Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - 'Letter From God To Man'
I've got to admit to being a total sucker for any creative endeavour which attempts to work out what goes on in God's head. And I don't just mean the comic asides in Family Guy, or the bits in South Park with Jesus in either. There's the comic book Preacher, for starters, that asks a lot of awkward questions about the mythology of religious stories, and contains an Irish vampire and loads of swearing and violence, what's not to love?
Then there's the Kevin Smith film Dogma, or the parts of Ricky Gervais's stand-up where he re-interprets the Garden of Eden story, using very human, 21st Century logic. My personal favourite is a song by Randy Newman - yes, the man who wrote the songs for Toy Story and Monsters Inc - called, helpfully, 'God's Song', It has the same basic thrust as the the others, which is to try and interpret why a loving God would put up with some of the unpleasant things which go on in the world, only in Randy's song, God appears as a mocking, sneering creator, who can't see any difference in importance between mankind and a cactus, and finds our prayers funny.
(It's if you'd like to hear it. But be warned, it's awful sad...)
These all, in their way, serve to make people think about their own beliefs, which is sort of what art is all about. It helps when even the most damning view of what God might actually be like is well thought out and comes from a place of respect, of course. It's fine to be all atheisty, or all Christiany, for that matter, but you can't demand that everyone else is too, that's just fundamentalism. And fundamentalism is just plain rude.
Luckily, Scroobius Pip is a very respectful rapper, and he's a clever one too. His version of God's inner monologue comes in the form of a belated apology and explanation of why humans have been left to sort out their own messes. The God in this song wants to be clear that He feels misrepresented by certain claims which have been made on His behalf, and to draw a line between what He did when He made everything, and how mankind has gone on to twist things and spoil them.
Which makes the song equivalent of the moment your parents arrive home from the shops to find you've trashed the house, and haven't got around to tidying it up yet, and you're blaming them for leaving you alone in the first place.
And WHAT have you done to your father's Radiohead song, young man? I hope you know the bill for fixing it going to come out of your pocket money...
Download: Out now
CD Released: July 28th
(Fraser McAlpine)
has a nice review of the PipSac album, and tackles the thorny subject of why they have a 'versus' in their name. Hell, he even names a winner!
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