I sit at a desk for 8 – 10 hours a day, so I listen to ALOT of music. It had been a while since I listened to a Bad Religion album. When I was in high school Bad Religion was one of my favorite bands, along with AFI. One thing that I always liked about Bad Religion was how thought out and intelligent they lyrics were (same reason I like iron maiden so much).
The other day at work, I threw in "recipe for hate". Amazing. The flow of the songs and the emotion and meaning behind the songs swept me up. I ended up listening to every bad religion album over the last 2 days at work.
As I listened, I kept track of some of the lyrics that I didnt understand the meaning of. Here is a short sample:
- sheaves
- maelstrom
- quintessential
- provisions
- sartorii
- paradigm
- anomalies
- affinity
- stratified
- aberrations
- automatons
- sequestering
- antithetic
- porticos
- sagacious
- opulent
- heed
- pseudo
- malevolent
- utopia
- disposition
- superlatives
- altruistically
- hewn
- recompense
- pretension
- enshroud
- populace
- garner
- mirth
Yes, a punk rock band using "antithetic" and "opulent" in the proper way in a song. Needless to say, dictionary.com has been my friend lately.
I love the fact that Bad Religion, mainly Greg Graffin doesnt dumb things down just because he is in a punk rock band. I really respect Bad Religion for that. I might not agree to everything that he sings about, but I respect them very much. If you havent listened to Bad Religion, I suggest that you do your self a favor, and listen to the music, and read the lyrics, you just might learn something.
"10 million dollars on a losing campaign
20 million starving and writhing in pain
big strong people unwilling to give
small in vision and perspective
one in five kids below the poverty line
one population runnin' out of time
…This is just a punk rock song,
written for the people who can see
somethings wrong…"