Ain't That Good News
The Staple Singers - This May Be My Last Time
The look of things is switching up a little bit around here, but the dedication to great songs remains the same. Today’s song is a haunting hymn by gospel legends.
I’m not a religious man. I hardly even think I’m a spiritual man anymore, mostly because spirituality as an idea scrapes uncomfortably against the more cynical barriers I’ve erected in my psyche to protect myself from the frauds who’ve fooled me in the past. I wasn’t raised in a religious home, and although I’m baptized, I have no memory of the inside of a church until moving to Texas, at the age of seven. We went because it was what one does in small town Texas. I was told to put on nice clothes; I’d join my parents and my baby sister and we’d all drive to St Peter’s Episcopal Church in Brenham, where my new step-father had grown up, and his family still lives. My step-grandparents took separate cars. I recall parking on the hill, sauntering up towards the small church parking lot, and walking around to the front of the brick building where it’s giant crimson doors welcomed us. There was always an elderly parishioner greeting us at the door; it never mattered who, they all remember my stepfather, for being the star high school football player, and for once being Maifest King1, but mostly for being the son of his quiet, resolute father, and his gregarious and lively mother. Small town.
We went every Sunday we were in town visiting his family, which for years was most Sundays.
We never talked about church, or God, or Jesus or sin or the bible or anything else remotely spiritual any other time of the week though. Somehow, I knew The Lord’s Prayer but have no idea where I learned it. And I can admit that I said it in my head, every night in the dark while lying in bed before shutting my eyes to begin my ritual of getting to sleep where I ran the following movie in my head: It’s the day of the school talent show, and everyone is excited because the last act announced is a surprise band (“who is it? Oh my gawd”), and it’s my band and I’m the wickedest twelve year old guitarist they’ve ever seen and my junior stock shoots through the roof. I did this every night for years. It was my favorite part of falling asleep. I reflect now on it: it was my security blanket, rather than a dream of what I necessarily aspired to be. I think maybe I did want to be a rock star, but I know that a therapist would point out that I probably really was comforting my lost self by imagining following in the footsteps of my birth father, the musician I never really knew.
SERMONS! is reader-supported. There are both free and paid subscriptions. If you’re wishing to support my work, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber.
Church in my experience is like my prayers at night before dreaming of being a twelve year old rock star - a tax one pays for their desire. I’ve seen it like this: indulge in building increments towards Saturday, ask for forgiveness on Sunday. Start again on Monday. When I wasn’t allowed to take Communion because I hadn’t been “confirmed”, I was hurt. I think that whatever I thought church was at that point, I came to see it more as something I wasn’t really included in. We were weekend visitors in Brenham. So it may have been small town snobbery, but I never felt welcome in the bible study, and any pot lucks or anything were awkward and I couldn’t wait to leave, go home, get out of those stuffy clothes and go do something cooler. I started skipping out of going more and more. The last time I can remember being there (other than for my step grandfather’s funeral almost two decades later) my cousin and I didn’t even bother to put on church clothes, and we snuck into the empty balcony and whispered Slayer and Metallica lyrics to each other and talked about girls.
Watching Summer of Soul recently with my mom, I was left thinking about gospel music, the importance of church to the black community, and the role of music in shaking off all that weight of being black in America. I think about the young black friends I had in the city, whose families went to church sometimes three times a week. I used to think then of how much that must have sucked, not comprehending the role those churches played. It never dawned on me to see church as anything other than a begrudging obligation (which it probably was for my friends too at times). Although I’ve loved gospel music for years, it’s always been because it tied me to my southern experience, never understanding just how, and never fully admitting that it actually did make me feel better.
I had never thought about these differences before, because thats the way whiteness works. And I’m not even fully white.
I’ll forever be untangling so many of the knots of growing up in the south.
You might be more familiar with later era Staple Singers, when Mavis moved front and center belting out huge songs like “Respect Yourself”. This earlier recording, in contrast, is bare. Here I can smell the piney woods, can see the white clapboard church, I can grip the oak tops of the pew in front of me. I feel my soul as it’s leaving my body, floating up and away from those that I love, into the light of the unknown void (made visceral by the reverb layered on to the chorus as it fades out to close the song). It’s alluring and frightening and spooky, as I imagine the moment of giving up your ghost must feel, and I think about the weightlessness of being freed from the heavy shackles of human existence as you receive your great reward.
I don’t believe in salvation or redemption, just the eternal bliss of release.
SERMONS! is brought to you by Jamie Ward, a multidisciplinary artist currently in Texas. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram. Like what you’re hearing? Help spread the word!
Musik Klub: “Everythang’s Workin”
Maifest is the annual Spring celebration that has taken place in Brenham since 1881, linking the German settlers of Central Texas to their European roots. For those interested in knowing more click here.