In this bimonthly column, staff writer Doug Moore takes a very close look at extreme metal lyrics. Some will be serious, some will be silly, but they’ll all go under the microscope.
Extreme metal has been around for long enough that I sometimes forget how shocking it once was. People feared this music. It was seedy. The musicians and fans were often sleazers or even criminals. And the songs were often offensive—sometimes out of genuine belief in bigoted ideas, and sometimes just for the fun of it.
Underground metal is a much more inviting place now than it was a quarter century ago. The albums are slick; the shows are safe; the fans are mostly well-behaved. And the offensiveness has disappeared, for the most part. Satan and gore have lost the cachet they once held. The listening public has developed protective cynicism that keeps all but the most detestable lyrics from damaging anyone’s sensibilities.
But once in a while you’ll come across a relatively contemporary song that evokes metal’s seamy lyrical past. For me, Aeon‘s “God Gives Head in Heaven”, from their 2005 debut Bleeding the False, is one such song. The band has since gone on to a good (albeit unspectacular) career in standard death metal, but this song will always be their chief legacy in my mind.
You pray to god every night when you are in bed
You want your god to come and take your pain away
Your Christian god will always say that he is your friend
But I know for fact that all he wants is to give your head
Join your faggot god
Christian faggot race
With open mouth he kneels
Ready to give head
God gives head in heaven
God gives head in heaven
He will swallow it all
Your filthy Christian seedIt ain’t no big surprise
This is how your god is like
God gives head in heaven
God gives head in heaven
Forced to fuck your god
He wants it up his ass
Heaven is for faggots
Christian paradise
Now your god wants blood
He takes you from behind
Christian assholes bleed
Holy paradise
You pray to god every night when you are in bed
You want your god to come and take your pain away
Your Christian god will always say that he is your friend
But I know for fact that all he wants is to give your head
Join your faggot god
Christian faggot race
With open mouth he kneels
Ready to give head
God gives head in heaven
God gives head in heaven
…
When I heard this song, my first reaction was to laugh. (My second reaction was “…hey, this is actually pretty good.”) Ragging on Christianity is nothing new in death metal, but “God Gives Head in Heaven” approaches the subject in such a bizarre and distasteful manner that it instantly commanded my attention.
Taken literally, “God Gives Head in Heaven” is odious. It’s about how God brings men to heaven because He wants to homosexually rape them. The lyrics rail against “faggots” and treat gay sex as horrifying. “God Gives head in Heaven” is mind-bogglingly immature and intellectually incoherent. (What happens to women who go to heaven? Do they just, y’know, relax and try not to watch?) This kind of song gave death metal its reputation for juvenility and backwards attitudes about sexuality.
But “God Gives Head in Heaven” definitely shouldn’t be taken literally. My initial response was correct; this tune is intended as a joke. Aeon removed any doubt by including a surprisingly competent country version of it as a secret track at the end of Bleeding the False. I like to think that “God Gives Head in Heaven” is Aeon’s commentary on the way that both Christian social conservatives and troglodyte metalheads despise homosexuals. (Unlikely that their intentions were so involved, but I try to look kindly upon musicians’ motives.)
“God Gives Head in Heaven” also takes an unconventional—and unintentional, I’m sure—theological position. It presupposes a) that sex exists in heaven, and b) that God is a sexual being. The Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft has argued in favor of both of these positions, notably in his entertaining speech, “Is There Sex In Heaven?”. In the speech, Dr. Kreeft goes on to argue that in heaven, sexual intercourse between men and women is replaced by an infinitely more satisfying “spiritual intercourse” between human souls and God.
So, in some minor sense, a noted Christian theologian actually agrees with “God Gives Head in Heaven”—or at least with the general thrust of it. Aeon would appreciate the humor.
