Miles and miles of two-lane blacktop crisscross the rural South, forming a web of connections among myriad small towns with declining populations and evaporating economic bases. The 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? demonstrated that the Depression-era rural South was a place every bit as mythic as the ancient Aegean, and its soundtrack sparked a surge in popularity for what has come to be called "Americana" music. But what of the postmodern, post-capitalist South? What mythic portals and spiritual wellsprings can be plumbed amid the unincorporated villages, the mill hills, the hollers, the trailer parks, and the few remaining farm communities that dot those two-lane blacktop roads today? And the churches! We sometimes joke that the county in which I reside has more Baptists than people. And let's not forget the Pentecostals out on the edge of town!
Singer-songwriter Paul Thorn's CD Mission Temple Fireworks Stand is a deep, rhythmic, moving tour through the back roads of "white trash" spirituality. The title song is born of Thorn's observation that Pentecostal tent revivals and roadside fireworks stands often use the same kind of tent. So, Thorn thought, why not combine the two? "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand," he explains in the liner notes, "though not a literal place is a very tangible place where my current spiritual perspective resides." Imagine the art of Howard Finster set to music and you're there.
Thorn, the son of a Pentecostal preacher who grew up singing and playing tambourine on the Mississippi sawdust trail, has developed a musical style that combines folk, blues, country, gospel, R&B, and rock and roll. The first song on the CD, "Everybody Looks Good at The Starting Line," employs a slow, steady, driving rock beat to carry the theme of perseverance implicit in the song's title. The next song, "Rise Up," picks up the pace slightly and adds some gospel and R&B inflections. It tells the story of a woman finding strength to leave a hopeless marriage and start "a new life" and is an anthem of self-empowerment. The next song, "Downtown Babylon," offers a sardonic and reflective critique of big-city pretentiousness and is followed by the title song, a rollicking gospel-blues which, by its juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane—or the sublime and the ridiculous—reminds us that authentic spirituality is dangerous.
"Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" is followed by one of the CD's more reflective numbers, "Things Left Undone," which begins with the conventional gospel hymn scenario of nearing death and then raises the question, "Will you be counting all the trophies you won/Or will you look back on the things left undone?" The second verse evokes Jesus' teaching on the last judgment in Matthew 25: "When a stranger came knocking did you let him in?/Was there food on your table for a down-and-out friend?" And the third verse visits the theme of forgiveness as one of the things too many people leave undone.
Two later selections pick up the musical pace. "Ain't Livin' in Sin No More," a R&B number about the community reaction to a cohabitating couple who finally marry, exposes the banality of small-town hypocrisy. "Sister Ruby's House of Prayer" is a rocking number that captures the depth of another working-class spiritual discipline—consulting the local palm reader. These two songs are followed by "Angel Too Soon," on the deep grief at the death of a child, the emptiness of the platitudes often used for comfort in such situations, and the undeniable need to rely upon such platitudes despite their shallowness. The final song, "I'm a Lucky Man," is a meditative affirmation of the goodness of life.
Thorn's lyrics combine a gritty realism with a bitter sense of irony—yet remain deeply optimistic. Along this musical journey, Thorn manages to embody what it means to be a prisoner of hope (Zechariah 9:12)—someone fully acquainted with and deeply affected by the troubles and tribulations of life, but affected more deeply still by the stirring and moving of the Spirit beneath, within, and beyond life's trials. n
David Fillingim teaches religion and philosophy at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia. Paul Thorn's music and art are available at www.paulthorn.com.
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