Hard Rock Bands

Dad
May 27, 2003

12 February 1978DFO774

—God Give Us Soft Loving Hands!—By Father David

—Hard Rock vs. Soft Ballads

1. I'M NOT THE GUY WHO PROMOTED THESE HARD ROCK BANDS!—That was Jethro, I'm sorry to say. He was a hard-rock lover‚ & frankly I don't care anything for it. It's diabolical noise!

2. I DON'T LIKE NOISE, ESPECIALLY IF IT HASN'T GOT A MESSAGE. It's nothing but noise & confusion & bang bang bang! The only thing I like about it is that it feels so good when it stops!

3. FOLK BALLAD MUSIC IS MUCH MORE APPEALING than all that hard rock stuff. I don't like that screaming!—We used to call it the savages! How anybody can like that kind of music I don't understand. Folk yes, but not that hard rock. Hard rock is not what made us.

4. THE FAMILY BEGAN WITH SOLOISTS WHO SANG SWEET SAD FOLK & TOUCHING BALLADS. All our first musicians of the Family were soloists—Aaron, Faithie, Esther, Miguel, Jeremiah, all of them. You could hear the words, you could understand them. And it was beautiful & you cried. It was touching, moving, searching.

5. ROCK BANDS DON'T GET THROUGH TO ME AT ALL! As far as I'm concerned, it's just so much noise! When I listen to that "The Bible" tape, I just wait for the sweet meaningful solos.

6. WHEN THE SOLOS COME ON I LOVE IT, I enjoy it. I can hear & understand the words & they're sweet. I hear dear Simon or Jeane Manson or somebody else & it's beautiful! Then comes all that noise (bangs table)!

7. I DON'T GET ANYTHING OUT OF IT AT ALL! That's nothing but Indian stomp-dance or African war-dance! I'm sorry, I guess I'm an old fogey, but I don't feel the Lord in that kind of stuff, just so much noise & confusion!

8. IT'S VIOLENCE! IT'S NOT EVEN MUSIC!—Just violence! And that's what's affected the kids of today, this horrible noise you hear in discos!—Satanic, barbaric, savage, violent, African!—It's horrible horror noise!

9. WE DIDN'T NEED WHOLE GREAT BIG BANDS when we began. We never even thought about it! We never had a band for years! And the first rock band we ever had got 'way off track under JT.

10. I FELT SORRY FOR COLUMBIA RECORDS. They gave them $50,000 to produce that album & it fell flat on its face! They compromised & listened to Columbia instead of the Lord.

11. THEY COULD HAVE USED BEAUTIFUL PICTURES of the kids themselves for the cover & it would have been beautiful—Instead of that they had some artist draw this zany crazy hippie surrealistic horrible nightmare of a cover! The whole thing was a hell of a mess!—And failed.

12. THE FAMILY WAS NOT BORN IN BIG-BAND SUCCESS & BIG-NAME HITS. It was born by a few humble little soloists with their guitars. If you've ever heard Aaron or Faithie or Esther you know what I'm talking about.

13. YOU TALK ABOUT SOUL MUSIC!—They were tearjerkers, wringing your heart‚ the cry of the youth of the day! That's what we had‚ that's what we gave. The kids knew it was their music‚ & they wept with us, & they prayed with us‚ they cried with us. It was beautiful!—Not ugly demonic noise!

14. BUT AFTER WE GOT TO LONDON JT BEGAN TO PROMOTE THAT HARD-ROCK NOISE!—Why‚ it sounded like the stuff Jeremy came out of, really! When I heard Jeremy got converted in Los Angeles‚ we were in London. I rushed down to the record shop & bought one of his former records & I stuck the ear phones on to listen.

15. I THOUGHT, "MY GOD, DELIVER US FROM THAT KIND OF RACKET! I hope he never does anything like that again!" And yet about half of the tapes that the Family sends us, that's what it is. I think the kids got the idea from JT that must be the kind of music I like. But it's not! It only rubs me the wrong way!

16. THAT'S NOT THE KIND OF MUSIC WE HAD IN THE BEGINNING. That's not the kind of noise that gave birth to the Family. I've written Letters about it & raged against it, & yet we still get that God-damned noise!—Why?

17. I BUSTED UP ONE BAND one time & I said, "For God's sake, if that's the best you can do‚ get out of here & get out into the Colonies one by one where they don't have any inspirationalists or anything.—They need music!

18. "GO OUT THERE WHERE YOU CAN DO SOME GOOD! Scatter! One to a Colony! Don't come back to me with that hellish stuff anymore! I don't want to hear it!" And I think it did them good. I think in fact it was that Columbia recording outfit that I told that to, after they fell flat on their faces with that stuff!

19. I JUST DON'T LIKE IT! If you want to know the kind of music I like, I like sweet music, romantic music, soft music, music to love by & live by.—Make love, not war!

20. THAT KIND OF HARD ROCK IS NOISE TO KILL BY!—Music to destroy by! It destroys your hearing, destroys your sense‚ almost destroys your spirit, makes you want to kill or destroy or go crazy!—Makes me almost want to kill them, anyway!

21. LIKE THE MAN WHO KEPT BEATING HIS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL, & they asked him why he was doing it & he said, "It feels so good when I stop!" Well that's the way I feel about that hard rock! It's not music!—It's just noise!

22. IT'S SCREAMIN' MIMIS WITH THE HEEBEEJEEBEES!—The new savages! It's diabolical & hellish, not Christian & Heavenly! It's savage, not civilised! It's anti-Christ, not Christ-like!—It's of the Devil, not God!

23. LET'M CAN IT, CUT IT, OR GUT IT!—I don't care which!—Just so they quit it! I can't stand it! It even makes me feel violent & wanna kill'm!—Anything to stop it!

24. —AND IT'S HAD NO GOOD FRUIT! The poor kids who've gotten sucked into that muck have gone mad! It causes nervousness, mental disorders, deafness & insanity!—Today's war dances for tomorrow's madness, violence & destruction!

25. DON'T GET SUCKED IN BY IT! Fight it! Turn it off! Smash it—And don't let it get you! Even our own kids are led astray by it! "Better a morsel of bread & quietness therewith, than a brawling band in a wide house!"—To paraphrase Proverbs 17:1 & 25:24.—IT'S JUST NOT JESUS!