![\"\"](\"https:\/\/40.media.tumblr.com\/b98c864429a35e537e5ab84e291bcc18\/tumblr_inline_nlqm3cZGVJ1r2g06t_500.png\")
<\/a>Her new album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful,\u00a0<\/em>wrestles with terror of\u00a0freedom after the slavery of an erotic love. She takes the John-of-the-Cross style imagery apparent in earlier songs like \u201cCosmic Love<\/a>\u201d and runs with it, to the point that it\u2019s difficult to find songs that aren\u2019t<\/em> dripping with catholicity. St. Jude shows up. \u201cVarious storms and saints<\/a>\u201d are \u201cpraying in the street.\u201d \u201cCrucifixes and Hollywood signs\u201d litter apocalyptic landscapes, and the Mother of God is a pervasive presence, both in the prayer\/scream \u201cMother<\/a>, make me \/ Make me a song so sweet \/ Heaven trembles, fallen at our feet\u201d and in the song \u201cQueen of Peace,\u201d which gives an account of the Passion happy-go-lucky Christianity could certainly give an ear to:<\/p>\n Oh, the king His only son Death Cab for Cutie devote a few songs every album to wrestle with the faith they, generally speaking, seem to reject \u2014 from that well known criticism<\/a> \u201cCatholic school\/ vicious as Roman rule \/ I got my knuckles bruised \/ by a lady in black\u201d to the lesser known \u201cSaint Peter\u2019s Cathedral<\/a>\u201d from their album Codes & Keys<\/em>:<\/p>\n At Saint Peter\u2019s Cathedral It\u2019s either quite a master plan Protestantism has little love-relation with the weird world of rock n\u2019 roll. Perhaps the latter is still salty about being condemned to Hell for cranking the overdrive past \u201c4\u201d and singing about sex. But the usual rock reference to a general Protestant Christianity goes no further than the light irony of Ben Folds\u2019 \u201cJesusland\u201d, or the similar culturally-critical stuff of, say, As Tall As Lion\u2019s \u201cIn Case of Rapture<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nGone mad within his suffering
\nCalled out for relief
\nSomeone cure him of his grief<\/p>\n
\nCut down, but the battle won
\nOh, what is it worth
\nWhen all that\u2019s left is hurt<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thecatholiccatalogue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/sufjanstevenswings1.jpg\")
Sufjan Stevens has his sacramental moments<\/a>. Shakey Graves\u2019 latest album<\/a> addresses the whole thing rather directly: \u201cYou went where no one would follow \/ so I hid in the mud of my Catholic blood \/ and let that minute hand face towards tomorrow.\u201d Coldplay takes the \u201cmissionaries in a foreign field\u201d<\/span>\u00a0as their model. The Shins\u2019 corpus is speckled with the stuff, as\u00a0in their song \u201cSaint Simon<\/a>\u201c, where we bemoan that \u201cthough the saints of us \/ divine in ancient fading lines \/ their sentiment is just as hard to pluck from the vine\u201d and rejoice that \u201cMercy\u2019s eyes are blue \/ when she places them in front of you \/ nothing holds a Roman Candle to \/ the sudden warmth you feel inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThere is stained glass,
\nthere\u2019s a steeple
\nthat is reaching
\nup towards the heavens,
\nsuch ambition never failing
\nto amaze me.<\/p>\n
\nor just chemicals that help us understand
\nthat when our hearts stop ticking
\nthis is the end
\nthere\u2019s nothing past this.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com\/236x\/02\/da\/e0\/02dae05bcb14b9d757d9f875ef16e882.jpg\")
It\u2019s clear enough that the use of Catholic iconography doesn\u2019t always amount to belief. Mewithoutyou are the kings of aesthetic Catholicism. Their\u2019s is an ADHD-riddled, Wasteland-esque\u00a0delight in the Holy Faith as a source of images, oblique references, and wild metaphors \u2014 though not without enough moments of earnestness to make the listener wonder whether this stuff is more than a stockpile of poetry. Their new album \u2014 Pale Horses<\/em> \u2014 includes (besides the coolest appropriation of \u201cLeaning on the Everlasting Arms<\/a>\u201d I\u2019ve ever heard) the (incredibly wise) lyric \u201cthis is not the first time God has died\u201d and the (totally understandable) fear: \u201cAre you a God, and shall your grace grow weary of your saints?\u201d And I don\u2019t really think this is a recent trend: Pond\u2019s 1997 album Rock Collection<\/em>, which deserves some kind of medal for meticulously calculated weirdness, revolves around narrative descriptions of a simultaneously badass and frightening Catholic girl, who\u2019d \u201cmake a great nun<\/a>,\u201d whose \u201cfingers twist beads, wringing out the prayers from rosaries and medals that she wears,\u201d who, \u201cWith St. Christopher on the dash \/ is safe from any crash \/ at least she believes. \/ What she doesn\u2019t realize \/ is that he\u2019s been decanonized by the Church.\u201d (He\u2019s been nothing of the sort.)<\/p>\n