Category: Music
Creep state: Corgan claims feds helped sideline rock
Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan says he was approached by government entities during the George W. Bush administration.
According to the singer, he is familiar with several instances of musicians being compromised and protected by the industry due to their willingness to play ball.
‘I’ve been approached by elements of the US government.’
The Smashing Pumpkins were among the most popular bands in the 1990s, with three records achieving at least platinum-selling status and 1995’s “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” reaching diamond status.
Now, among other ventures, Corgan hosts “The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan” podcast and recently had writer Conrad Flynn as his guest. The pair discussed dark influences in Hollywood culture, which led Corgan to reveal that he himself had been approached by the government in past decades.
Siamese scheme
“At different times, I’ve been approached by elements of the U.S. government to be involved in things that were just way above my pay grade,” he explained. “I’ve never talked about them in any depth publicly, but I’ve had experiences where I would find myself in a room with people and think, ‘Why are they talking to me?’ It was something out of, like, ‘Eyes Wide Shut,'” Corgan said, referring to the movie about the occult.
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Corgan explained that his experiences led to interactions with government officials hoping to capitalize on his influence.
“All I can say is I’ve experienced supernatural things and I’ve experienced things where I’ve had elements of the U.S. government reach out to me because they somehow want to hook my influence, which is not that great, into whatever they’re after.”
Chart of the deal
This led the singer to speak on the music industry, which is “certainly [his] area of expertise,” while adding the notion that “there are elements in popular music where people have been compromised, knowingly.”
“They were offered kind of a Faustian bargain. Pick door No .1 and we’re going to push you to the moon. … There are people who are protected, and they get every benefit of that protection, and I know it because I know the game, because I’ve lived it. And there are other people where they just, they decide to press a button and throw them off the ship.”
Some of these musicians may have been dumped for bad behavior, Corgan admitted, but in “other cases,” he said, it was likely because “they won’t do the bidding that people want them to do.”
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Photo by Catherine McGann/Getty Images
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The culmination of political influence on music — particularly rock music — resulted in the severe lack of edgy rock artists since the turn of the millennium.
“Here we are 25 years into the 21st century, and rock couldn’t be less of an influence on the on the social political order,” Corgan continued, noting how influential the genre was in the second half of the 1900s.
“Does anybody think that that’s kind of strange? That somebody decided to push a button somewhere and make sure that people like myself don’t say certain things any more?”
Corgan soon cut the conversation short, telling his guest he was not willing to directly state what he was asked and by whom.
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Celebrate Christ’s birth with the world’s best Christmas carol — and it’s not the version you think
As the years pass by, it can feel like Christmas has become less about the birth of Christ and his salvific mission and more about secularism and winter.
Look no farther than some of the most popular “Christmas” carols of the past 100 years: “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Deck the Halls,” “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” and on and on.
This Christmas, as you gather with your family, return to the meaning of the holiday — the birth of Christ — by reflecting on the original French version of “O Holy Night.”
The closing lyrics proclaim, without equivocation, that it is Christ who has saved us and we celebrate his coming. In other words, Christ is King!
For those in the French-speaking world, and especially the Acadian and Quebecois diaspora in New England, “Minuit Chretien” was a staple entrance hymn of midnight Mass.
While the English version “O Holy Night” is a beautiful song, the lyrics were adapted by Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, reducing the theological weight of the original French.
Here are those English lyrics.
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O night divine!
According to Chicago Catholic, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the song quickly became popular in Northern U.S. abolitionist circles due mainly to its third verse, which deals with breaking the chains of slavery.
Truly He taught us to love one another.
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
and in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we.
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His power and glory evermore proclaim!
His power and glory evermore proclaim!
Again, this is beautiful, but it downplays the truly salvific mission of Jesus Christ, God incarnate.
Before examining the French lyrics and their literal English translation, listen to the definitive version of the song, sung by Luciano Pavarotti at Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec, in 1978. The concert in which he sang this rendition was a long-standing PBS Christmas special.
French lyrics
Here are the French lyrics, as compiled by the Oxford International Song Festival.
Minuit, Chrétiens, c’est l’heure solennelle,
Où l’homme Dieu descendit jusqu’à nous
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de son Père arrêter le courroux.
Le monde entier tressaille d’espérance
À cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur.
Peuple, à genoux, attends ta délivrance.
Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur.
The tone is set right at the start. The verse boldly announces that this song is for believers. “Midnight, Christians, it is the holy hour.”
There is no mistaking this for secularism or a postmodern, easy Christianity. It calls the listener to remember that he is Christian and that Christmas is about the coming of the Savior, as the second line says, “When God as man descended unto us.”
The next part boldly proclaims the reason Christ became man: to save mankind from the stain of original sin. “To erase the original stain, and to end the wrath of His Father.”
The next two lines are very close to the English translation: “The whole world thrills with hope on this night that gives it a Savior.”
The end of the first verse brings it home: “Kneel, people, await your deliverance: Christmas, Christmas, the Redeemer is here!”
A bold declaration of what the night is about: the coming of deliverance that Christ the Redeemer brings!
The second and third verses are as reverent and hopeful as the first. The closing lyrics proclaim, without equivocation, that it is Christ who has saved us and we celebrate his coming. In other words: Christ is King!
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