Jason Clement: entry

Larry Norman, THE PIONEER of Christian rock music (a tag he hated) passed away this morning in his home in Salem, Oregon.

Norman became a Christian at the age of five and was raised in a black Pentecostal church. In 1956 he heard Elvis Presley’s music and would later say that he felt Elvis had stolen rock’n'roll from the church and he was determined to steal it back. The roots of the idea of marrying a spiritual message with rock’n'roll music began there and then in his childhood even though it would be more than a decade before he would have the opportunity to begin fulfilling that vision.

I’d be lying if I said I knew all of his music, but growing up in a very legalistic church (where even drums were considered evil) kinda automatically makes Larry Norman your hero, as far a music goes.

“I ain’t knockin’ the hymns, just give me a song that has a beat
I ain’t knockin’ the hymns but give me a song that moves my feet
I don’t like any of ‘em funeral marches, I ain’t dead yet

All I wanna, I wanna, I wanna say
Why should the devil have all the good music?”