Band:
Bad Religion
Album:
The Process of Belief
Running Time: 3:59
Written by:
Greg Graffin and
Brett Gurewitz
Performed by:
Greg Graffin,
Jay Bentley,
Brian Baker,
Brett Gurewitz,
Greg Hetson,
Brooks Wackerman,
Mikaleno
A
new age of
reason, bring
treason to trick the
mind
What good is searching if nothing’s there to find?
We arrive at this place of no return, my brothers
Only to discover that our
minds have led us away
So far from the
painful truth of who we are
What’s right is wrong, what’s come has gone
What’s
clear and
pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie, all that’s benign corrupts in time
The
fallacy of
Epiphany
Come forth, bear
witness;
see the profit from your loss
Beg for
forgiveness, only after you tally the cost
We arrive at this place of no return, my sisters
Only to discover that our values ran us aground
On the
shoal in the
sea of what we could be
What’s right is wrong, what’s come has gone
What’s clear and pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie, all that’s benign corrupts in time
The
fallacy of
Epiphany
If it’s real for me, do I have to
prove it to you?
Why do
revelations fade to cold blue
untruths?
It’s oh so relative
Subservient, in total, one’s
perspective
What’s right is wrong, what’s come has gone
What’s clear and pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie, all that’s benign corrupts in time
The
fallacy of
Epiphany
After much
downvoting and prodding, I've decided to, belatedly,
explicate my lyrics.
I noded this song because it strikes me, both musically and lyrically, as one of the better songs that
Bad Religion has done in a long time. I credit this, in no small part, to the return of the redoubtable
Mr. Brett, also known as
Brett Gurewitz. The guitars parts tend to be more complex than they were on
New America, and the lyrics seem both more mature and less whiney than some of the more recent
Bad Religion work.
Clearly, though I claim them to be less whiney,
Bad Religion hasn't gone
bubblegum on us, and left their signature style behind. This song is far from being a happy one, and it reveals a general
distate for the world's tendency to slide into negative states. While the message seems to be one of reasonably clear
despair and
hopelessness, it also seems that they harp on a
viewpoint that I usually only encounter in the
deeply and rationally religious. The line "If it's real to me, do I have to prove it to you?" is a question that I have been asked in many forms before. The honest answer that I always give is that nobody has to do anything, as far as I know, and that it may not be possible to prove anything completely.
To hear this argument coming from
Bad Religion is, at the least, a bit shocking. Their staunchly
anti-theist bent has been well documented, and it isn't chance that led them to the use of the so-called "
crossbuster" logo. Of course, they move on to cast even more doubt on the situation. With the next line, they ask "Why do
revelations fade to cold blue
untruths?" The obvious meaning here is that they are referring to
dead religions, and that the previous line was a rhetorical reference to the argument often offered by
theists.
I would posit another explanation: Perhaps, during the course of their carreers,
Greg Graffin and
Brett Gurewitz have begun to adhere even more strongly to the position they briefly advocate in a few songs. It would seem to me, as a
radical empiricist, they are begining to see the problems with making any sort of knowledge claims, and not just those based on faith.