Delinqu4ents of Heaven, Hoodlums from Hell.
This is the second of the very long quotes about rock I wanted to post for the comments of those in here.
This is the longer quote and to me the more interesting and more revealing of the nature of the music.
Just to repeat myself, I don’t think that rock should be a part of the life a Christian, but each must make their own choice here. I just thought these would be interesting to consider. I did not post the source for a reason. I will. I want to hear some comments first. These are the two quotes I have told one or two of you that I wanted to post.
Anything in blue is me. Everything else is the author. The second one will be in a second thread. These very long quotes bring up two different ideas, and they are very long so I posted two threads just to make it easier on everyone.
I will add the source and his final comments on these quotes in a day or two. I will add them in red so they will be easy for all to see.
The title is the author's title for the chapter from which these quotes come.
Rock & Roll: An Unruly History by Robert Palmer
Robert Palmer begin writing for the magazine the Rolling Stone in the early 70s and continue to write for this magazine till he died in 1997.
(I am just going to ask forgiveness in advance for this quote. It has a few phrases that are offensive but necessary to the point the author is making. I thought about trying to soften the phrases a bit but instead I just left the quote as it was written by the author except for one quote. I had to soften that one quote a bit. I did my best to proof read, but I am tired. Please forgive all typos in advance.)
The ancient Greeks enshrined philosophical dualism in their hierarchy of gods and myths identifying spiritual forces or powers that embodied tow basic tendencies in society and culture; the “balanced rational “ Apollo and the “intoxicated, irrational” Dionysus. They cult of Dionysus is among the oldest of the world’s religions with roots in the even more ancient pre-Aryan cult of Shiva. Both Shiva and Dionysus were given appropriate nicknames. Shiva was the Howler, the Noisy One, the ’Ithyphallic,” (god with an erection), or Skanda, literally “the jet of sperm.” In an archaic Indian text the Shiva Purana the god is described as “magnificent, completely naked, his only ornament the ash with which his whole body is smeared. Walking about holing his penis in his hand, he showed off with the most depraved tricks.” When Shiva encountered the most revered wise men of his time, “they were shocked to see the god abandon himself to obscene acts . . . The priests and the sages used indignant language, but the power of their virtue could not prevail against Rudra (Shiva) just as the brightness of the stars cannot prevail against the light of the sun.”
Like Shiva, Like Pan the Greek Dionysus is often represented as a horned god. These are gods of ecstasy and rampant sexuality, their methods include “music, dance, and prophecy” which “emerge like blessed miracles from Dionysiac madness” according to Walter R Otto’s Dionysus: Myth and Cult. “Madness is a cult from which belongs to the religion of Dionysus. The god who sends the mind reeling, the god who appears to mankind in the most urgent immediacy is welcomed and feted by the women in an absolute ecstasy and excess of rapture. They respond to his coming with the behavior of the insane . . . Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share is tragic fate.”
The prospect of coming to a bad end did not deter Dionysus’s attendants and camp followers, any more than a similar prognosis will dissuade a true rocker from pursuing a chosen course. According to F. R. Dodd’s The Greeks and the Irrational “the use of wine and the use of the religious dance” were “the two great Dionysiac techniques,” and the god’s followers indulged in plenty of both. “The aim,” says Dodds, was “to satisfy and relieve the impulse to reject responsibility, an impulse which exists in all of us and can become under certain social conditions an irresistible craving.” Dionysus was sometimes referred to as Lustos, “the Liberator.” - “the god who by very simple means, or by other means not so simple, enables you for a short time to stop being yourself and thereby sets you free . . . And his joys were accessible to all, including even slaves.” Dodds notes that Apollo “moved only the in the best society . . . but Dionysus was at all periods a god of the people.” . . .
The horned god, whether manifesting as Shriva, as Dionysus, or as Pan, was frequently accompanied by a wild and crazy crew of ravers, “”freakish, adventurous, delinquent and wild young people, who prowl in the night shouting in the storm, singing, dancing., and playing outrageous tricks on sages and gods.” One can imagine them raising their fists in unison, each with two fingers protruding as “horns,” like enraptured fans at a heavy metal concert.
In Shiva and Dionysus, Alain Danielou paints a vivid picture of these “delinquents of heaven”: they are “dancers, musicians, acrobats, practical jokers and lazy. They press the grape and get drunk. They are perpetually overexcited . . . . ecstatic demons for whom eroticism is a form of expression.” Their coming is heralded by the music of pipes, flutes, cymbals, and their gradual acceleration play an important role, as well as the sudden changes in rhythmic formula causing a psychological shock in the dancers,” writes Danielou. “A very high level of sound is useful in inducing states of trance . . The dance and noise of the drums have the effect of creating a safety and of driving away ill omened influences.” Accounts of the dancing make it sound like a wilder, more frenzied version of the Lambada hyped as “the forbidden dance” and best described as having sex with one’s clothes on. “The rhythm of the sexual act is included among those of the dance,” Danielous notes. “The procreative act, the act of life, is thus opposed to the powers of destruction and death.”
Among the Greeks, the god Apollo was everything Dionysus was not - balanced, rational, responsible and , according to some classicists, “hostile to anything in the nature of ecstasy.” The god Apollo spoke to humans in measured tones . .
.
The patriarchal white bread American of the 1950s was faux Apollionian to a fault. “Father knows Best” was the watchword, even when Father was hunting Communists and atheists under the living room sofa, or watching the skies for flying hubcaps manned with little green un-American aliens, he proceeded calmly and irrationally. If “Don’t worry, be happy” was the familiar bromide of the eighties, its fifties counterpart was “Don’t worry, everything is under control.”
Rock and roll challenged the dominant norms and values with a genuinely Dionysian fervor. Compared to an ancient Dionysian revel trances, seizures, devotes tearing sacrificial animals to pieces with their bare hands and tearing the meat raw - a rock and orll performance is almost tme. But in a culture whose idea of musical entertainment was Perry Como, Doris Day and “ Your Hit Parade,” The appearance of an Elvis Presley, let alone a Little Richard, was radical, unprecedented. In time, rock and roll concerts would become what Hakim Bey, a self described “poetic terrorist,” calls “temporary autonomous zones.” A TAZ is a zone of freedoms, a kind of functional anarchy that manages to exist within a more or less repressive mainstream culture precisely because it is of limited duration and scope. A rock and roll tour is a portable TAZ, creating a temporary Dionysiac community in a different location night after night.
pg 147-150
This is the longer quote and to me the more interesting and more revealing of the nature of the music.
Just to repeat myself, I don’t think that rock should be a part of the life a Christian, but each must make their own choice here. I just thought these would be interesting to consider. I did not post the source for a reason. I will. I want to hear some comments first. These are the two quotes I have told one or two of you that I wanted to post.
Anything in blue is me. Everything else is the author. The second one will be in a second thread. These very long quotes bring up two different ideas, and they are very long so I posted two threads just to make it easier on everyone.
I will add the source and his final comments on these quotes in a day or two. I will add them in red so they will be easy for all to see.
The title is the author's title for the chapter from which these quotes come.
Rock & Roll: An Unruly History by Robert Palmer
Robert Palmer begin writing for the magazine the Rolling Stone in the early 70s and continue to write for this magazine till he died in 1997.
(I am just going to ask forgiveness in advance for this quote. It has a few phrases that are offensive but necessary to the point the author is making. I thought about trying to soften the phrases a bit but instead I just left the quote as it was written by the author except for one quote. I had to soften that one quote a bit. I did my best to proof read, but I am tired. Please forgive all typos in advance.)
The ancient Greeks enshrined philosophical dualism in their hierarchy of gods and myths identifying spiritual forces or powers that embodied tow basic tendencies in society and culture; the “balanced rational “ Apollo and the “intoxicated, irrational” Dionysus. They cult of Dionysus is among the oldest of the world’s religions with roots in the even more ancient pre-Aryan cult of Shiva. Both Shiva and Dionysus were given appropriate nicknames. Shiva was the Howler, the Noisy One, the ’Ithyphallic,” (god with an erection), or Skanda, literally “the jet of sperm.” In an archaic Indian text the Shiva Purana the god is described as “magnificent, completely naked, his only ornament the ash with which his whole body is smeared. Walking about holing his penis in his hand, he showed off with the most depraved tricks.” When Shiva encountered the most revered wise men of his time, “they were shocked to see the god abandon himself to obscene acts . . . The priests and the sages used indignant language, but the power of their virtue could not prevail against Rudra (Shiva) just as the brightness of the stars cannot prevail against the light of the sun.”
Like Shiva, Like Pan the Greek Dionysus is often represented as a horned god. These are gods of ecstasy and rampant sexuality, their methods include “music, dance, and prophecy” which “emerge like blessed miracles from Dionysiac madness” according to Walter R Otto’s Dionysus: Myth and Cult. “Madness is a cult from which belongs to the religion of Dionysus. The god who sends the mind reeling, the god who appears to mankind in the most urgent immediacy is welcomed and feted by the women in an absolute ecstasy and excess of rapture. They respond to his coming with the behavior of the insane . . . Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share is tragic fate.”
The prospect of coming to a bad end did not deter Dionysus’s attendants and camp followers, any more than a similar prognosis will dissuade a true rocker from pursuing a chosen course. According to F. R. Dodd’s The Greeks and the Irrational “the use of wine and the use of the religious dance” were “the two great Dionysiac techniques,” and the god’s followers indulged in plenty of both. “The aim,” says Dodds, was “to satisfy and relieve the impulse to reject responsibility, an impulse which exists in all of us and can become under certain social conditions an irresistible craving.” Dionysus was sometimes referred to as Lustos, “the Liberator.” - “the god who by very simple means, or by other means not so simple, enables you for a short time to stop being yourself and thereby sets you free . . . And his joys were accessible to all, including even slaves.” Dodds notes that Apollo “moved only the in the best society . . . but Dionysus was at all periods a god of the people.” . . .
The horned god, whether manifesting as Shriva, as Dionysus, or as Pan, was frequently accompanied by a wild and crazy crew of ravers, “”freakish, adventurous, delinquent and wild young people, who prowl in the night shouting in the storm, singing, dancing., and playing outrageous tricks on sages and gods.” One can imagine them raising their fists in unison, each with two fingers protruding as “horns,” like enraptured fans at a heavy metal concert.
In Shiva and Dionysus, Alain Danielou paints a vivid picture of these “delinquents of heaven”: they are “dancers, musicians, acrobats, practical jokers and lazy. They press the grape and get drunk. They are perpetually overexcited . . . . ecstatic demons for whom eroticism is a form of expression.” Their coming is heralded by the music of pipes, flutes, cymbals, and their gradual acceleration play an important role, as well as the sudden changes in rhythmic formula causing a psychological shock in the dancers,” writes Danielou. “A very high level of sound is useful in inducing states of trance . . The dance and noise of the drums have the effect of creating a safety and of driving away ill omened influences.” Accounts of the dancing make it sound like a wilder, more frenzied version of the Lambada hyped as “the forbidden dance” and best described as having sex with one’s clothes on. “The rhythm of the sexual act is included among those of the dance,” Danielous notes. “The procreative act, the act of life, is thus opposed to the powers of destruction and death.”
Among the Greeks, the god Apollo was everything Dionysus was not - balanced, rational, responsible and , according to some classicists, “hostile to anything in the nature of ecstasy.” The god Apollo spoke to humans in measured tones . .
.
The patriarchal white bread American of the 1950s was faux Apollionian to a fault. “Father knows Best” was the watchword, even when Father was hunting Communists and atheists under the living room sofa, or watching the skies for flying hubcaps manned with little green un-American aliens, he proceeded calmly and irrationally. If “Don’t worry, be happy” was the familiar bromide of the eighties, its fifties counterpart was “Don’t worry, everything is under control.”
Rock and roll challenged the dominant norms and values with a genuinely Dionysian fervor. Compared to an ancient Dionysian revel trances, seizures, devotes tearing sacrificial animals to pieces with their bare hands and tearing the meat raw - a rock and orll performance is almost tme. But in a culture whose idea of musical entertainment was Perry Como, Doris Day and “ Your Hit Parade,” The appearance of an Elvis Presley, let alone a Little Richard, was radical, unprecedented. In time, rock and roll concerts would become what Hakim Bey, a self described “poetic terrorist,” calls “temporary autonomous zones.” A TAZ is a zone of freedoms, a kind of functional anarchy that manages to exist within a more or less repressive mainstream culture precisely because it is of limited duration and scope. A rock and roll tour is a portable TAZ, creating a temporary Dionysiac community in a different location night after night.
pg 147-150