Is It A Sin To Play Inappropriate Songs?

[ATeutonicKnight]

I began playing guitar about three years ago, and when I started I was all about AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, etc, and almost all of the songs were inappropriate. Now that I’m a different person, I don’t listen to this music, but I’ve found this challenging, as I can’t play almost any songs on the guitar now. Is it okay to just play the riffs and such, as long as I don’t sing the lyrics? What if my habit of singing with the song is too hard to break? Can I simply take Weird Al’s approach and change the lyrics? Thanks.

 

[RPRPsych]

I began playing guitar about three years ago, and when I started I was all about AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, etc, and almost all of the songs were inappropriate. Now that I’m a different person, I don’t listen to this music, but I’ve found this challenging, as I can’t play almost any songs on the guitar now. Is it okay to just play the riffs and such, as long as I don’t sing the lyrics? What if my habit of singing with the song is too hard to break? Can I simply take Weird Al’s approach and change the lyrics? Thanks.

As a fellow guitar player (though not a very good one), I sympathize with your predicament. There are a few songs that I can play reasonably well, but whose lyrics aren’t all that appropriate.

There are a variety of approaches I have used to deal with this:

1. Listen to guitar-based bands whose songs do not usually contain such material. Dream Theater is a good example - not all their songs are mind-bogglingly difficult (“The Silent Man” and “Hollow Years” are easy) and their lead guitarist is a practicing Catholic. Most of U2’s songs are also fairly good examples of neutral material.
2. If the song was egregiously bad and meant to offend, or likely to cause me to stumble (e.g. if it contained sexually explicit lyrics, or took God’s name in vain), I simply dropped it from my “playlist” and looked for something else (usually a hymn! You can always experiment with playing an old or new Christian song in a different arrangement!)
3. In other cases, where the words were more ambiguous, I simply changed the specific lines. (For example, the Pearl Jam song “Sad” includes the line “and there is no God with a plan”, referring to the thoughts of a bereaved person rather than actually denying the existence of God.) In that case, if you feel it’s necessary, the change is easy to make (“and there is no one with a plan” or something of that sort)

I’ve never tried parody myself, but it sounds like a good idea to. Ultimately, your conscience is your guide - there are plenty of neutral or even edifying songs to “rock out” to, so if you’re doubtful about any of the others, it’s best to just let them be. But don’t beat yourself up over it.

 

[odile53]

Maybe learn a larger, and more appropriate, repertoire? That will give you more versatility.

If you’re just playing the guitar you’re not singing the lyrics, which may be inappropriate. The instrumental is pretty neutral.

 

[mleonetti1991]

How about covering songs?

I know it is a mortal sin to take God’s name in vain when you curse him off or other things like that,

But if you are covering a song and singing lyrics that don’t identify with you, but the artist, and you take God’s name in vain when covering a song, is that a mortal sin?

Jack’s mannequin- Kill the Messenger:

“Oh my God this hurts like hell. I had that dream again when I was lost for good in outer space. Tell me, doctor how to shake that waking nightmare that is only worse when I am sleeping…”

Or

The Format (Fun’s front-man’s older band)- the first single:

"I can’t stand to think about a heart so big it hurts like hell

O my God I gave my best for three whole years to end like this…"

I knew it was wrong to take God’s name in vain, but not sure if that is the case when singing, where you are repeating the words of the composer.

And because i was unsure about whether taking God’s name in vain when singing lyrics is a mortal sin, then I at most committed venial, because I don’t know what it came to for covering songs.

I am scrupulous, so I fear about going to hell…because it was only recently that I looked up that blaspheming God, or saying “I swear to God” could be mortal, but I was never sure about doing covers. Plus, you would have to listen to the whole song in context to see if it was in vain.

I like both of these songs, but I guess in the future I would drop the word, God?

What do you think?

Matt