Today, for the price of absolutely nothing, I took home a scratched-up sleeveless piece of vinyl for the sake of its cover. And perhaps for the glory of Jim Records, the label of Jimmy Swaggart.
Praise be to Jimmy here of the cannibal grin and daffodil shirt. The title of the album is "Camp Meeting Piano". Would you walk into a camp with this guy at the piano?
Remember - this is the man who said that gay people should be called "queers, perverts or homosexuals, but not gay. Gay is a nice word". So let us only say nice things about this man.
Whatever you may think of Jimmy Swaggart, this album comes with the greatest recommendation I've ever read:
The unique style plus the anointing of the Holy Spirit? "Follow me into the bedroom suite, Mrs. Collins. I think you'll agree that the colour-coordinated valances plus the anointing of the Holy Spirit really sell the room". Awesome. But I think the blurb lets us down at the end. If I cut an album with the anointing of the Holy Spirit - hell, if cut a fart with the anointing of the Holy Spirit - I wouldn't finish off with some lame phrase like "an experience in recording". I'd go so far as to call it a good or even pleasant experience. And why is it an experience "in recording"? I think it would be wiser to play up the listening aspect, since the vast majority of people who own this record would not be the ones who recorded it.
I wonder what people raised outside the Christian tradition make of songs like track nunber five. Do they stop and say, "When I see the blood? What?" Do children tug at their mother's hands and whisper "Why is there blood, mommy?" And the mothers will have no answer, stroking the furrowed foreheads of their little children, quietly praying that the storm will pass over them without incident? Fear not, though: the chorus of the song reads "When I see the blood/I will pass over you," not "When I see the blood/I'll be just about done hitting you" or "When I see the blood/I'll stop and say Okay, I'm outta here".
Mind you, it's a little better than the third track on side two.
I think it's a bit sneaky to follow up soothing stuff like "The Healer" and "Leaning on the Everlasting Arm" with "He Was Nailed to the Cross for Me". It's like giving a dollar to a homeless guy and then telling him you're a buck short for your grandmother's operation. My brain wants to keep riffing on that title. "He was whacked with a hakapik for me". "He was run over by a zamboni for me". "He was vented into space for me". All of which would be unlikely ways for first-century guy to meet his end. Which makes me wonder if Jesus went around saying, "Did you know it's the first century now?"
That would get old pretty quick.
12 comments:
If Jesus were hit with a hakapik instead of nailed to a cross, his last words probably wouldn't be "Father, why have you forsaken me?" or "It is finished". The last words out of his mouth would probably be "Where'd they get the hakapik from?" Which would become the credo of the nascent Church, with its meditations on Where They Got The Hakapik From and occasional pilgrimages to suspected Holy Hakapik Origin Sites. The Church's symbol would be a hakapik and a question mark.
There would be the selling of holy hakapik indulgences in the middle ages, and there would be little hakapik erasers in religious book stores and golden hakapiks stamped into the cover of every Bible.
As one who, I tremble to admit, has actually heard a zamboni (um, I mean Jimmy Swaggart) recording, I have to testify that the unique style plus the anointing of...the Holy Ghost (to say it in appropriate southern gospelese you have to say it with the right accent, "the HOly Ghost") ...does in fact guarantee an experience in listening. As in like whack me with a hakapik, please sir may I have another.
*whack*
Please sir may I have another
*whack*
please sir...
The man loves himself so much (Jimmy, that is) he'd happily whack you bloody. Plus the pacing is just right:
"there's rooooom"
*whack*
at the crossssssssssss
*whack*
for youuuuuuuuuuu
*whack*
I feel quite strongly that most of the people who own this recording would indeed be the people involved in its recording!
Then of course we would have the Stations of the Hakapik, the Sign of the Hakapik, a dangling hakapik between Madonna's cleavage, and the whole biker culture would be sporting modified hakapiks to represents their bad selves.
I wish people would stop meanething me.
I feel like Jimmy Swaggart is whacking us with his meaneth.
What the hell is a hakapik? Is that a Canadian thing?
Oh, Schmutzie? I bought this Swaggart album in the 80s to clear my head of that fucking "Red, Red Wine" song. It worked, and now I love the Lord Jesus Christ my savior forevermore.
A hakapik is a sophisticated variant on the theme of "stick with a nail through one end". It's used to club baby seals over the head.
Charming...I could use one of those as part of my home security system.
Hey - have you had a rash of baby seal break-ins too? Those little bastards are ruthless. They totally terrorized my cat.
LOL...too funny!!
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