All posts tagged Trent Reznor

Head Like A Hole (Part II)

I’ve been writing a series of blogs on the songs that make up my most recent release, a covers project entitled “Through Songs I Was First Undone.”  The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this album have been sacred moments. These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God and humanity.

Here is part two of why Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole” is on the album:

What Reznor finds enraging about the abuse of power, wealth and influence I see and feel as well. As do most of us (I exclude here the likes of Emperor Palpatine and Sauron the Great). In fact, the marriage of religious influence with political power and financial wealth is a partnership whose destructive malevolence was the focus of many Old Testament prophets, most markedly Amos, who begins his prophetic imagery with the LORD “roar(ing) from Zion.” And why does the LORD roar? Among other things, he roars in anger over the abuse of religious, political and financial power

6 “For three sins of Israel, even for four,
I will not turn back {my wrath}.
They sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.

 

 

7 They trample on the heads of the poor
as upon the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
and so profane my holy name.

 

 

8 They lie down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge.
In the house of their god
they drink wine taken as fines.

This echoes in my heart:
…They sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.

Because somewhere there is a child or a family whose freedom has been compromised so that the already-wealthy don’t have to pay “full price” for shoes.

So does this:
….In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.

The wine in some religious ceremonies during Amos’ time had been purchased with money collected from unfair and unethical fees and punishments imposed on the vulnerable and poor. It rendered the celebration of religion detestable in God’s sight. While this kind of crookedness is the exception, there is still much of christendom built on the backs of the unknowingly manipulated.. the swindled.. those who came to the Church to find a place of rest and belonging but instead found a place of emotional manipulation and trickery; Peoples’ actual needs for health, growth and community taken advantage of in order to support the expansion of their shepherd’s career in religious industry. I see these things with the same level of anger as Reznor does,.. but also with a touch of sadness that the original recording of Head Like A Hole doesn’t portray. Which is why I wanted my arrangement to reflect not only the anger but the grief and lament of God for the abuse of power.

It is rumored that the original recording of Head Like A Hole features a one-take of Reznor’s lead vocal (meaning that he only tracked once and left it alone,.. flaws included). The rawness of his voice is then set against the driving, mechanical construction of the song’s arrangement. This tension between the human and the mechanical is what I believe gives the original track such beautiful power. My choice was to move in the opposite direction, .. So I had a cylon sing my part…. Actually, what I mean is that I wanted to make the whole thing feel human… To tap into lament and sadness rather than simply rage; hoping that the tension created would be enough to sustain the song. So, if you listen carefully to the beginning of my rendition, you can hear the creaking of the piano and even hear piano player Ben Shive breathing (I forgot to list that in the liner notes: “Breathing Noises: Ben Shive”)

You can pick up my rendition of the song at iTunes
or my Online Store

1138 days ago /  Tagged: , , 3
Pope and Trent

Head Like A Hole (Part 1)

I’ve been writing a series of blogs on the songs that make up my most recent release, a covers project entitled “Through Songs I Was First Undone.”  The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this album have been sacred moments. These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God and humanity.

Here is part one of why Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole” is on the album:

 

Pope John Paul, in his 1990 letter to artists, encourages artists with the notion that  “Every genuine inspiration contains some tremor of that ‘breath’ with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning.”  I am of the opinion that, insofar as genuine inspiration contains something of the character of God in creation, then perhaps it is equally true that there is art whose inspiration contains something of the character of God in grief or even in anger.  In this category, I’d place bands like Rage Against The Machine, Bad Religion and Public Enemy… Bands and artists who and are articulate voices of dissent in relationship to abusive and/or corrupt power centers.

I would also include Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails in this category, though to a lesser degree.  NIN generally tends toward more emotional and interpersonal angst but in songs like Head Like A Hole, Reznor’s ferocity gives focus to frustration and disillusionment on the grander social scale where critics like those mentioned above most often function.

Head Like A Hole was written and released at the end of an era which saw an almost unprecedented expanse of American wealth and prosperity.  In the perspective of some, this growth came coupled with a spirit of greed and self-interest that went almost entirely unchecked if not blatantly celebrated.  Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” is often cited as a dramatic accounting of this spirit.  Interestingly, the rapid generation and accumulation of wealth throughout the 80’s runs parallel to a much slower than expected decline in the poverty rate.  For the 13-15% of Americans who live below the poverty line ($19k per year), the 1980’s embodied the proverb “rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”

My memory of this same time period is also riddled with religious scandals of such variety, frequency and crookedness that perhaps only the phrase TrageComedy is appropriate or even remotely accurate.  From televangelists swindling members out of thousands of dollars to shady financial exchanges between high-profile ministries and politicians to seemingly perpetual sexual assault and misconduct allegations and even to one mislead brother locking himself in a tower and suggesting that God would actually kill him if he didn’t come up with a few million dollars.

Despite the fact that by the 1989 release of “Head Like A Hole,” I was only fifteen, I distinctly remember having an awareness that men and women of power were corrupt and that, almost as a rule, they wielded that power selfishly if not maliciously.  It seemed (as it often still does) that all we have to work with is self-interest and that our best hope is to unbridle that self-interest in the off-chance that some “invisible hand” would guide even our worst intentions and schemes to a more beneficent end.  Unfortunately, that scenario seldom seems to play itself out.

So, as comedic as some of the foibles of the 1980s may have been, at least from a distance, I’m also convinced that much of the mistrust my generation feels towards our central institutions (and most profoundly the Church) stems from the social and emotional damage done during the 1980s.  Out of this space of negativity and mistrust emerged “Head Like A Hole” as an anthem of sorts, with Reznor screaming

“No you can’t take it
No you can’t take that away from me
Head like a hole.
Black as your soul.
I’d rather die than give you control.”

You can purchase the track at iTunes
or at my online store.


(Part 2 coming soon.)


1145 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0