It's My Blog, I Can Do A Post About A Country Song If I Want To
Rondo of Blog - Published: January 30, 2023
I’m a big fan of Glen Campbell. I only discovered his work last year, but a lot of it hits a particular moody spot that all my favorite country music does. His performance in his Bloodline album has brought me to tears and helped me through so many tough times.
Tonight I wanna share some thoughts I had about his version of It’s A Sin When You Love Somebody from his 1974 album Reunion: The Songs Of Jimmy Webb.
First, a little background. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Christian Church and only got out prior to my sixteenth birthday, which felt like forever but in the grand scheme of things was only a small part of my life in the long run.
During that time, it was impressed upon me the ‘sin’ of Queerness (homosexuality, sodomy, whatever dry old and stigmatizing words they liked to use for it) and how important it was for me to reject it.
Now, I struggled with that for many years. I just couldn’t wrap my head around why it would be so wrong for two people who share a gender to love each other like two people who don’t, or why the heck a loving god would even care enough to get upset about it (or worse, as the religious side of my family would have it, condemn Queer people to death as a swift and oh-so-‘righteous’ punishment for their sin.)
So you can imagine the baggage that a song title like “It’s A Sin When You Love Somebody” would carry with it for me. But I’ve listened to enough of Campbell’s music to give this one a shot.
Just as soon as the song begins, a tension is established with the intensity of the instrumentation - evoking visions of holy judgment and scorn, contrasting the guitar that carries with it a tone that almost sounds as if it pleads for mercy.
Campbell’s vocals follow shortly after, and this is where I mention how much I adore these lyrics. The first verse goes as follows,
Now the Lord, he’ll forgive you for cheating.
And the Lord, he’ll forgive you if you lie.
Yes he’ll forgive, and he’ll help you to live, but he sure frowns down soundly on you and I.
In an instant, we have the core of the song. Cheating and lying are both sinful acts, but ones that God would forgive… unlike, apparently, what the singer and his love have together.
It masterfully illustrates the contradiction of a loving yet vengeful god, whose favor can be gained by some but is unreachable to the singer. Then we have the first time the chorus plays out,
It must be a sin when you love somebody.
Damned if you don’t, twice damned if you do.
It must be a sin when you love somebody.
As much as I’m loving you.
All but the final line is sung by Glen Campbell with the accompaniment of a really beautiful choir, with the final line pulling back to just being Glen’s voice.
The church-like quality to the choir and its abandonment of Glen at the end as he emphasizes his love for his lover tragically-reinforces the conclusion of the chorus, with that tension from the beginning of the song returning and removing the comforting and beautiful sound of the church choir.
When the second verse begins, we get yet more emphasis on the apparent hypocrisy of this Lord. Not with righteous indignation, but with a sort of resignation.
Now the Lord, he’s known for his kindness.
He’s always willing to set a sinner free.
He’ll save your soul, and he’ll make you whole.
But I don’t see no angels comin’ down, shinin’ their light on you and me.
Time and again, the song makes a stark contrast to the love this Lord shares with others that he pointedly withholds from the singer and his love. Their souls are implicitly not saved, and can supposedly not be whole without this Lord’s love.
That brings us to the second and final chorus.
Every line is the same as it was last time, though each word is given that much more weight after the second verse’s reinforcement of the message, but something changes at the end.
The church-like choir sings as beautifully as it did during the first chorus, but they leave once again for the final line - along with much of the rest of the instrumentation, almost as though we had traveled from Heaven to a lonesome purgatory.
One final time, Campbell sings the all-important second part to this song’s statement that it must be a sin if you love somebody…
As much… as I’m loving you…
His voice echoes beautifully in the silence, accompanied only by his guitar. Before the choir returns, Campbell vocally resolves the chorus on a note that has no fear in it. There’s no trepidation in his voice, not even in the face of Hell’s inferno, only love for his lover.
With the choir returning to fade the song out with a lovely descending “Ooo,” the song concludes. Notice anything?
Never, at any point in the song, does the singer ask forgiveness for his love. We get reminders of God’s kindness, God’s forgiveness, but Campbell never repents for loving the one he loves. Instead, he accepts his fate and doesn’t apologize for it.
When I first listened to this song, it brought me to tears. It hit a note in my heart so close to home it almost broke.
Going back to my childhood, I spent many years being so sure I was absolutely going to Hell. I believed there was no amount of repentance that could wash away the sin of who I was, how I couldn’t fit into the norms of cisheteronormative society, but that didn’t stop me from trying over and over.
It would be many years before I stopped believing, and what followed after was an acceptance I have held onto for dear life ever since. An acceptance that, when I die, I’ll be happy with how I chose to live and that’s all that really matters.
I won’t worry about Heaven or Hell or whichever one of the two I’d end up in if they’re even real, because since I left Christianity I’ve actually been living my life in a way I could truly believe in. I’ve found the truest love I’ve ever known, in the years since, and if it takes me to Hell?
I’m okay with that too.