Anti-Catholicism?

[Michie]

Coldplay Takes On the Pope

One of the things that I hoped to accomplish with my two books The Rock & Roll Rebellion, Faith, God & Rock 'n' Roll and my next, Rock Gets Religion, was to encourage artists to use their music to grapple with the big issues of life. Theology, the study of our beliefs about God is of course one of those big issues of life that smart people like to sit around and speculate about, and U2 has always done a good job of talking theology, albeit obliquely.

For many U2 fans, Bono's religious lessons were easy to swallow because he always gave them an out. After all, though he didn't have a sex act in mind when he sang "If you want to touch the sky better learn to kneel," some of his fans may have thought so and few likely understood that The Joshua Tree referenced the cross that Christ died on, (Joshua being another name for Jesus). In fact Bono explicitly gave his more secular listeners an alternate reading with his song about the theological notion of "Grace" when he sang "It's the name for a girl, it's also a thought that changed the world."

So when I began to hear Chris Martin at my gym singing about St. Peter not calling his name I was intrigued. What in the world was he singing about? A lot it turns out. It seems that a debate is already raging in cyberspace about his band Coldplay and its song "Viva La Vida."

Continued- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-joseph/coldplay-takes-on-the-pop_b_116929.html

 

[Michie]

Personally, I don't see it.

Poets & lyrics set to music have always explored the mood or mindset of the artist's feelings at the time. While there have been songs that have questioned Christianity in general or what have you, I've never seen them as militant anthems.

I adore Leonard Cohen's lyrics & many see him as questioning or objecting to all sorts of things.

But I don't see them as an attack. I really don't see Coldplay's lyrics as an attack on the Church.

 

[Maynard Keenan]

Chris Martin on the song:

"It's about… You're not on the list. I was a naughty boy. It's always fascinated me that idea of finishing your life and then being analyzed on it. And this idea runs throughout most religions. That's why people blow up buildings. Because they think they're going to get lots of virgins. I always feel like saying, just join a band (laughs). That is the most frightening thing you could possibly say to somebody. Eternal damnation. I know about this stuff because I studied it. I was into it all. I know it. It's still mildly terrifying to me. And this is serious."