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Religion & Theology 25 (2018) 223–236 Religion &Theology brill.com/rt

Theo-political Discourse and Rock ’n’ Roll in the

Theodore Louis Trost Department of Religious Studies and New College, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA [email protected]

Abstract

Part of an ongoing study of religious rhetoric in politics and art, this essay identi- fies some of the uses to which theological language has been put in academic dis- courses about human relationships as they are ethically and politically constructed. It reviews the “Reagan Era” (1980–1988) in the United States through the works of cer- tain songwriters who use theological language to critique the dominant politics of the era.

Keywords theo-politics – sovereignty – discourse – popular music – The Call

This essay considers a dimension of the American civil religion that finds expression in popular song.1 To begin, I am interested in what the French philosopher Dominique Janicaud, in the early 1990s (and somewhat despair- ingly) announced as “the theological turn in phenomenology” or the philoso- phy of religion.2 Historically, I am interested in the period of American history

1 Robert Bellah introduced the term “civil religion” into an American context in his seminal essay “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus 96, no. 1 (Winter 1967): 1–21, https://www.jstor .org/stable/20027022. My concern in this essay is to highlight the prevalence of theological rhetoric in the public sphere without any attempt to link this language to any commonly subscribed religious dogma. 2 Dominique Janicaud, “The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology,” in Dominique Jan-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15743012-02503006Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:39PM via free access 224 trost referred to as the Reagan Era: the period that is dramatically re-presented in the contemporary television programThe Americans, with all of its ColdWar bleak- ness and anticipations of Armageddon.3 In particular, I am interested in how the era was chronicled and critiqued by various mainstream and alternative rock recording artists at the time. Ultimately, I want to consider the critically acclaimed, but commercially under-appreciated, California rock band The Call, who, through their songs, offer an excellent case study of theo-politics in the Reagan Era. These three topics then make up the three divisions of this inves- tigation.

1 Theology in the Public Square

Theology, as the word literally suggests, is discourse about God. By extension, it is the systematic study of religion, or a particular religion, in an effort to determine and delineate its truths. While the study of theology has a long his- tory in the academy and was even designated “the queen of the sciences” in a less-Enlightened era, it has diminished in academic stature in recent centuries. When Janicaud criticized the “theological turn” in philosophy, it was because he believed that certain philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lev- inas, and Paul Ricoeur, were using philosophy in the service of faith or, in other words, as theology. Academic critics of theology frequently characterize it as an unscientific pseudo-discipline: the “facts” of belief are, by definition, not objec- tively verifiable.Theology becomes a fantastic or mythic discourse dedicated to the formulation and perpetuation of doctrine or dogma. Often this activity is performed at the upper levels of a pyramid of power and prestige with God at the pinnacle and various religious and political leaders – archbishops, chief priests, scribes, kings, potentates, and presidents – one rank or so below an all- seeing (and unseen) God. Theology, by this account, is an exercise in verticality – if I may put it that way. It is the ideology that sustains empires and legitimates sovereignty.4 Or to use another term, it is “theology from above,” a kind of religious equivalent to the economic theory of “trickle down” that figured prominently in the parlance of the Reagan era (usually in the guise of “supply-side” economics).

icaud, et al., Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”. The French Debate (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2000), 16–103. 3 The Americans, FX Network, 2013–2018. 4 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab, foreword by Tracy B. Strong (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

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In contrast to theology as the erection and maintenance of hierarchy, there has been an alternative discourse, a “theology from below,” within the tradition of theology itself. This trajectory is advanced in some prophetic writ- ings in the Hebrew Bible and certain laws therein concerning the rights of, and the responsibilities to, the sojourner, the orphan, the widow, the poor, and the neighbor, among others. Here the question of who God is “in God’s majesty” (so to speak) is bracketed and the matter of who God is “in God’s proximity” (in the guise and gift of the neighbor, for example) comes to the fore. In Christian dis- course, this emphasis is present in Saint Paul’s epistles – in his meditations, for example, on the “otherness” of the gentiles and their inclusion in community. It figures in a number of gospel narratives about Jesus – his affiliations with the despised; his call to love even the enemy, and so forth. As I understand the “theological turn” in philosophy, it appropriates the rich vocabulary of theol- ogy – on matters of sovereignty, love of neighbor, and the construction of the “sacred,” among others – and uses this discourse to explore the nature of human relationships as these are ethically and politically constructed. In his essay “Revelation and the JewishTradition,” Emmanuel Levinas argues that it is through “ethical relationship with the Other,” the call of God’s infinite otherness in the neighbor and the responsibility imposed through relation- ship, that one becomes a self.5 Elsewhere, he asserts that what human beings encounter in the “face” of the Other is “the latent birth of meaning.”6 This strain in Levinas is picked up Slavoj Žižek and his associates, who look to the role of “the neighbor” as, among other things, both responsibility and threat.7 Mark Lewis Taylor makes the distinction between theology with a “capital T” and “the theological.” For Taylor, “capital T” or “guild” theology’s “distinctive con- cern [is] focused largely on a ‘valuation of the transcendent’” and, therefore, the maintenance of a binary opposition between transcendent and immanent that privileges the former and values the latter primarily to the degree that it points to or even incarnates the transcendent. Bruce Lincoln expresses this dichotomy concisely in his characterization of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib, who, in their service to Empire, conceive their role along these lines: “We are lordly; they are virtually animals. We are God’s chosen; they are estranged from

5 Emanuel Levinas, “Revelation and the Jewish Tradition” in The Levinas Reader, ed. Seán Hand (Oxford; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989), 207. 6 Emanuel Levinas, “The Trace of the Other,” in Deconstruction in Context, ed. Mark C. Taylor (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 345–359. 7 Slavoj Žižek, Eric Santer, and Kenneth Reinhard, The Neighbor:Three Inquiries in PoliticalThe- ology (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Religion & Theology 25 (2018) 223–236 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:39PM via free access 226 trost everything divine.”8 “The theological,” on the other hand, takes with utmost seriousness the power, creativity, and vitality of life that is operative in move- ments of “the people,” especially those bearing the weight of imposed social suffering. For Taylor, “the theological” is an exercise in horizontality; the place to look for “the theological” is quite often in the work of art including, I would add, popular song.9 Many of the concerns Taylor raises in the 21st century are rooted historically in the Latin American theologies of liberation that were active during the 1970s and 1980s. Liberation theology arose in opposition to a variety of injustices including the exploitative global interests of American enterprise. It sees the problem of poverty, for example, not as the result of human weakness but as a consequence of an unjust system that oppresses and exploits the weak. It seeks to empower, to liberate, the weak and to resist the oppressor. While talk of liberation was current in advance of the Reagan Era, a strong conservative Protestant countercurrent opposed the women’s liberation move- ment, for example, or government programs that amounted to welfarism and . Jerry Falwell’s tax-exempt organization, “ Inc.,” sought to return America to basics: back to values, back to biblical morality, back to sensibility, and back to patriotism. This is the program he outlined in his book Listen America, where he also declared that “the hope of reversing the trends of decay in our republic now lies with the Christian public in America.”10 Falwell called upon this public to vote for in 1980. And it came to pass.

2 The Reagan Era and Its Rock Critics

On 6 February 2011, the Republican National Committee issued the following press release in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth:

Today we honor the 100th birthday of one of our nation’s greatest presi- dents, Ronald Reagan. Even before he assumed the presidency more than thirty years ago, Reagan established himself as a staunch defender of our core conservative principles – limited government, a thriving free mar- ket economy, and a strong national defense. As President, he led us to a peaceful victory in the and gave a nation reason to believe in

8 Bruce Lincoln, Religion, Empire, and Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 103. 9 Mark Lewis Taylor, The Theological and the Political (, MN: Fortress, 2011), 3. 10 Jerry Falwell, Listen America (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 22.

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itself again. With his strong leadership, graceful humility and sharp wit, he inspired millions and paved the way for the next generation of conser- vatives.

As our nation confronts some of its largest challenges since President Reagan left office, we are right to pause and remember his wisdom, elo- quence, and unparalleled optimism. His memory reminds us of the prom- ise America carries for each of its citizens and the responsibility we shoul- der to defend it so that for generations to come it may remain that “shining city upon a hill.”11

A great deal of nostalgia concerning the legacy of Ronald Reagan has been in circulation in the aftermath of Reagan’s death even though his most famous plea, to “tear down this wall,” offers an odd commentary on contemporary calls to build walls. Even spoke favorably about Reagan during his term as President, and now, amidst cries to lower taxes, decrease social spend- ing, demonstrate dominion over other nations, in short, “,” politicians of all stripes want to claim Reagan as their own. Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. He was in office from 1981 until 1989 during which time, among other things, hostages were released from captivity in Iran, the United States of America supported a vari- ety of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary efforts in places like Afghani- stan and Latin America, and the Defense budget saw a significant increases due to military research projects such as the neutron bomb and the Strategic Arms Initiative (also called “Star Wars”). Reagan’s foreign policy was often referred to in the press as the “Reagan Doc- trine.” There were actually two versions of this doctrine. One, delineated by conservative essayist Charles Krauthammer, can be summarized in the slogan “Strength Through Power.” According to Krauthammer:

The proclaims overt and unashamed American support for anti-Communist revolution. The grounds are justice, necessity and democratic tradition. Justice, because these revolutionaries are “fighting for an end to tyranny.” Necessity … because if these “freedom fighters” are defeated, their countries will be irrevocably lost behind an Iron Curtain of

11 Reince Priebus, “Republican National Committee Honors the 100th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s Birth,” Republican National Committee, 31 January 2011, https://gop.com /republican‑national‑committee‑honors‑the‑100th‑anniversary‑of‑ronald‑reagans‑birth/ (accessed 25 August 2018).

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Soviet domination. And democratic tradition … because to support “our brothers” in revolution is to continue – “in Afghanistan, in Ethiopia, Cam- bodia, Angola … (and) ” – 200 years of American support for “Simon Bolivar … the Polish patriots, the French Resistance and others seeking freedom.”12

Isaac Asimov offered another version of the Reagan Doctrine. He pointed to Reagan’s declaration, in a recent speech,

that one couldn’t trust the Soviet government because the Soviets didn’t believe in God or in an afterlife and therefore had no reason to behave honorably, but would be willing to lie and cheat and do all sorts of wicked things to aid their cause.

Thus according to Asimov, the “Reagan Doctrine” amounts to this: “No one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted.”13 Asimov’s essay partakes of a certain satirical attitude, but it points to a strain in American polit- ical doctrine that critiqued early on in his career, namely the belief that the nation “has God on its side.”14 This second version of the Reagan Doc- trine, it seems to me, shares affinities with Taylor’s characterization of “capital T” theology. With the possible exception of Costa Rica, virtually all of Central America was in revolt during the Reagan Era. In most places, anti-Communist dicta- tors or military juntas received American aid and arms; in some cases, military specialists were beneficiaries of training at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. In Nicaragua, the socialist Sandinista government, under the leadership of Daniel Ortega, nationalized properties and instituted land reform after defeating the Somoza regime in 1979. The US subsequently armed and trained Contra rebels in an effort to bring down the Sandinistas – a policy con- gruent with the anti-Communist platform of the Reagan Doctrine but in sharp conflict with the US Congress, which had prohibited this type of aid with the Boland Amendment of 1982.15

12 Charles Krauthammer, “The Reagan Doctrine,” Time Magazine 125, no. 13 (1 April 1985): 54, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed 1 September 2018). 13 Isaac Asimov, “The Reagan Doctrine,” Austin American Statesman, (10 May 1981): 8. 14 Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side,” The Times They are A-changin’, Columbia Records, 1965. 15 The Boland Amendment “intended to cut off all aid to the Contras.” See “Boland Amend-

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One symbol of the violent atmosphere in Central America was the nation of , whose very name, “The Savior,” resonates with irony and reli- gious overtones. Already before Ronald Reagan became president, numerous horrendous murders had been carried out by “death squads” on behalf of the nation’s right wing military junta. In a sermon delivered on 23 March 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, appealed directly to Salvadoran sol- diers to stop the slaughter of the innocents and to end the general violation of basic human rights.16 The next day, while elevating the chalice during the mass, Romero was executed; his blood spilled out upon the altar along with the transfigured wine. It is believed that the assassins were members of a US trained and funded death squad. Because the military junta was vehemently anti-Communist, it continued to receive military aid and advisors from the United States throughout the Reagan years. Meanwhile, the civil unrest in El Salvador forced many refugees to leave their homeland and seek sanctuary, often in the United States. This is the situation to which California singer-songwriter Greg Copeland responds in his song “El Salvador.” Copeland places the conflict in El Salvador into the global context of imperial warfare that extends from Belfast and War- saw to San Salvador. He refers to the assassination of four Catholic nuns, “shot in the back” because of their commitment to land reform. Under these circum- stances, the songster advises recourse to Bibles and prayers as the weapons still available to the poor in their struggle against great odds and overwhelm- ing force. This resort seems, at first, to be one of resignation. But the songster enlists the memory of others who have given their lives in the conflict and the resisters, hiding in the hills, who may be beaten “but can never be ruled.” Thus the song progresses from what sounds at first like a lament to an anthem of resistance resolving into the slogan, “Viva El Salvador.” With this rallying cry, or proclamation, Copeland resorts to “the theological” by locating a living savior among “los compañeros,” the companions who are victimized by the violence that is brought down upon them from above.17 Bruce Copeland’s first album received high praise from critics but was not commercially successful.18 His high school friend and occasional songwriting

ments: What They Provided,” New York Times, 10 July 1987: 9, http://www.nytimes.com/ 1987/07/10/world/iran‑contra‑hearings‑boland‑amendments‑what‑they‑provided.html. 16 Oscar Romero, A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People: Volume VI: The Complete Homilies of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, tr. Joseph V. Owens (Miami, FL: Convivium, 2017), 578–589. 17 Greg Copeland, “El Salvador,”Revenge Will Come, Geffen Records, 1982. 18 George Plasketes, “‘That’s It’: Willis Allen Ramsey, The Ballad of a Cosmic Cowboy” in

Religion & Theology 25 (2018) 223–236 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:39PM via free access 230 trost partner, , on the other hand, was among the most popular American songwriters when he released his eighth album, Lives in the Balance, in 1986. The album offers a sustained meditation on the responsibility of cit- izenship and its relationship to patriotism. It consists primarily of songs that criticize the Reagan administration and its policies in Latin America. In this context, the song “For America” advances the virtue of patriotism: it is, literally, a pro-American song. The contours of Browne’s Americanness are neatly delin- eated in a recurring refrain that draws upon religious ritual, patriotic rhetoric, and biblical reference. The songster claims to “pray” for America; he quotes the national anthem as the basis for his moral conviction; and he resorts to biblical exhortation, juxtaposing the Star Spangled Banner with an allusion to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for what- ever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal 6:7). Browne goes on to criticize the President for advancing policies of might over right, policies that perpet- uate human suffering in order to protect a suspect “way of life.” The appeal advanced by the song “For America,” Browne concludes, is for his listeners to become conscious of and accountable for its misdeeds. The songster demands that the nation respond to the biblically-charged summons to “wake up.”19 The injustice advanced by American policy in the name of freedom was widespread throughout Latin America during the Reagan Era. Thousands of displaced persons poured out of Guatemala, fleeing the repressive regime of CIA-installed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, an ordained minister with the California-based Church of the Word, who was also charged by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with committing “” against the Mayan people.20 Many of the homeless wanderers who fled Rios Montt’s mayhem found their way to temporary shelter among the refugee camps in the Chiapas province of Mexico. Those camps, however, were targeted by the Guatemalan military for raids and helicopter assaults. The refugees were offi- cially considered “guerrillas”; their annihilation was part of a government- sponsored, counter-insurgency campaign. This desperate situation is enacted in the song “If I had a Rocket Launcher” by Canadian songwriter ,21 who visited the refugee camps in Chiapas as part of an Oxfam-sponsored visit to Central America.22 Cockburn

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Essays on Debut Albums, ed. George Plasketes (Lon- don; New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 76 n. 2. 19 Jackson Browne, “For America,”Lives in the Balance, Geffen Records, 1986. 20 Bruce Cockburn, Rumours of Glory (New York, NY: Harper, 2014), 228–229. 21 Bruce Cockburn, “If I had a Rocket Launcher,” Stealing Fire, Columbia Records, 1984. 22 Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, founded in Britain in 1942.

Religion & TheologyDownloaded 25 from (2018) Brill.com09/26/2021 223–236 01:29:39PM via free access theo-political discourse and rock ’n’ roll in the reagan era 231 has said of “Rocket Launcher” that it “is not a call to arms; it is a cry.”23 The song begins with a churning guitar that suggests the slicing of helicopter pro- pellers. The lament commences with the community scattering in fear and the observation that only God knows how many kids have been murdered by these death machines. The songster is caught in a conflict with his beliefs. He doesn’t believe in hate, for example; at the same time, he opposes borders, and gener- als, and torture. The confession advanced in the last line of each of the song’s verses, the cry raised in agonizing solidarity with the victims, is essentially this: “If I had a rocket launcher …” it would be engaged in opposition to this aggres- sion. Cockburn’s cry of outrage is an imagined assault upon the sky gods – the powers that rule from above and turn Others, turn neighbors, into victims. Cockburn imagines a dismantling of hierarchy, a dis-enthronement from the high places, a realignment of social arrangements as if to say to the wrathful helicopter pilots: come down here and endure victimhood with the rest of us. This song offers both a critique of Reagan Era military policy and the “capital T” theology that makes might the only right. A similar critique is leveled in “” by .24 The song begins in a tempest. A howling wind rages as a contest between heaven and earth is engaged. The rain itself is depicted as a malevolent force that attacks souls like nails driven into “the tree of pain.” Already, a scene of crucifixion is suggested. Meanwhile, a heavenly angel wrestles with Jacob and the angel is “overcome.” Then fighter planes threaten terror from above and people scatter fearfully in the valley below. The chase scene is interrupted by a curious interpolation. In the “live” version of this song that appears on the Rattle and Hum album, the narrative shifts to a hotel room in where a radio evangelist on the “Old Time Gospel Hour” steals money from the sick and the old. In all like- lihood, this gesture is a jab at Jerry Falwell, the originator and broadcaster of the “Old Time Gospel Hour.” The same money that is taken from the weak is converted into the fighter planes that pursue the women and children who, at the song’s conclusion, run across the field, through a “gaping wound,” toward an uncertain future. Ultimately their run from “American arms,” as it were, even- tuates in a run into the “arms of America.” , U2’s lead singer, wrote lyrics to this song after a visit to El Salvador in 1985 sponsored by Amnesty International. “Bullet the Blue Sky,” in short com-

23 Bruce Cockburn, “From an Intro to the Song at a Gig at the Cotati Cabaret, Cotati, Sonoma County, California,” 15 November 1984, http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/ iiharl.html (accessed 27 August 2018). 24 U2, “Bullet the Blue Sky,”Rattle and Hum, Island Records, 1988.

Religion & Theology 25 (2018) 223–236 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:39PM via free access 232 trost pass depicts a conflict of biblical proportion. As in “Rocket Launcher,” this song sympathizes with the powerless even while it points to their ironic dilemma: they run to the very nation they are running from. That nation is capable of producing music of great beauty, as Bono suggests in the song’s interpolation when he mentions John Coltrane’s masterpiece, A Love Supreme. But it is also populated by hucksters who steal from the vulnerable in the name of God.

3 Sustained Theo-political Engagement in the Songcraft of The Call

The Call were contemporaries of U2 and Bruce Cockburn. They are often referred to as “the greatest band you never heard of” – or words to that effect. Their eponymous first album was released in 1982.25 By 1990, they had released their seventh album, Red Moon.26 The primary force behind the group was Michael Been, the band’s songwriter, singer, bass player, and gui- tarist.27 “I seem to love pleasure and I seem to love pain,” Michael Been observes in the song “Waiting for the End”; he then cries out, somewhat desperately, “is there any category for me?”28 As a band, The Call’s ability to defy categoriza- tion was both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. Emerging from the punk/new wave milieu that produced bands like The Sex Pistols, , , XTC, and the ska band Madness, The Call seemed to combine the anger of punk with a stubborn refusal to surrender to the kind of nihilism that characterized a significant segment of the punk movement. “I want to give out, I want to give in; this is our crime, this is our sin,” Been remarks concern- ing his existential dilemma; he then goes on to confess “but I still believe.”29 This quality of paradox is characteristic of The Call’s songcraft. But paradox is a hard sell in any era. The Call produced most of their music during the Rea- gan Era and many of their songs are commentaries on the times. The concerns that have already been signaled in relation to Cockburn, the Canadian, and the Irishmen in U2, receive sustained emphasis in The Call’s American repertoire. A key element of the Reagan Doctrine was the commitment to “outspend Evil.” This commitment was so strong that members of the Reagan team, if not

25 The Call, The Call, Mercury Records, 1982. 26 The Call, Red Moon, MCA Records, 1990. 27 Michael Been died in August 2010 in Belgium after working the soundboard for his son’s band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. 28 Michael Been, “Waiting for the End,” The Call. 29 Michael Been and Jim Goodwin, “I Still Believe (Great Design),” The Call, Reconciled, Elek- tra Records, 1986.

Religion & TheologyDownloaded 25 from (2018) Brill.com09/26/2021 223–236 01:29:39PM via free access theo-political discourse and rock ’n’ roll in the reagan era 233 the President himself, were willing to circumvent the laws of the land in the struggle to end Communist regimes. Notoriously, Oliver North arranged to sell arms to Iran and with the profits from those sales provide funding for the Con- tras in Nicaragua.30 On an even larger scale, Reagan restarted the production of the “Enhanced Radiation Weapon,” or the “Neutron Bomb.” The purpose of the neutron bomb was to release most of its energy as lethal radiation. Rather than simply blow things up, the neutron bomb was able to penetrate armor and buildings, killing people but keeping infrastructure in place.31 The first song on The Call’s eponymous first album addressed this situation. “War Weary World” is delivered in a punk mode with thrashing drums and stinging guitar riffs. The songster asks his implied audience if they’ve heard the “latest” news: a weapon has been designed to kill people and let buildings live. This revelation is met with casual indifference. “Yeah, we’ve heard it all before,” the chorus responds as each additional description is conveyed concerning how the bomb destroys. Against the weariness that would take for granted the preference for property over human life, the possibility of hope is finally intro- duced into the song. There doesn’t seem to be much hope; indeed, the songster speculates that if there is any hope at all, it must be in a hiding place “for you and me.” Still, this appeal to human relationship stands out against the indif- ference to the mass destruction from above that the nation seems committed to imposing on others. In “The Walls Came Down,” a college station hit in 1983, Been uses the bibli- cal story of Joshua’s campaign against Jericho to suggest the dangers inherent in military proliferation.32 A false sense of security arises behind fortified walls. But it just takes a blast from a horn to bring the whole structure down. In this song, it seems to me, Been subverts the “chosen nation” presumptions of Ameri- can mythology by equating the United States of America with Jericho, not under the leadership of Joshua. But then, after the walls are down, the song undoes analogies altogether with the assertion that these nationalistic desig- nations are themselves mere constructs. There are, in truth, neither Russians nor Yanks; there are only corporate criminals “playing with tanks.” The title song from the album Modern Romans builds upon an analogy between the Roman Empire and the military-industrial complex that supports

30 Kenneth E. Sharpe, “The Real Cause of Irangate,” Foreign Policy 68 (Autumn 1987): 19–41, doi: 10.2307/1148729. The arms Iran bought were used against their neighbor, , who also purchased arms from the United States. 31 “The Neutron Bomb,” AtomicArchive.com, http://www.atomicarchive.com/Fusion /Fusion5.shtml (accessed 28 August 2018). 32 Michael Been, “The Walls Came Down,” The Call, Modern Romans, Mercury Records, 1983.

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Empire at the behest of late 20th century America.33 These American “modern Romans” are “false gods” who offer nothing more than “lies on parade” to the masses. Referring to the encounter in the Bible between Daniel and the Baby- lonian king Nebuchadnezzar, Been suggests “the writing’s on the wall” for the nation that wields a “pagan sword.” Just as the Babylonian king’s rule had been “weighed in the balance and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27), so too, will the cur- rent exercise in “world domination and runaway greed” come to an end. “Blood Red (America)” was written with Ronald Reagan and his supporters in the Moral Majority in mind. The song refers to the false sense of protection that is maintained “inside white walls” – a reference to the , on the one hand, but one that also conjures up the nation’s sad race history. As in “The Walls Came Down,” pride and arrogance are targeted for critique. The song’s protagonist is a red-blooded American who is convinced about the unassailable nature of his God-blessed character. This chosenness not only guarantees suc- cess in the modern world, it also portends a warm welcome when, at last, the time comes to walk through heaven’s door with head proudly raised. Against this presumption of righteousness, the songster exclaims, “Man you must be joking,” we have blood on our hands. While much of The Call’s songcraft offers theo-political critique (and might be construed as negative), there is a strain of affirmation, even devotion, that also arises within the catalogue. Perhaps the quintessential example of this is “Let the Day Begin.”34 This is a song of radical inclusivity, a toast to the human race. In contrast to “Blood Red (America)” what blessings “heaven” has to offer are not exclusive; they are distributive – scattered democratically and wildly throughout the populace. Travelers, teachers, workers, preachers, drivers, dreamers, winners and losers, among many others are all cause and occasion for celebration. In this tune, Been offers a vision of radical “neigh- borliness.” It brings us back to the insight of Levinas: we encounter the “latent birth of meaning” in the face of the Other. As opposed to the binary opposition of heaven and earth advanced in “capital T” theology – as well as by the pro- tagonist in the song “Blood Red” – this song presents by juxtaposition a cosmic unity. Thus the “babies in the brand new world” appear alongside the beauty of the stars. Heaven’s blessings, as it were, are not locked up in some privileged universe; they are freely distributed to all of humanity. “Let the Day Begin” not only critiques Reagan Era America; it also imagines another world and, in song, at least, builds it.35

33 Michael Been, “Modern Romans,” The Call, Modern Romans. 34 Michael Been, “Let the Day Begin,” The Call, Let the Day Begin, MCA Records, 1989. 35 The usefulness of this ideological vision was not lost on politicians. At the conclusion of

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