Page - 78 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

[R]eligion is part of the establishment and its abuses, and he is characteristically blunt when asserting freedom from its control, as heard on John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band (1970): “There ain’t no Jesus gonna come/from the sky …” (“I Found Out”); “[They] Keep you doped with religion” (“Working Class Hero”); “I don’t believe in Bible/…/I don’t believe in Jesus” (“God”).46 In some cases, the objective was to provoke the audience with irreverence, without greater depth. In others, it was part of marketing strategies, for the menace of doomsday sells well. Importantly, in dystopian rock, devastation is anticipated in present life; hence the urgency of its apocalyptic assertions, together with the countercultural pressure that the realm of rock usually con- veys. The goal of demonic rockers was and is to “break on through” regardless of what exists on the other side; hence, “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” remains the battle cry for many rockers – from Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson – who assault Judeo-Christian theology, value-free science, and Western institutions more for the sake of rebellion than anything else.47 However, rock has also provided quite a few pro-Christ songs and gestures with positive religious meaning, as can be seen in “Jesus” by the feared un- derground leader Lou Reed (The Velvet Underground, 1969). In the movie Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, US 1969), an icon of the hippie era, there is a scene of a mass in the commune, completely reverential despite unusual details. In 1970 Larry Norman released Upon This Rock, now viewed as the world’s first Christian rock album. Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me Lord” (Jesus Was a Capricorn, 1972) sang: “Help me Jesus, my soul’s in your hand”. Those years also witnessed mu- sicals like Jesus Christ Superstar (Norman Jewison, US 1973) and Godspell (David Greene, US 1973), which attempted to de-officialise Christianism for youth, building a bridge between the church and counterculture in the figure of a rock-adapted Jesus. “The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three” is a love song to Jesus by Neutral Milk Hotel (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, 1998). In 2001 Mick Jagger released the song of gratitude “God Gave Me Everything I Want”. The so-called U2charist phenomenon (a Eucharist ceremony based on the music of U2) deserves attention. On 27 August 2014, I attended a met- al mass (i.e. a Lutheran mass with heavy metal arrangements) at the Temple Square Church, Helsinki. There are “more semiotically complex or directly chal- lenging pop,” such as: Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” (Like a Prayer, 1989) or Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” (Born This Way, 2011), alongside sometimes darker, if equally contagious and compelling, 46 Gilmour 2017, 67. More nuances on the religious orientation of John Lennon and the countercultural era can be found in Campos 2020. 47 Dunbar 2002. 78 | Javier Campos Calvo-Sotelo www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94