Topic 1 Music's Influence

1. Describe an instance in which you or others may have tried to "protect" someone from music's "corrupting influences, " or a time when something you listened to "crossed the line" or raised the eyebrows of others.

As a sophomore in high school in 1984, I was required to join the youth group of the local Christian church by my parents. Nearly the whole sophomore class in school were also members of the group which numbered about 25 of us in totality. For about a two-week period, if my memory serves me right, the church asked us to bring in a list of music we listened to and then about a week later we were all to meet a house of a rich farmer who was a deacon at the church. The next week the other youth group members met there and, as requested, brought our tapes and records. One of the songs on my record was, "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin which just so happened to be evil and demonic according to the youth minister, the pastor at the church, and the deacon. Supposedly, the song played backwards is an agenda of Satan to enter the minds and consciousness of the youth and should be burned as there was no other way to stay out of hell. I don't remember how many records were burned but there were a lot. Below is a video of that song played backwards.


2. How did you feel about the experience?

At the time, I was 16 years old and frankly the teachings of the church scared the daylights out of me and all the others except a few who were the "outcasts." They tattoo'd our consciousness with impressions of burning in hell forever and that if we listened to anything except "approved" music we were all destined to burn forever. In the mid-west, there is a lot of that type of teaching and the parents had no problem using the rod if the kids disobeyed. The old sang was true back then, "Spare the rod-spoil the child." Of course today, I know that the church is full of hogwash and wouldn't join one if it paid money but that is neither here nor there. One last thing, the reward we all got for burning those songs was a trip to Indianapolis Indiana for a concert with a Christian singer Morgan Cryer and then Petra which was cool with us. 

3. List your favorite music genre and your top five bands/artists. 

Of course rock music is my favorite genre as I was born in the sixties so here is my list.

1. Aerosmith (Dream on)

2. AC/DC (Thunderstruck)

3. Judas Priest (Breakin the Law)- Funny because my field training officer was the only cop in Davenport Iowa who was called to a bar to break it up- and you know how he did it? He got on stage (in police uniform) grabbed an electric Yamaha and started singing - Breaking The Law....it can be looked up in archives in the quad cities newspaper...

4. Ozzy Osborne- (No more tears)

5. U2 (One Love)

[sorry, I had to put my favorite tunes up there too]



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