Theology by Music - Depravity

I love music. I find, even after I have just criticized the latest Matt Redman song that people have sung as “worship,” I will still go to my ipod and listen to Sufjan Stevens, or Pedro the Lion or Johnny Cash or even Derek Webb and feel like I am having a spiritual experience. I do not share Plato’s rejection of music as entirely base and animal. Words and music often can convey more together than apart.

Believing the above, I have sometimes pondered what songs best speak to the soul on truth. On one topic, the Depravity of man, I find I have a plethora of songs which come to mind. In fact, entire albums like Pedro the Lion’s Control, or Johnny Cash’s Murder thoroughly tackle the topic. But if I had to choose one song that conveyed the concept the best it is Sufjan Steven’s song John Wayne Gacy Jr. [video below]



Listen to the lyrics about the nice boy people described Gacy as. The later facts are starkly stated in the song:

(He killed) Twenty-seven people
Even more, they were boys
With their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God

Then the sickness of the acts linger, as Sufjan ends the haunting song with these lines:

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid

What was broken in John Wayne Gacy Jr., is shared in Sufjan, and in all people. The most haunting and gut-wrenching fact is not Gacy’s crime, but our common humanity; the capability of each man to do what Gacy did. Succinctly, Sufjan’s song communicates the first thing one must know to be a saint: you are a sinner…a greater one than you tell others or even yourself.