Day 8 - "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" by Larry Norman

It has long been an accepted tenet of folk wisdom that the devil has all the best tunes. Indeed, a quick run through the world of commercial contemporary Christian music (CCM) wouldn’t do much to convince you otherwise. I remember a road trip through Texas and Oklahoma listening to CCM, not realising that we’d got through six different bands on the CD changer due to them all sounding exactly the same. Of course, it would be crazy to criticise Christian musicians when there are some outstanding artists writing about their faith (for example: Bill Mallonee and Sufjan Stevens). In fact, before the creation of the juggernaut that is the CCM industry, pioneering artists like Larry Norman were working to spread their message within the mainstream music industry.

Norman was an interesting character. A member of the band “The People!” as a teenager, on leaving them in the late 1960s he underwent an intense spiritual experience and began to view music as a ministry. Signed with Capitol Records, he released “Upon this Rock” in 1969, an album of “love songs to Jesus”. The thing about artists likes Norman is that they had no intention of creating a new genre or industry sub-group. They were signed by mainstream labels based on their musical skill and ability as performers and song writers –importantly, their output therefore stands up musically when re-examined forty years later.

Vilified by prominent Evangelical leaders for playing the “devil’s music”, Norman gave the impression of a man who simply didn’t care. His lyrics directly challenged the listener, and made full use of humour (a response to Christian critics: “They say to cut my hair/ They’re driving me insane/ I grew it out long to make room for my brain”) and even cutting sarcasm (on post-Beatles solo albums: “I’ve been listening to Paul’s records/ I think he really is dead!”). Perhaps his best known song, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” was included both on “Upon this Rock” and his 1972 MGM Album “Only Visiting This Planet”. A sweeping ballad, the song details what life will be like in the final seven years before Jesus returns. Christians who hold to a “dispensational” interpretation of prophecy generally believe that Christ will come back “secretly” seven years before the Millennium to remove believers from the world in an event known as the “rapture”. Things will get progressively worse before the rapture takes place, but after Christians are removed (as The Louvin Brothers reminded us) the Antichrist will reign and everything will literally “go to hell” for seven years. Norman claimed to have been frustrated by the fact that nobody ever wrote songs about what this tribulation period was like – and “I Wish…” addresses this issue in the most direct way: Children died, the days grew cold/ A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold/I wish we’d all been ready. Norman's skill as a song writer was in his ability to critique the contemporary world without falling into evangelical cliché (the society of the end is marked by communal not moral degeneration) and to evoke the concept of a disturbing dystopia with a measured economy of writing. We might expect, for example, Norman to sing about a piece of bread costing a full bag of gold. Instead, we have the image of bread being sold for gold - raising the disturbing implication that despite starvation, people were still desperately running after treasure, even at the cost of their own survival. Despite the song's simplicity, its criticism should cut to the quick.

"I Wish We'd All Been Ready" was famously included in one of the most well know “rapture” films, portraying the horror of those who were left behind – 1972’s infamous A Thief in the Night. With the film often being shown free to church groups, an estimated 300 million people worldwide have seen it – and thus, been exposed to Norman’s music. It wasn’t the only song he wrote about the end of the world. “Peacepollutionrevolution” (yes, all one word) provided listeners with a list of all the world’s failings and reminded them where they should be looking for end times action: It’s all in Revelation/ It’s all in the design/ And if you’re truly wise/ You’ll keep your eyes on Palestine.

Norman died in 2008, but remains a legend within the Christian music industry. It's a bit of shame that “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” is his most well-known tune. Despite its apocalyptic interest, it doesn’t demonstrate his musicianship or sense of humour as well as many of his other songs. Nonetheless, as the most famous and most covered rapture song it remains an important cultural monument, and guarantees Norman at least a little piece of musical immortality before the second coming. 

I Wish We’d All Been Ready (Norman, 1969)

Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we'd all been ready

Children died the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind
 

A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head
He's gone
I wish we'd all been ready

Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and one's left standing still
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind

Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we'd all been ready

Children died the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
How could you have been so blind
The father spoke the demons dined
The son has come and you've been left behind

You've been left behind
You've been left behind

Listen on Spotify:  Apopalypse: Apocalyptic Advent Calendar

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