Are these lyrics blasphemous?

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StudentMI

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I’ve lately been going through my musical ‘library’ and weeding out suspect bands whose lyrics focus heavily on blasphemous subject matter. It can be hard as some of the music is amazing. But the lyrics sour that.

Which brings me to this example. The band is Celtic Frost. The song, Ain Elohim. The title is already suspect. It translates, as far as I can tell, to No God. But the lyrics confuse me.

There is no God but the one that dies with me.
I have no life but the one I take with me to the grave.
We come into this world alone.
And we will die on our own.

Is this blasphemous? Should I stop listening to it?
 
I don’t think they’re making any sort of grand theological claim, so I wouldn’t regard it as blasphemous. It seems more like a sort of gratuitous cynicism that verges on narcissism.

Spiritual junk food, in other words. Fine as an occasional relief, but I wouldn’t want it as the bulk of my musical diet.
 
I can’t speak to the specific question of what’s blasphemy.

I’d personally say lines 3-4 seem easily enough reconcilable with at least a neutral theological statement (in a sense, sure, each individual is born and dies alone — though in another sense, each individual is born into human networks, and dies hopefully in Communion with God!). Line 2 I’d have to contort in my head but I could interpret it in a somewhat theologically tolerable way (my life is the one I take to the grave, indeed… I just expect to carry on with that life even on the other side of the grave!).

Line 1 is the doozy as it seems (to me) to suggest the idea that… OH! I just changed my mind.

I was going to say, the one suggests that ‘God’ is an imaginary friend that ‘dies’ when the imaginer dies.

Buuuut, Jesus is the God who dies with us humans! He came to be with us and die with us, so we could share his death and eternal life.

I think I totally get your desire to surround yourself with music that reinforces coherent and Catholic-compatible concepts. I do the same, actually. (Except very occasionally when I just really love the danceable beat of a song with otherwise eye-rolly lyrics, and I’m bracketing the lyrics throughout the dance, not happy that they suck.)

In this case, if you’re able to think it through and develop a Catholic-compatible interpretation of these lyrics, I actually think that’s doable.

I imagine others may argue you shouldn’t even bother weeding out bad lyrics. I’m just saying, even if you do want to weed out bad lyrics — I think these actually might be re-interpretable in a decent way, even if the original author’s intent was different.
 
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I forget, if one wishes for some spiritually edifying listening (albeit very different from Celtic Frost!), then I can heartily recommend Journey’s to the New World: Hispanic Sacred Music from the 16th and 17th Centuries. It’s newly released, just this week, and the choral group, Queen’s Six, is quite well known in England. One can listen to it freely on Spotify.
 
If you’re going to ponder the lyrics of a band like Celtic Frost, you should probably read up on the band and try to understand what inspired such lyrics and what the point of them was. It’s my understanding that many such bands were reacting against what they felt was an oppressive society in their home countries, with the Christian religion being seen as an oppressive factor.

Or else you could just dismiss it as garden variety cynicism and nihilism, and move on.

If you are not comfortable hearing or thinking about such lyrics, don’t listen to them.
 
Oh the childhood of Tom G. Warrior is enough of an explanation. Geez. Growing up around feces and waste and getting beaten up on a regular basis. I totally understand it. Actually his band Triptykon captures it precisely in the song The Prolonging.

“As you perish, I shall live,
You shall drown in my contempt.”
 
His book “Only Death is Real” went a bit deeper into the philosophy of it all, but unfortunately I misplaced my copy somewhere.

I also didn’t realize that Martin Ain passed away 2 years ago. Just saw that.
 
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Dude he died of a massive heart attack while changing trains. It’s sad.
 
That would be good. Despite the hate between between Fischer and Ain, the former dedicated the complete Requiem sequence to Ain.

 
StudentMI said:
I’ve lately been going through my musical ‘library’ and weeding out suspect bands whose lyrics focus heavily on blasphemous subject matter. It can be hard as some of the music is amazing. But the lyrics sour that.

Which brings me to this example. The band is Celtic Frost. The song, Ain Elohim. The title is already suspect. It translates, as far as I can tell, to No God. But the lyrics confuse me.

There is no God but the one that dies with me.
I have no life but the one I take with me to the grave.
We come into this world alone.
And we will die on our own.

Is this blasphemous? Should I stop listening to it?
Click to expand...
It is a denial that the eternal uncreated God exists.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Blasphemous
Ecclesiastically censorious of a professed opinion that is not only erroneous but contemptuous of God or of holy things.
Click to expand...
 
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