As TBM's, we were always getting ragged on about our music choices if we weren't listening to the Tab or Kenny G or anything else mind numbing. I remember we had an entire youth conference dedicated to learning how to listen to good music. One of the speakers got up and took the song Desperado by the Eagles, and tore it apart line by line, telling us what was wrong with it...shoddy morals, gambling, etc. They never played that song at stake dances ever again. But they still played stuff like Bryan Adams "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" which talked about making love?

Does anyone remember Chumbawamba? They had that popular song called "Tubthumping," and my little bro really wanted the CD, so I bought it for him. My mother decided she needed to listen to all of our music to decide whether it was appropriate. She broke the CD into a million pieces. She couldn't even let me try to return it??? She said the CD promoted all kinds of things, including making other people your scapegoat, which is NEVER acceptable. Yet this woman has never done anything wrong in her life; she's always blaming someone else for her problems.

I had a Metallica tape that I would listen to very quietly on my tape player upstairs. One time she heard it and took the tape out and stomped it to death. As I got older, my taste for metal-type music grew. I made sure that I blasted it as loud as possible every time I pulled up to her house in my truck. My whole family is freaking weird like this. It's almost like it's a crime to love good music. My little cousin would cover her ears when she was riding in my truck and talk about my "devil music." Honestly, I really don't listen to anything that scary.

My mother always blasted primary music at home on Sundays and it would drive me batty! It obviously didn't invite any kind of spirit into our home. She still screamed at us and beat us on a regular basis. So honestly...what is the deal with music? I think if more people had some real musical intelligence, they would not feel bad about listening to stuff like Metallica or the Eagles. (And no, I'm not saying that Chumawamba is good music.)

I have all these thoughts about songs from the sixties and seventies that include references to premarital or extramarital sex, drugs, smoking, drinking, swearing, and various other things that Mormons disapprove of. Most of them are from the time we lived in Salt Lake, before the churchgoing started, so I don't know if I picked up ideas from other kids or my parents influenced me by being generally conservative or what.

I'm sure some of the thoughts I have about Beatles songs came from my parents--Back in the USSR, for example. I always think "bad, Communists, shouldn't be in Russia."

They didn't like rock music at all and called it n***** music (my mom still does, to my eternal shame), but they let me listen to whatever I wanted. Peter Frampton was "that awful pink hair," but I don't remember them saying much else. Despite their disapproval of The Beatles, I got Imagine by John Lennon along with the Carpenters for Christmas when I was in the 6th grade.

I even have thoughts about songs that came out in the eighties, when I was on my own. "I'm No Angel" by Gregg Allman is a good example. I love that song, but I can't stop myself from thinking "what a scumbag--he's sleeping with her and stealing her diamonds and stuff."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEP_dPN3Haw



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2010 01:44PM by munchybotaz.

My brother was in his ward's young men's presidency a few years ago. And the ward was starting to talk about censuring all the music they felt was "inappropriate" for the youth.

So I told my brother some of the "inappropriate" things in classical music -
Wagner was an antisemite, and Hitler's favorite composer
Brahms had the hots for Schumann's wife
Mozart was an alcoholic (and a musical genius)
Beethoven was dishonest - would accept commissions for music he never intended to write (and what he did write is absolutely amazing)
Hector Berlioz encouraged drug abuse and devil worship (his gorgeous Symphonie Fantastique is about an opium trip gone bad, with a witch's sabbath and imps from hell)
Tchaikovsky was gay (and composed some of the greatest Russian music ever written)
and on and on and on.

My brother wrote it all down. Then at the next ward meeting he gave them a list of classical composers they should ban since they weren't good examples for the youth. Needless to say there was no talk of banning music after that! (Took the wind out of their sails when they found out classical composers were human just like the rest of us.)

I'm quite impressed with my TBM brother. For years he was the early morning seminary teacher. He cancelled seminary one morning because he and my nephew were attending the Metalica concert the night before.

Had it rough growing up in the Morg.

Constant harping about Satan and ridiculousness and driving the spirit away...

It got sooooooooo old.

And "mormon music" is the worst. Like eating cotton candy for every meal.

I like to sing I even picked this name because of it. My mother insults every song I try to sing that isnt mormon themed or from two books one that was old when I was born and the other that was old when she was born. Both contain uttely toned down music with so little to it its just all cutsy.

One of my last "Jobs" I had in TSCC was for another 16 year old and me to select and play appropriate music for the Stake Dances(held once a month on "Super Saturday", after our Scripture Chase) in the 1980s. I can remember the meeting where they assigned us this responsability, one of the adults present made sure we were concerned about back tracking(having messages from the devil if you played it backwards). I can remember grinning and trying not to laugh out loud and saying "Tell you what Bro TBM, I'll worry about what they are saying forward, and you can find someone else to check em backwards." They assigned us this task because we were the "most mature young men in the Stake..."

We had that job for a while, and they were worried about some crazy stuff! If the music was too loud, Satan would come! If it was to dark in the Gymnatoium, here comes Satan! And as in a prior post they had a problem with Van Halen's "Panama" where D L Roth starts to speak and says "...reach down between my legs, and ease the seat back..."(they couldn't get past the "between the legs" part to realize that is how you put your seat back) but they had no problem with Bryan Adams "Summer of 69". We scored a major coupe by convincing them to let us play songs that only had one "bad spot" by turning it down during that spot, then turning it back up and resume the song, which was stupid because all the kids were mouthing the words anyway.

Oh Yeah! The two most "Mature young men in the Stake" had to take turns going to a back room to cue up the next song on any given tape, and there just happened to be a flask of rumplemint in our bag. By the time the dance ended we had a good buzz going on. I guess Gawd wanted it that way when he called us...

I was a trained vocalist for most of my childhood and early teens. My family has a huge theater background, and so music has been woven into the fabric of my life since I was a kid.

I entered a lot of contests, sometimes competing against other kids from my ward. I remember one contest when I was 14, I sang "The Thrill Is Gone" while most of the girls from my ward sang primary songs. I won, and the Sunday afterwards my parents were yanked into the Bishops's office and chastised for letting me sing such a "lusty" song.

They were furious. Especially when they realized that the parents of the losing girls were the ones who turned them in. Besides, how is B.B. King heathen music????

So I guess in your family listening to Skinny Puppy 'blood on the wall' was totally off limits?
Really did not like them but I did listen to them from time to time. My music era was the 80's and I listened to the alternative stuff: Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Depeche Mode, some easier poppier stuff like OMD, and REM... Loved Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Roxy Music (Brian Ferry). But I also enjoyed bands like The Cult, Tesla, Rush, AeroSmith, AC/DC, and many other genres of music.
The funniest thing was that I dated this guy that his favorite band was Echo and the Bunnymen. Then he went on a mission. When he came home (he had left his treasured music with me), he went through his music and trew all of it away, because 'it was not appropriate to listen to, and he knew better'.
I broke up right after. That was just too much censorship.
Also, I always remember that during the youth dances, no one would ever play any of my requests (I always requested the mild ones, with special care given to the words), because of the type of bands they were. However, they ALWAYS played "Dancing by Myself" by Billy Idol. What did they think that song was all about? A person who had difficulty finding friends?
Say hello to my little factory! Thanks Billy.

topojoejoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So I guess in your family listening to Skinny
> Puppy 'blood on the wall' was totally off limits?
>
> Really did not like them but I did listen to them
> from time to time. My music era was the 80's and
> I listened to the alternative stuff: Echo and the
> Bunnymen, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain,
> Depeche Mode, some easier poppier stuff like OMD,
> and REM... Loved Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Roxy
> Music (Brian Ferry). But I also enjoyed bands
> like The Cult, Tesla, Rush, AeroSmith, AC/DC, and
> many other genres of music.
> The funniest thing was that I dated this guy that
> his favorite band was Echo and the Bunnymen. Then
> he went on a mission. When he came home (he had
> left his treasured music with me), he went through
> his music and trew all of it away, because 'it was
> not appropriate to listen to, and he knew better'.
>
> I broke up right after. That was just too much
> censorship.
> Also, I always remember that during the youth
> dances, no one would ever play any of my requests
> (I always requested the mild ones, with special
> care given to the words), because of the type of
> bands they were. However, they ALWAYS played
> "Dancing by Myself" by Billy Idol. What did they
> think that song was all about? A person who had
> difficulty finding friends?
> Say hello to my little factory! Thanks Billy.

"Dancing WITH Myself" But yup, I played the hell out of all things Billy Idol.

lol My mom always said that Billy Idol was so "evil". I love his music. :)

My step-father listened to Toto, Journey, Rush, Richard Marx, George Michael, Madonna...a lot of 80's music that had inappropriate themes in it at times. Maybe it partly had to do with the whole generational thing. The generation before always thinks the younger generation's music is trash. But IMO, if you're going to look for evil themes in one, you have to point them out in your own.

I'm going to put this out there because I'm hoping at least one person will agree with me...but I think some of the good metal today is like the classical music of yesteryear. I find beauty in it, and love the drum solos, and some of it even hits me emotionally. I mean, you can't get any more technical than Meshuggah.

How about some Lamb of God, Devil Driver or my buddies IXXION.

IXXION? Never heard...must look into.

I have the WORST memories of getting screamed at for my choice in music. It didn't stop me from listening to it. I just learned to hide it and always felt guilty for liking such things. I will not EVER do that to my children, I don't care what they listen to. All I will do is love them to death and enjoy the music WITH them, so they don't have to hide. Music is fun. It shouldn't be some freaky crap that angrily gets blared by a mom at 6:50 in the morning so loud that the house is shaking, after she finds your CD, and at the same time she is in your face screaming at you about what SHE thinks the song means.

My parents listened to children's church records, Queen, disco, the Beatles, Tears for Fears, The Carpenters, and lots of others that I can't remember. The children's church records were creepy when I look back on them...

That would have been a crime worthy of retaliation.

*CRIES*

i got in trouble over nirvana, soundgarden, and stone temple pilots.

also, i remember on my mission hearing a tape from the late 70's/early 80's by some guy named Bryson or something like that where he tried to say "Another One Bites the Dust" is really saying "Start to Smoke Marijuana" and that "Stairway to Heaven" is bad because of its pagan symbolism (by that logic Christmas and Easter are bad too).

And while I'm on the topic, why do TBM's think mainstream country music is OK to listen to but other types of music is bad? Maybe they are just redneck idiots.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, some you HAD to be in my ward!!! Especially Fallen Angel! I REMEMBER that stupid youth conference where the guy from Ricks came to tell us how all the stuff we liked was about sex or had an evil heavy beat! Moron! He hated "eye of the tiger" and "abracadabra" and "my girlfriend is a centerfold!"
My dad used to get mad at my older siblings music(70s stuff) calling it "evil satan music" all the time. I got in trouble for asking if it was evil satan music why did he keep buying it for them?
And personally I was booted from nursery for playing the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival for the kids instead of primary songs...sheesh I was just following the scriptures that say to 'train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it' teaching the kids to have taste....