Month of Music Day 16 PAX 217 What is Love Engage Hey kid what are you lookin' at How did you get so evil so fast Where's your Mom, where's your Dad What did they teach you Did they touch you I can't believe this happened to you I promise it's not supposed to be this way But you have no right to repeat the same She's not yours this ain't a game Step back watch where your hands go They might come back to haunt you It might do you good to cut 'em off Better that than to rip her off You're a thief, an abomination Lucky for you I'm no assassin I love her, you distorted her view God help me not to distort you [Pre-Chorus:] So let's just say that your blessed Blessed that I never met you Hey you, son of a preacher man I got some words for you Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near You stole somethin' that you can't give back From the one I love And now she's forced to pray daily To fight against your flashbacks [Pre-Chorus:] So let's just say that your blessed Blessed that I never met you [Chorus:] Hey you, you better take your eyes off of her Your eyes are evil so look away I'm warnin' you there'll be Hell to pay, Hell to pay Hey you, you better take your eyes off of her Your eyes are evil so look away I'm warnin' you there'll be Hell to pay, Hell to pay Little girl don't you cry This boy can't steal what's inside Let my Father hold you up Heal the thoughts that make you throw up I know this life has been hard on you But the next will never end Only thing I know to do Is to ask my Father to heal you No soap will every scrub away The memories, the memories (No soap will never scrub away, no soap will never scrub away, no soap will never scrub away, the memories, the memories) [Chorus:] Hey you, you better take your eyes off of her Your eyes are evil so look away I'm warnin' you there'll be Hell to pay, Hell to pay Hey you, you better take your eyes off of her Your eyes are evil so look away I'm warnin' you there'll be Hell to pay, Hell to pay (No soap will never scrub away, no soap will never scrub away, no soap will never scrub away, the memories, the memories) I'm sorry, sorry Little girl, don't you cry You're beautiful, beautiful, beautiful I love you, I love you Father heal us Won't You hear us Show us Your mercy forever I love you, I love you

My Take:

When one of my starts with a warning, you know it's got to be good. Honestly, I think we should have more standards on the Internet. We are just tearing down our values every day with the constant loosening of decency. Maybe it's because I'm such a sexist jerk, but I tend to think of women in a mythical manner, as I think of the idea of Patriotism or family. I think men should put women on a pedestal, and worship them for how wonderful they are. Unrealistic, I know, as most of my relationships tend to flame out as soon as she's done with her rebound. Something else about me being sexist, I think that men are supposed to open doors, earn money, listen (I'm guessing), fix things and reach the top shelf. It's this Southern-state mentality that gets me in trouble when I'm with women who think that they are in control and liberated from the traditional constraints of male/female relationships. It's this dunder-headed Neanderthalism that makes me very un-sexual predator friendly. In fact, I find it difficult to maintain my general sense of anger and rage anytime I see an unhappy woman. Even the Grinch fed his dog. As I was preparing for my fun-filled vacation to Kuwait, I was loading up on tunes. PAX 217's latest CD just came out, and I knew them from their debut album. I got this one, and proceeded to wear out the grooves, even before I left America. In fact, I started listening to this song so much that it started to loose it's meaning. It was a really cool song, and I loved listening to the addictive hook. That's when I started to think about the words. At the time I was living in Alabama, in a small town called Eufala. I was the one driving around aimlessly, blasting Christian rap-rock, looking at all the $200,000 houses. It was just to bide the gnawing in my stomach that I could die on foreign soil in a matter of weeks. And through my anguish, I started listening to the words. It hit me as I was driving through this tourist town, that I could be driving past someone who had an Uncle or boyfriend that abused them. They look like everybody else, the victims, I mean. The look normal...on the outside. What I can't know is if they are damaged on the inside. As men, we can't generally accept that anything has happened to us. It goes with the whole Neanderthal thing. I don't know how I would handle it if I was ever sexually abused. I know I wouldn't like it. There, driving past all the For Sale signs, listing to loud Christian rap-rock, and wandering aimlessly in my truck, I felt a deep sense of loss for those people. And not like I would ever know what they've been through, just that there are no winners. Suddenly, my 18-hour-flight that I was dreading more than life became more manageable. It was reasonable in 2002 to think that a tour in Iraq would last, at most, six months. Can you imagine having to keep the fact that your Father raped you in a drunken rage when you were 6 a secret? I can't even keep a secret for a week! In the song, when they say, "there'll be Hell to pay," they really mean Hell. Look at what's in Mark:

And if your hand is a cause of trouble to you, let it be cut off; it is better for you to go into life with one hand than to have two hands and go into hell, into the eternal fire. Mark 9:43 (BBE)

Maybe it's because I am steeped in old-timey traditional music, but I think that if it's the choice between Heaven and Hell, I'm choosing Heaven, even though I'm really worthy of Hell. Selfish, I know, but I'm honest. But I'm not so selfish that I think that there are other people who are more evil than I that shouldn't be included in my Master's Heaven. Yes, even the rapist and the tax-collector. The drunkard, and the thief. The gambler and the guy who convinced the school system to buy Dells. They are all worthy of Hell, but can be saved. Except for the Dell guy. God's a Mac user. Just kidding - come on, MacStansbury. My personal beliefs are not the beliefs of my God, and I do a poor job of shilling for Him. I would need great control to not make somebody who did anything abusive to my loved ones a very dead, ex-offender. Like I say, my values are not as good and virtuous as my Lord. As I was driving around Eufala, I wondered what kind of video they would make for it. Then I wondered how it would play on MTV. That made me actually laugh in the truck, as I knew we couldn't have such a frank and open discussion of such a sensitive subject. Yes, I was wondering how this would play on TRL? What would you have to do censor out of it so that we could sell it to 13-year-old girls? We can't have violence toward women on TV, that's too real. As I was driving along, I thought about how if they got Britney Spears to shake a lot on camera, then most people wouldn't even care about what the words were. And besides starting my bizarre love/hate relationship with Britney, I wondered just how clueless most people are to the images on TV, and how it makes people feel. We're a society that's so fixated on how people look. I remember working in Mississippi, and when Britney came on some video show, I was thinking to myself, "she looks like all the other girls at Southern Miss." Besides finding out that Southern Miss has way out of its share of fine girls, I started to see the age of pop stars going dramatically downward. I was used to looking at good-looking Academy girls, as they were involved in buying the T-shirts at the place I worked, the Youth Group I taught, and just driving around the State. But never once did I think about having some untoward relationship with someone who is so emotionally and physically my junior. It's just wrong. Earlier I wrote about how the standards are slipping. While it's nice to see good-looking people, the carefully shaped images we see on a daily basis are just unrealistic. If you were to talk to Paris Hilton, you'd find out that she's got the same feelings and emotions as any other human being. It's that society has placed her in the impossible position of trying to hold on the fame that is so fleeting. Combining images of beauty with unrealistic expectations is the surest way to cause conflict. I used to joke about having a restraining order from Tiffani Theissen. It was a joke, but sadly, a lot of people took me seriously. But the culture encourages people to treat stars with this kind of worship. It just doesn't ring true with how I dogmatically hold on to my caveman ways. Even if Britney was here, nibbling on my ear, if she said 'stop,' that would mean stop. I wouldn't like it, and all I could think about was how close I was to scoring with a star, but no means no. Now, I'm just being silly saying that Britney would be nibbling on my ear, just to get me excited then cruelly stopping. Honestly, like she could resist my charms! But seriously, it's each person's responsibility to gage how far they should go. It's always been my assertion that God's plan doesn't stop with holding hands. He wants babies, and lots of them. Populate the Earth, and whatnot. It when we trip up the order (marriage then sex), that we get into trouble. I'm not saying that there aren't people who want to abuse the system for pleasure, but the great majority of sexual assaults are unplanned. That doesn't make them right. And it doesn't meant that I'm going to listen to what my God tells me. Luckily, I've never knowingly met anyone like that. Or, I should say, blessed that I never met them. Only thing I know to do is to ask my Father to heal you.

status: published
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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  similarterms: hell people love eyes soap scrub driving evil memories blessed father britney started heal words heaven warnin women girls make