There are three ways to use a secular song in your service at church.1. Pretend that the songwriter is singing about God and not his girlfriend.
2. Wait for a Christian band to cover it so it becomes socially acceptable.
3. Godify the lyrics so that they feel like a church song.
Number 3 is far and away my favorite method. Unfortunately, a lot of the churches I attend choose to take option 1 so I am often denied the delight of the third path. But that's why I rely so much on people that read this site.
A girl recently emailed me and said that at her youth group, they used to sing a version of Naughty by Nature's song, "OPP." During the 90s, this song was massive. I didn't love it as much as perhaps the vocal acrobatics of "Color Me Badd," but it was still really popular. In the song, a young man extols his appreciation for a variety of body parts and romantic relationships in a way that is less than scriptural. He tops off the ballad with a chorus that contains the phrase "You down with O.P.P.?"
I'll let you figure out what OPP stands for (don't google it at work), but at my friend's church they changed the lyrics to "you down with G.O.D.?" Instead of rapping a sexual, testosterone filled jumble of words, they cleaned it up a little and opened up youth group with the song.
That is fantastic. I personally wish someone would do that with Prince's entire catalog. Just imagine the possibilities:
- Purple Reign (This would be about God's majesty.)
- His (Instead of "Kiss" this song could be about belonging to God)
- Serving Mother Helper (This really dirty Prince song could instead be about helping your mom around the house.)
- Raspberry Tankini (Instead of a beret, we could sing a song about proper bathing suits.)
42 comments:
One I have heard now several times used is Coldplay's "Fix You", which is just an awesome song.
I don't really think it matters that the original artist is or isn't a Believer, it is how you interpret the music and what feelings it stirs in your own soul.
I agree w/ Scott. My church does it almost every weekend, and I've never focused on those few lines that don't go w/ the message. They put focus on those that do. The music touches people every weekend. Encouraging people to take another step towards Christ.
Have you read Pop Goes The Church? It's a must read!
Number 4 on your list would be to parody the song completely. Aplogetix does this well.
Your friend's church wasn't the original to come up with "Down with G.O.D." Remember a little movie called Sister Act? They should get a little credit for not being that cheesy all on their own.
May I refer to you to ApologetiX's ("That Christian parody band") entire discography:
ApologetiX website
you know what, as amusing as that is, I used to hate that. I didn't go to church a lot as a child, and I didn't know nearly as many christian songs as some of my cousins or friends. so when I would go to church with them, and I would hear a secular song, I would get a little excited. you can't imagine how embarrassing it is to be singing the secular version as loud as you can while everyone else is inserting "God" and "heaven" all over the place.
lol - i just googled O.P.P
Your post should be marked nsfw!
love your site but i spend all my time cringing when I realise how much stupid stuff I do!
That is too funny! I don't know where you come up with this stuff.
This post made me roll my eyes.
Okay that Prince collection is flippin HILARIOUS.
Good one, this post. :)
You mean Penn State's 'Office of the Physical Plant'? :) That's what I got when I googled it :).
How could you forget Prince's I Would Die 4 U?!
My younger brothers are gospel musicians and this happens ALL THE TIME in their circle of friends with R&B/soul songs from the 80s and 90s.
Most recently, he said a church sang Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" during offering.
Check out the first verse and the chorus:
Captured effortlessly
That's the way it was
Happened so naturally
I did not know it was love
The next thing I felt was
You holding me close
What was I gonna do?
I let myself go
And now we're flyin' through the star
I hope this night will last forever
CHORUS:
Ain't nobody
Loves me better
Makes me happy
Makes me feel this way
Ain't nobody
Loves me better than you
I first heard, "You down with G.O.D." in Sister Act 2 starring Whoopi Goldberg and Lauryn Hill.
These switcheroos work best with 80s pop and R&B songs and youth groups. You haven't really kicked off a youth lock-in until the worship team breaks into Lionel Richie's "All Night Long!" That little African chant never gets old! Hope I'm not saying something ungodly (yikes). *shrugs* God knows my heart!!! I think I'm going to suggest they turn it into a medley and add "Dancing On the Ceiling" next year!
My freshman year of college all of the Campus Crusade staff was leaving, so we were going to be a student led ministry that next year for the first time ever. At the leadership retreat they performed a version of Outkast's "Hey Ya," entitled, "Hey God." My favorite change--instead of "shake it like a polaroid picture," they said "take it like Paul to the Romans." It was priceless.
"My favorite change--instead of "shake it like a polaroid picture," they said "take it like Paul to the Romans." It was priceless."
I
CAN'T
BREATHE!!!
Hilarious!!!!
Oh we do this at The Basement every week.
Instead of singing "This is why I'm hot" we sing "Jesus why I'm hot, Jesus why I'm hot, Jesus got the key, Devil he ain't got, this is why, this is why, this is why I'm hot."
Or "Jesus is my Rock, Jesus is my Rockstar, and He's totally cool" instead of "Party like a rockstar"
I've got the rest of the chorus for Prince's revised song, now called "Raspberry Tankini":
Raspberry Tankini/
The kind you buy in a Christian Bookstore/ Yeah!/
Raspberry tankini/
She wore it downtown to feed the
homeless and poor
Now is there anything we can do to make-over "Miami Vice"? Maybe it's a show about spiritual warfare...with swear words and pastels?
We do this stuff in KidStuf a lot- in fact, this past Sunday, we sang "Can't Touch This" about David dancing before the Lord.
Ah, the beauty of artistic license.
Uh .. was prince having a Messiah complex?! I mean, check out these lyrics for "I Would Die 4 U":
I'll never beat u, I'll never lie.
And if you're evil I'll forgive u by and by
U - I would die 4 u, yeah
Darling if u want me 2
U - I would die 4 u
No need 2 worry
No need 2 cry
I'm your messiah and you're the reason why
cuz u - I would die 4 u, yeah
Darling if u want me 2
U - I would die 4 u
You're just a sinner I am told
Be your fire when you're cold
Make u happy when you're sad
Make u good when u are bad
Yeah, I would die 4 u, yeah
Darling if u want me 2
U - I would die 4 u
Try the Christian parody band Apologetix for some ripe parodies.
LOL, again sooo true.
You should have seen the look on my son's face when we heard Coffey's Umbrella "Christ Mix" on Godtube.
He was like, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"
This weekend, the local FCA had a dance and they played, no kidding,
Walk It Out... with Jesus AND
Crank dat... Holy Ghost.
I fell out of my chair laughing.
Anonymous, John, et al.--
The twisted Christology of a lot of Prince's songs can be attributed to a little known fact: The Artist is a Jehovah's Witness. He may not sing about God per se, but that background influences his stylings.
John--
My church's worship group once pulled an option 3 on the Backstreet Boys' "Larger Than Life". I am not joking.
so, true story... i, and three of my friends, performed a "dance/song routine to 2Live Crew's "throw that D"... of course we said, "Throw that B"... problem we had was that of course there are no "tracks" for 2 Live Crew songs.... so we played our ghetto blaster on low and sang over the offending lyric... wow!!! what morons... thanks for reminding me! and i'd like to throw a shout out to my possee... jennifer, sonja and stephanie... WORD TO YOUR MOTHER.
A couple of years ago our youth leaders did a touching version of "Forever Young":
Forever dumb
Don't wanna be forever dumb
Do you wanna live in hell forever?
My favorite switcharoo from youth group times was done to Gloria Estefan's "Rhythm is Gonna Get Ya". Our youth worship leader replaced it with "Jesus is Gonna Get Ya." Which kind of made it sound like Jesus was a stalker or something. I didn't get it then; I don't get it now.
Forever dumb???????? Seriously???????
HiLARious.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to "Godify" the lyrics of "Smack that"
quite possibly the funniest car ride home with a group of teens ever was after a talk about being aware of what do, say and listen and watch. They came up with...
"Ooooo Jesus... read the Bible Jesus yeahhh"
Not to mention Godifying "It's getting hot in here" back in High School... good times.
Dressed like she was
She had the nerve to ask me
If I planned to know the Lord
I'll be here all week!
When I was in high school we sang Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun . . . really. At the time it didn't seem strange, but then I realized the that House of the rising Sun was a house of ill repute. Oh well...
Another on my list of Christians' being "Of the World but Not in It."
Imitating pop culture is one thing, but appropriating and "sanctifying" it is just embarrassing.
Maybe the Devil does have all the good music.
If anybody ever sings "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" again at church for an offertory, I'm going to lose my mind.
Since Prince was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, in my mind I'm picturing him as a vegan. (Not that all Adventists are vegans, mind you!!) But if he was... he could sing...
Raspberry Sorbet
the kind you make without any eggs...
as a believer i am so over the "relevant church" on sunday mornings. make your personal lives relevant and your relationships at work and school real. what is the point of church for the believer anymore?
"You don't have to be beautiful...to read my word..."
I known at my church for my ability to rewrite songs with Christian lyrics. Some gifts are more of a burden than others. Here's an all time low for me:
Jesus, Jesus, He's your Savior
Jesus, Jesus sets you free
He's got what you need you see girl
Listen to the words from thee
Jesus bought your life on the cross - not lost!
Jesus bought your life on the cross!
I also rewrote the lyrics to "Walk this Way". As a devout Christian and Aerosmith fan, I've got a really huge internal struggle going on with that one.
Here's me, hanging my head in shame and slowly sulking away.....
I googled it at work and ended reading the lyrics and I am still not sure what it stands for. hahaha
I have to admit, I rewrote Sweet Home Alabama for my church's praise team, back in the day. The guitarist used the hook as a warm-up--and seemed a shame to waste a decent guitar hook as a warm up.
My favorite part in particular was:
"My savior stood before the governor,
and Pilate did what he could do.
My debt's been paid, my past don't bother me.
Does your conscience bother you, now tell the truth?"
Going to go mentally flagellate myself for that, now...
While at an LCMS Summer Camp - on the beach - we re-wrote REM's Stand. I still have all the lyrics. We didn't even "Godify" them, we just changed them to fit the beach environment. Because there was (sing it with me now) - Sand in the place where we live, now then think about the tacos they're the best meal we've had all week.
I could do the whole song, but I think that since we didn't properly Godify it I won't.
Whoooo! Let's rock to "Smells Like the Holy Spirit"
(instead of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
I went to a church for quite some time here in downtown (it no longer exists) that was truly atypical. Half the congregation was homeless, the pastor preached the same sermon every week, our one oft-song Godified worship song was from The Lion King, and sometimes neighborhood kids would make off with the sparkley 'worship flags' (see, if you went to a charismatic church you would have so much more fodder) and run around the side with the sparkley worship flailing behind them.
The best part was the offering, in which two big red plastic toy buckets (the type with which parents try to make cleaning up your toys into a game) would be dragged to the front. You could go up and toss your money (or whatever you wanted to give...once I had zero money so I donated a coupon for a free bottle of juice--a real sacrifice). ANYWAY...the offering was time for my friend Jim the drum-playing worship leader to do a Godified song. It was always hilarious, and definitely a favorite part of the service of our homeless visitors who were just dropping by for a chair and lunch. There were some good ones like hits from the Doobie Brothers, Bob Marley and Tracy Chapman. But his absolute masterpiece was "Giveitaway giveitaway giveitaway now! Giveitaway giveitaway giveitaway now! Whatchugot yougottoputitinthabuck-et!" Truly the best. A real treat. Unfortunately, I've never since heard this song done as an offetory (is that what you call it?) again. Now I know that giving money "to God" should be accompanied by a moving Chris Tomlin song and not RHCP. A real shame!
The God is my girlfriend thing is so true. (Or God is your boyfriend singing to you, too. I mean, consider "Hole-hearted" [sung by you to God] and "More Than Words" [sung by God {technically} to you], both songs that were deeply loved by youth groups in the 90s).
You should write a follow-up about Christian teens with strict parentals justifying the Secular Music they listen to by saying that they just think of the songs as "being to God." On that note, there could also be something about editing songs. Before bleeped out songs could be heard on the radio, I remember thinking I should dub my Janet Jackson Rhythym Nation 1814 tape with some bleeps in the title song and "Black Cat" so my parents wouldn't hear her saying "give a darn" so much. I also received a mixtape from a boy in highschool that had an edited version of "Creep" by Radiohead. The chorus lurched forward as Thom Yorke whined his creeped-out angst sans the 'hell' part. I listened to the tape so many times that I forgot it was off-beat as a result until one day in college I put the tape on in the car and everyone busted out laughing when the song came on. They couldn't believe I had a censored version of Creep. Indeed.
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