Extract
Every Day is [Not] Like Sunday.
Zachary R. Smith
Abstract The secular experience of Sunday in the rhetoric of rock 'n' roll (sex, drugs and subversion) proves Eliade's formulation of the profane readily encapsulates with the term's popular understanding. As David Chidester articulates, rock 'n' roll is often viewed as "the antithesis of religion, not merely an offensive art form, but a blasphemous, sacrilegious, and antireligious force in society." In the same way that Christianity sought to differentiate itself from Judaism, so too does rock 'n' roll seek to make ground from the traditional terms and Puritanical values with which Christianity regularly deals. As in most attempts at differentiation, the differentiator can never escape those fundamental commonalities it shares with the differentiated. Judaism and Christianity, for instance, differ most dramatically in practice and belief, but share a similar discourse. Despite the concerted efforts of some to categorically separate the two into diametric oppositions, Christianity and rock 'n' roll share certain fundamental qualities which, as Chidester advances, ultimately render the relationship between the two ambivalent; "rock 'n' roll has appropriated some of the elementary forms of religious life," and so has religion, particularly Christianity, appropriated some of the elementary forms of rock 'n' roll. The relationship between the two, then, will prove as complicated and as strained as the relationship between Christianity and its antecedent, Judaism. Just as Sunday stands out as a site of differentiation between Christianity and Judaism, a battleground upon which claims to religious meaning are contested, so does Sunday serve as an access point into the nexus of Christianity and rock 'n' roll, where the significance of the day, and by extension the legitimacy of the respective traditions, is alternately contested, conferred, and confirmed. [1] An Amazon.com "Song Title" search of the "Popular Music" category reveals that, within the parameters of the site's searchable stock, the titles of 9161 songs contain the word "Sunday." The combined total of song titles containing other days of the week amounts to 15321, with Saturday, weighing in at 5857, as the leading contender for Sunday's reign. Sunday, therefore, represents over a third of all songs titled after days of the week within the Amazon database. While there is little scientific soundness about this method ...See the full content of this document
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