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The Stories Behind the Songs on Single #7
Thu., Apr. 28. 2022 4:44pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our seventh single of 2022:
GOOD WORKS DON'T
I first got the notion to spoof "Good Girls Don't" by The Knack in September 2019 but didn't get the title or subject matter till December 22, 2021. At the time, I was just thinking of "good works don't ... revive you." After I'd been working on it for a while, I realized we could shift later in the song to "good works don't ... but I do" once God is speaking. After all, Jesus said, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working" (John 5:17).
As Ephesians 2:8-10 points out, where salvation is concerned, God does all the work. Our works follow afterward not to obtain, maintain, or retain our salvation but just as a natural thing we were created (and re-created) to do: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
It wasn't until I had this parody completed that I realized that "Good Works Don't" is a joke of its own (i.e. "good works don't work").
This is our second parody of The Knack, and like our previous one, "Babylona," its source material came from their double-platinum debut disc, Get The Knack, which topped the album chart for five weeks in late summer 1979. The album's songs were full of naughty lyrics, none worse than those in "Good Girls Don't." That single did hit #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, but pop stations had a version with cleaned-up lyrics. Now we do, too.
969 (2022)
I always liked the lyrics to our '99 version of "969"; I just thought the vocals, instrumentation, and production left room for improvement. However, once I started practicing my vocal parts, I noticed a number of places where the wording could be better, too.
There were a few lines that sounded clunky to me when I sang them along with "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams. Do I have to say the words? Speaking straight from the heart, I didn't want to run to you with anything less than my personal best. I know some ApX fans are awfully attached to our first-edition parody lyrics. Please forgive me. Just remember: Everything I do ... I do it for you.
You'll notice a few new scriptures mentioned this time around. For example, in the first verse, we specifically cite Genesis 5, the chapter of the Bible where Methuselah and all those other long-lived legends and their ages are actually listed.
I also wanted to direct listeners to the specific places in the New Testament where "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts" is found. We briefly touched upon that in the '99 version when we said, "Hebrews 3 says it's now or never," but I've always found it remarkable that the phrase is quoted three times in Hebrews (3:7-8, 3:15, and 4:7), and I wanted to teach our listeners (and myself) the verse numbers.
There were a couple other places where I realized Bryan sang something different than I originally thought, so I adjusted what I sang. You know how it is: Can't stop this thing we started.
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