I wonder sometimes if, when I'm older, I'll understand certain songs better. I can't think of any specific occurrences off the top of my head, but I am pretty certain I can relate a lot better now to most of the angry and depressing shit I listened to in middle school. Nirvana makes a lot more sense, that's for sure.

I am only 24, so the extent of my experience on this earth is pretty short. I'm about 10 years short of the age of the guy who wrote this song, but I feel like I can relate to it pretty well. The music itself is almost way too gleeful for my taste, and I really don't like anything else by Beulah, but I've loved this song for a few years now.

Up until about a year ago I was really exploring my religious side. I got all into Gnosticism (which makes things really difficult: "So, what are you, then?" "A gnostic." "Agnostic?" "No, a gnostic."), rewrote part of Matthew in a more modern tone, tried to hang out with people I used to go to Sunday School with (that was so fun... SYKE!!) and generally just sat around feeling all conflicted all the time.

Wise Blood showed me that worrying too much about religion is not a good thing for the most part. If you worry about it too much, either by believing or wondering if you should believe, you're going to end up fucking some shit up. (If there is a moral in Wise Blood, I am pretty sure that is it.) After reading, I'd say it took about six months for it all to sink in, subconsciously, I think.

I don't mean to attribute my disenchantment with religion to Flannery O'Connor solely, though her frank (and "grotesque") depictions of good ol' American living do a lot for my case against religion (and general humanity) ("General Humanity!"). There were other factors that maybe I'll get into some day if I still feel the same way.

Now I just feel kind of stupid. Mostly I can't believe people fall for it, or that I was so mystified by it. I could delve into the variety of reasons I may have been attracted to the idea of religion (feeling out of control, having no self-confidence, being naive and lonely) but instead, my feelings on the matter of religion comes down to:

Seriously, people believe that hoodoo? If you really need to believe in some invisible dude somewhere so you behave yourself, then, jesus, you've got issues. People should start treating intensely religious people as if they have a psychological condition. There are people out there who make their children pray every night, but get upset when they can't make their kid's imaginary friends go away.

For god's sake, get a life.

Song Note: The dude who wrote this song talked very briefly about it on NPR. The SongMeanings discussion is lively.

Update: I thought it would be interesting to note that after writing this, I went onto Beulah's Wikipedia entry only to discover that singer/song-writer Miles Kurosky is a fan of Flannery O'Connor as well. Guess this song's connection to O'Connor is stronger than just my own ramblings here.