1 Samuel 15:23^[1]

The Life of the World to Come film*(timestamped video)

Lyrics

I became a crystal healer and my ministry was to the sick
Creeping vines would send out runners and seek me^[2] in their numbers
I sold self-help tapes
Go down to the netherworld, plant grapes^[3]

And as word spread of my powers they would seek me far and wide
All sad faces at my window I would welcome them inside
I sewed clothes for them: cloaks and capes
Go down to the netherworld, plant grapes

My house will be for all people who have nowhere to go^[4]
My supply of shining crystals a shield against the snow
There's more like me where I come from, so mark our shapes^[5]
Go down to the netherworld, plant grapes

Banter

[interviewer: 'So it's a song about a faith healer?'] Yeah, crystal healer, some necromancer or somebody healing in some, some, uh, witch-doctory sort of way.... The Bible and Christianity, which are two different things, uh, uh, is a number of things throughout history to a number of people and quite often, if, uh, if like me, you're a big believer in, in the social justice side of the Gospels and if you lean far left, um, you look at the history of, of what the Bible was used to do to, uh, women or, uh, anyone who, who was anywhere outside the mainstream throughout the Middle Ages, it's a bad scene, you know, and so the speaker in this is the person being attacked by First Samuel, um, and is sort of making his case and it's like, I think, you know, it's- it's a crying shame what the church did to people in the name of prosecuting witchcraft. It's a, it's a huge historical injustice, uh, that can't be redressed, and that's the thing about it, people can apologize all they want, but there's nothing you can do to bring, you know, bring justice to those people, except maybe give them a voice somehow, you know, although I'm mainly just telling a story... (2009-10-05)
I do remember at some point I was pretty pleased with myself for saying, 'Well, this is a song about how I became a crystal healer and my ministry was to the sick. (2012-06-28)
This is a song about safe spaces, I think. (2012-09-01)
This is a song about good faith. (
2013-01-25)
This is a true story about the time that I became a crystal healer and I ministered to all of the sick who I could find. There was no shortage of sick people, so I was a very busy crystal healer. I actually got too busy, I got tired of working double shifts, so I found a different line of work. But not before healing many people with crystals. I figure, if this dries up I can always go back to the crystals. I hear the field -- no, not crystal. No, that's a different earlier time in my life. That was not a profitable time at all, on account of I couldn't follow commandment number two, don't get high on your own supply. [ed: reference to the song 'Ten Crack Commandments'] (2013-06-05)
This song is a more or less straight autobiographical sketch telling the story of when I studied crystal healing under the guidance of a very old man who had no name. He lived in a cave in eastern Kentucky. The water in his cave was delicious and cold. I studied with him for thirty years, and then one day he said that he couch teach me no more and that I had to share the power of the crystals with the world, by which I took him to mean that I had to work for free. I kind of wish I asked him to elaborate a little more, because you get pretty hungry working for free, and people don't ask you to heal them when you're visibly wasting away right in front of them. Anyway, the whole crystal healing business suffered a severe downturn once reiki became popular, and so I got into music instead. But in my heart I'll always be Johnny Crystal first and foremost, and I figured it was time to write a song about it. This is that song and it's all true, every last word. (The Life of the World to Come film, liner notes)

Live Performances

Footnotes

^{1. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (KJV)↩}
^{2. "seek me out" (2013-06-05)↩}
^{3. In Greek mythology, Tantalus was punished for his many misdeeds by being forced to stand, thirsty and hungry, in a fresh pool with a vine overhead full with grapes. When he reached for either the vine or the water, it would recede out of his grasp. It is unknown whether this reference was intended. (Credit: Annotated TMG)↩}
^{4. Likely a reference to Isaiah 56:7. This is clearest in the King James Version, which reads, "Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." Thanks to Sam Duncan for pointing this out! (Credit: Annotated TMG)↩}
^{5. These lines in 1 Samuel 15:23 and Proverbs 6:27 bear a remarkable similarity to each other and to the phrase in the Satanic Messiah liner notes. However, I've been unable to find a source for the line; if you know, I'd love to hear from you. AKM Adam, theologian and scholar who has written about the Mountain Goats, has this to say about these lines:

this corresponds to a great extent to John's recurrent allusions to 1 Cor 13:12, though there's obviously a certain difference (or you'd have made the connection explicit). There's no consistent connection between a Greek word and the English gloss "shape", so the reference is harder to track down. HCSB apparently doesn't use "shape" at all in its New Testament (and none of the OT usages seem to fit Darnielle's usage). Among the candidates in Greek, I'd think first of eikôn (image), then homoiôma (likeness), morphê (form), schêma (form), eidos (form, appearance), but none of these seems just right. Interestingly, though, eidos is what Paul uses in 2 Cor 5:7 when he says "we walk by faith, not by sight (dia eidous)." If that's the clue (and it's tenuous), it would connect us again to the eschatological hope of true seeing, possibly connecting to 1 John 3:2, "...what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." And, of course, the transformation motif John alludes to in Phil 3:20-21.

While Adventists might connect Sunday worship with the Book of Daniel, there's still no conventional phrase "the sign of Daniel" for which one might look. The closest candidate, to my mind, would be the revelation of the Son of Man in Daniel 7:

"As I watched in the night visions,

I saw one like a human being [Son of Man]

coming with the clouds of heaven.

And he came to the Ancient One

and was presented before him.

To him was given dominion

and glory and kingship,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

that shall not pass away,

and his kingship is one

that shall never be destroyed. "

Even then, there's no "sign" one might recognise. That's the case also, though, for "the sign of Jonah", about which I wrote my first published article, so it probably doesn't make a big difference. If it's not the handwriting on the wall, then Daniel himself might be the sign: the prophet in a foreign country, making his way as best he can, trying to keep faith under hostile circumstances. AKM Adam, personal correspondence, April 10, 2016. (Credit: Annotated TMG)↩}

1 Samuel 15:23[1]

Lyrics

Banter

Live Performances

Footnotes

1 Samuel 15:23^[1]