8 Great Christian Rock Songs (For People Who Hate Christian Rock)

3. “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash

So this is technically a traditional folk song, but Johnny Cash’s 2006 version from the American V album will forever stand as the best recorded version.  There was just something so undeniably badass about Johnny Cash, and his advanced age when the American albums were recorded only heightened it.

These lyrics are the most sinister of any on this list, but they hint at hope:  “Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter, tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down.”  It’s basically an American way of saying “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

2. “Laughing With” by Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor brings her trademark weirdness to this absolutely haunting ballad about the appropriate situations to laugh at God.  Literally the entire song is made up of powerful one-liners like, “No one’s laughing at God when the cops knock on their door and they say ‘We’ve got some bad news, sir,'” or “No one laughs at God on a day they realize that the last sight they’ll ever see’s a pair of hateful eyes.  No one laughs at God when they’re saying their goodbyes.”

The chorus takes simplistic, damaging, toxic conceptions of God to task, like a God who gives you money if you just “pray the right way, and when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus.”  Maybe funny, but only in the classical sense that reminds you that these versions of God have wrought untold horror on the Earth.

I especially love the line, “No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving, or freezing, or so very poor.”  The bourgeoisie intellectuals who enjoy laughing at religion could stand to be reminded that for tens of millions of destitute people all over the world, religion is a source not just of comfort, but of hope.

This song was also used in an episode of the second season of “The Leftovers” which you should go watch immediately because it’s the best show on television, and deals with religious themes better than anything I’ve ever seen on screen.