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The Stories Behind the Songs on Single #10
Fri., Jun. 10. 2022 12:12pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our 10th single of 2022:
TELESCOPER
Some folks are so smitten with science that they love it to death. Years ago, it was used as a way to explain things. Now it's used to explain things away. We've got atheists makin' all that noise 'cause they found new toys that show the cosmos is even bigger than they thought. However, I think that's actually a killer argument for God, who is also bigger than they thought.
"Telescoper" is our fourth Alice Cooper parody, but it's the first to require keyboards. Ironically, Rich Mannion joined us the week after we released our previous Cooper cover in mid-April 2018. I got the idea for this spoof in mid-April 2022, including the first two lines of the first two verses.
Other lyrics came soon after, but the proper title eluded me until May 2. The phrase "under my wheels" appears three times in the original lyrics, but the words we used to replace it — "undermine Him" and "shunned is quite real" — wouldn't work as titles.
Finally, I decided to see if I could spoof the name of the artist, as we'd previously done for songs like "Simp Liztik," "Psum 14," "Better Than Exorcism," and "Herman's Sermon." And so "Alice Cooper" morphed into "Teles Coper," then "Telescoper."
The third verse cites Psalm 19:1-2, which says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge." We did a parody called "Psalm 19" in 2021, but it focused on verse 14, although the bridge alluded to verses 1 and 2.
DEATH (2022)
They say there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. Taxes may be evadable, but death is inescapable. That makes death seem larger than life, but it's actually the other way around. Death is a destroyer, but Jesus — the Way, the Truth, and the Life — will destroy death forever. It's just the last domino to fall.
As the Bible says, The last enemy to be destroyed is death ... When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:26, 54).
This parody original appeared as a live recording on our Soundproof CD in 2010, and we played it often in concert in the years that followed. It was the "Kiss of Death" portion of our show. All kidding aside, we usually played it right after I gave the salvation message.
I liked the version on Soundproof, but we had deliberately stripped down the instrumentation to go along with the acoustic theme of that show and CD. Also, because it was the 17th song we played that night, my voice wasn't as strong as I would have liked.
A beautiful ballad like that deserved the deluxe treatment with full orchestration and a fresh set of vocal cords, so I put it on my wish list of songs to rerecord for our 30th anniversary in 2022. Rich Mannion played all of the parts on this version, including the acoustic guitar at the end. He's got a musical gene that makes him an ace at every instrument he attempts.
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