Full Description
Though American attitudes toward religion changed dramatically during the 1960s, interest in spirituality itself never diminished. If we listen closely, Michael Gilmour contends, we can hear an extensive religious vocabulary in the popular music of the decades that followed—articulating each generation's spiritual quest, a yearning for social justice, and the emotional highs of love and sex. Probing the lyrical canons of seminal artists including Cat Stevens, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Pearl Jam, Madonna, and Kanye West, Gilmour considers the ways—and reasons why—pop music's secular poets and prophets adopted religious phrases, motifs, and sacred texts.
Contents
Introduction: Spirituality in Post-1960s Lyrics
Track 1: Religion on Record: Popular Music's Anxiety of Influence
Track 2: Church in a Guitar Case: Comfort and Compassion in Popular Music
Track 3: Outrageous Religion: Sex, Defiance, and Obsession with the Sacred
Track 4: Looking Beyond the Steeple and Menorah
Track 5: Fade Out: Stealing from the Sacred and Rewriting Religion
