mewithoutYou might be the reason I'm still a Christian
Christian music sucks. But, this Christian-adjacent band shaped culture and theology... for me, at least.
I’ve had to dissociate my love of music from my love of Jesus Christ. Raised Pentecostal with a musical family — a grandmother who played the church organ for 40 years and had a degree in piano, with almost every relative playing an instrument or singing — the two were once irrevocably linked to me.
Now, I was a white Pentecostal. That meant our music was slightly worse than a Black Pentecostal church, with services that got out just a bit earlier (but still later than nearly every other denomination) but it was still soulful, inspired, and above all, emotional. There are times I still have the desire to either drop to my knees during a song, or at least raise my hands to the sky. Anything with a banjo and a fiddle makes me want to dance, and the clang-clang of pianos and organs makes me believe in God.
Such is the power of all music, not just church music. But despite this, my parents and sister and I rarely listened to Christian music growing up. In church, sure. But on the radio? Well, I’m not going to talk about how horrendous contemporary Christian music is. It’s covered by pretty much any music critic or anyone raised evangelical.
We may have had a small pop-punk-inspired respite in the 2000s (the same era that mewithoutYou and other Tooth & Nail or Cornerstone Festival-esque emo/hardcore bands came around) with Five Iron Frenzy and Relient K, but overall, listening to any Christian radio station or contemporary album is sheer misery. Hillsong youth group-ass worship songs all sound the same to me.
As I’ve evolved into mainline Protestantism, the only home for my progressive theology, I’ve struggled to connect as much to the hymns, but the content, of course, is still better.
mewithoutYou broke up a few years ago, and its lead singer, Aaron Weiss, is now a professor who lives on (I think) some sort of homestead. Their songs changed my life and saved my relationship with God more than any other people except for maybe Daniel and Rachel Held Evans. I don’t know if their songs are for everybody (my favorite albums by them are from the 2004 to 2012 era, but all of their music is good, especially the lyrics) but they’re definitely for me.
When I first heard this band, I didn’t know Christianity could be like this. That it could be dark, sexual, intense, universal, and relate to one’s personal spirituality in more precise ways than individualist salvation and atonement theology ever could. That it could rage at God in one breath and thank him in another. That it could be messy and modern without watering anything down to be more palatable. I never want to be “palatable” as a Christian (or a person) ever again. It’s what I felt listening to Pentecostal music in church as a child, my face down on the altar, feeling the presence of God.
Recently, I got the opportunity to speak to Liam O'Donnell, who co-hosts the Cinepunx podcast with Joshua Alvarez, and the Cinema Smorgasbord podcast with Doug Tilley, both of whom we have also interviewed. In addition to his many interesting life titles (pastor’s spouse, T-shirt seller, music lover, seminarian, not-a-Christian) he was also once in a band that once toured with mewithoutYou before they released their mildly fame-projecting album, “A to B Life.”
I admit to being starstruck a bit, but I was also fascinated by the stories told and wondering how much of these early 2000s moments contributed to the rise of the deconstruction and exvangelical movements — and if their music can really be considered “Christian.” Can Sufjan’s? I say yes, even if some of the people directly involved in making this music aren’t Christians themselves. In the words of Flannery O’Connor, another favorite artist of mine, it’s more “Christ-haunted” than Christ-centered.
If you want to listen to this amazing part one of our interview, please go for it:
If you’ve never listened to mewithoutYou before, you could start with the song listed above that I have tattooed on my body. Or go for the one where Hayley Williams from Paramore is an uncredited vocalist, “All Circles.” (Supposedly, she once said mwY was one of her favorite bands.) Consider the hippie vibes of “Allah, Allah, Allah” or the cynical, more hardcore “Another Head for Hydra.” Or the alternative Biblical timeline of “The Angel of Death Came to David’s Room,” which I want to be played at my funeral. The poetic, alliterative storytelling and philosophy of “Cardiff Giants.” “The ‘I’ is an unintelligible lie.” The many, many literary references in all their music, some of which I understand (as a book reader and English lover) but likely others which I haven’t even picked up on myself.
But maybe you’d want to listen to the first mewithoutYou song I ever heard, which I discovered on my 7th-grade boyfriend’s Myspace profile when I was in 12th grade: “Paper-Hanger.” The music video was filmed, as I learned from Liam, in a now-defunct park in Philadelphia, where the band was from.
We discussed this in the podcast, but Philadelphia was once a go-to location for this “emergent” type of Christianity. It’s a city I’ve now visited four or five times, one where my podcast cohost and one of my closest friends Rob lives, and one I would live in myself if my life circumstances had gone a little differently. Brotherly Love, angry sports, heavy food, David Lynch’s muse, bad politics, good politics, and unwavering people. It’s a city I think I love, and I can at least see why so many other people do, too. No wonder it’s where people seem to find and lose God all at once.
As an aside, thank you to my subscribers for your patience. January has been a tough and busy month for me (snow, no water, no internet, dryer nearly catching on fire, school cancellations, parent stuff, new kitten, doctor appointments galore, more duties at work) and I’m catching up. You have my love, and I need your support.