“Paul is making me nervous
Paul is making me scared
Walk into this room and swaggers
Like he’s God’s own messenger
Changed the name of my brother
Changed the things that he said
Says he speaks to him
But he never even knew the man…”
– Toad the Wet Sprocket, Fly From Heaven
Toad the Wet Sprocket
I am a fan of Toad the Wet Sprocket (“Toad”), and I have been a fan of this song for a while, but only today did I actually look up the lyrics and the meaning of it. Now, though I like the song still for its musical qualities, I don’t like Toad’s message behind it (link warning–it goes to a song meaning/lyrics site (some of which in my experience have objectionable ads, though I have not seen any on this site)):
This song is written from the viewpoint of Jesus’ brother, James. Paul is then probably the apostle, although he seems to represent the whole church and everyone who started talking about Jesus after his death, changing “his name” and “the things that he said”.
Hmm, an interesting premise for a song, to say the least. Here is another person’s follow-up:
Unfortunately Paul in the Bible did not teach about Christ’s life and teachings. He twisted the words of Christ and got away from the early christians who were called Essene Nazarenes and they included Jesus’ brother James. Paul was an agent of the Jewish puppet-government installed by imperial Rome.
But he never even knew the man (Paul never did know Jesus although he acted like he knew Him better than the actual people who lived with him and followed him).
The “Jewish puppet-government installed by imperial Rome”? Really.
So it appears that Toad’s cynical idea is that James, the “brother” of Jesus (really a cousin), disliked Paul intensely because Paul had put words in Jesus’ mouth and twisted what he said around, creating what we now know today as “Christianity”, which is really a fabrication based off a perversion of who Jesus really was.
Of course this is a bunch of claptrap and only someone who doesn’t believe in Christ and His Church would try to pawn it off as truth. How do we know? Because we believe that the Church accurately preserved Jesus’ words as well as the Apostles’ and if St. Paul was not who he said he was, the other Apostles and disciples would have figured it out very quickly.
I’m disappointed in Toad the Wet Sprocket with this song, as I was when I watched the video for their song “Something’s Always Wrong” which shows various religious figures (including a Jesus look-a-like) being sold on a TV home shopping channel, so everyone can “choose their own Messiah” like you would a new watch. The weird thing is that this song is clearly about a troubled relationship between a couple which never seems to work out the way it should, not about religions and messiahs!
From these two songs it seems like they are pretty cynical about “religion” and so lump Christianity in with them. The idea of this song is that Jesus was 1) not God but just a good man who preached social justice and 2) the first Christians, especially St. Paul, perverted the things he said and made him out to be God and had him crucified and then co-opted his name and fame and power. It is a toxic bunch of garbage masked by a well-done song.
Toad is one of my favorite bands. I didn’t know there was a “real” meaning in “Fly from Heaven”. It’s just a good song. It brings me back to a thought I had about how much we lack a Catholic equivalent to Protestant pop music artists. There is talent out there but it hasn’t made it to mainstream music.
I’ve known this song for a long time, and I’ve been searching for any discussion about it. Its surprising that there are so few, considering how deep and controversial Fly from heaven’s topic is. Thanks for this post.
I originally thought of this song as written from Paul’s hypothetical brother’s point of view. That, like our modern experiences with people who go from standard-religious to ultra-religious, it makes the family members scared and detached.
But I think your interpratation has more meaning. Thanks for opening this idea to me.
So it appears that Toad’s cynical idea is that James, the “brother” of Jesus (really a cousin), Your denying his family too. Since Joseph was both earthly father and a biological cousin of Mary then yes James technically would be brother and cousin but can you say for sure that James wasn’t Mary’s child also. Why do people assume that Mary remained a virgin after marriage and after Jesus birth. Second, how do you know that well meaning religious folk didn’t alter the bible’s story. Look at the idea behind the DaVinci Code, how do we know Jesus didn’t have a wife and children. What about the Gospel of Judas how do we know that Judas really betrayed Jesus. If there are so many false teaching Now as well as in the Past how do we know what we got is legit? Mohammed, and Joseph Smith Jr believed that they were shown by angles that the bible had been tampered with. Oh and to get away what you might call false teachings Martin Luther believed that the Catholic Church was altering the Bible’s message to control people.
ORBuddha,
Thanks for your comment and welcome to the blog. I believe Mary was a virgin her whole life because the Church teaches it. It is an ancient teaching of the Church’s sacred Tradition, evidenced by the fact that all the Orthodox Churches also believe in it, along with the Catholic Church.
How do we “know” that the content of divine revelation (the deposit of faith) was not altered? We don’t know for sure, not through reason alone. Historical evidence can show us that one possibility is more likely than another, but cannot give us the confidence that men didn’t alter the deposit of faith. Reason takes us so far, but then we make the assent of faith and believe that God is good and wants us to know the truth, so He preserved the truth from error, alteration, and corruption.
Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and to some degree all Protestant Christians believe that errors corrupted the Church’s teachings and that they corrected them. The Catholic Church doesn’t believe that but claims that God has protected His Church from error in her teachings such that all men can know with certainty what divine revelation is.
BTW, Luther also believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity.
God bless! It’s a great song, but the ideas behind it are not Christian.