done. I obviously shared no common ground with this lot.
Onward and into the now. In my late twenties Songs Of Praise still trundles on and remains as the Blue Peter of 'spiritual' programming. I catch it every now and then when I'm not in church of a Sunday evening (I went and became a Christian anyway, its a whole other story…). So do I still wonder whether the bloke down the front is a conductor or a taxidermist? Well yes. Sometimes I do.
Aye, its not so bad as it was back then. They’re still making an effort but I still find myself asking "who are these people?". And Just now, while writing this sentence, the answer has hit me; They are not me. They are not you.
The ‘Praise is meant to be a reflection of Christendom in Britain but what's the score? Why come no normal common or garden freak's are on it. We should be! You and Me. Giving it large with the dodgy brass band and belting them out like there's no tomorrow (and who knows better that there could be no tomorrow than us?). Praising our Jesus like he's going out of fashion. Praising him because He, like us, was never in fashion to begin with.
The old people in my church have NEVER been ashamed to be seen with me. No crotch-ripped breeks or ring adorned nipples have even brought so much as a flush to their faces. So why should I be afraid to be seen in public with them? Why do I hide from it? Is it because I'm afraid that the people who disapprove anyhow might continue? Stuff that!
So this is a call… a call to the freaks… a call to the underdogs… to the punx, goths, moshers, skaters, vampires, and indiekids… to the pierced, the tattooed and the dyed… a call for all you waifs and strays of Jesus: I want you on the telly!
I want to see mohawks in the pews, dreadlocks in the baptistery, and goths in their rightful place - the crypts! When songs of praise comes to a town near you grab your mates and go. Sit down the front! Lift those hands and show the world not only that you love Jesus, but that your chuffed to smithereens that he loves freaks! Don't be shy 'cos if nothing else it'll be fun!
This is the great Songs Of Praise Swindle!
Fair doos, it contains no actual extortion but I recon it spits the very essence of punk. It's a mass incursion into the belly of banality and just like ye olde Sex Pistols we could steal the mundane straight out from under their noses (and have a proper giggle along the way). Yes folks, if you haven't caught on by now, I'm actually serious about this. Why? Cos I'm sick of people not believing I'm a genuine, bonafide, good old fashioned Jesus-Creeper because I don't look like an audience member from 'Trisha', that's why.
So is anyone with me? Does any soul still smoulder with the spark of rebellion (Holy Spirit), or are we content to be middle of the road, just like the rest? Mone then:
TODAY - SONGS OF PRAISE
TOMMOROW - THE WORLD!
