Or scare the Christians out of hell.

:)

You have to follow the words pretty closely. But basically: the speaker abandons his brother who has suffered considerable harm ("bitten twice by rattlesnakes" etc.). When asked where the brother is he just says "I don't know" (echo of Cain) and settles down to enjoy a treat. Then he muses about how nice it will be when he gets to heaven, knowing that everyone else there deserves to be there, just as he does.

The abandonment isn't so much when he doesn't go after the brother, but when he denies knowing anything about him, and then as far as we can tell forgets him, focusing on his tea and cake.

I don't really understand the lyrics either. So I went searching for an explanation and found an interview with their author, David Bazan, and here's what he said they mean:

"The guy who stays on the straight and narrow represents the typical Christian viewpoint," Bazan said. "Do what's right at all costs. It produces people who think they're righteous and are going to heaven, and the bible's very clear that no one is good or can earn their way because our hearts are dark. The only hope we have is in the record and performance of a different person who's willing to let us take it all on ourselves."

That person, he says matter-of-factly, is Jesus.

I haven't listened to it yet, but just wondering -- when a couple of you say you didn't understand the lyrics, do you mean you didn't understand what he's singing, or you didn't get the meaning?

Rob G, do you remember where Allen Tate the South was an idol for us but was a good idol

Rob, I would be interested in hearing your reaction to that song. I posted it on Facebook, too, and there was a more detailed discussion about it there in which there were some differing reactions. Though I guess the discussion here has sort of covered the basic points. I didn't find the lyrics especially hard to hear, btw, which is a little unusual for me.

Very commendable. :-)

I think the biggest difference in our reactions is not so much positive vs negative as that you're taking it as an attack on Christians and Christianity in general, and I'm taking it as a portrait of one person. It certainly can be taken your way, and the writer's comments indicate that he meant it at least partly that way. But that's just not how it strikes me.

Of course we've prejudiced you now.

One thing nobody has remarked on is that the very low-key tune, though not an immediate grabber, can become a really persistent stick-in-the-head one.

Not really -- I'm all confused about who said what, and I aim to keep it that way. ;-)

He grew up in the American evangelical subculture, and certainly might have been in a narrow environment within that, though not necessarily. I would be more inclined to suspect that remarks like that are representative more of his impending loss of faith than of the actual people he knew. Well, ok, maybe not "more than", but "just as." It's the sort of thing people tend to say when they're looking for an excuse. There is another song on the album that takes on the problem of innocent suffering and is pretty dark. It foreshadows the loss of faith more strongly than this one.

That's all very true, and I haven't disagreed with anything you (or anyone else) has said along those lines. There are two different subjects under discussion here--the song itself, and David Bazan's falling-away.

For those who are reading this but didn't see the Facebook discussion, here's what I said there:

"I couldn't remember the timeline exactly but I thought I remembered this album pre-dating [Bazan's] crisis, at least consciously. But in any case none of that affects my reaction to the song. I heard it before I knew anything whatsoever about the performer(s) except that Pedro the Lion was a rock group. Didn't know it was Christian or atheist or what, although I think it occurred to me that only a Christian or former Christian would have written it just that way. At any rate, I was just struck, almost chilled, by the speaker's almost total mis-evaluation of his own condition. And wondered if I have abandoned any brothers along the way."

Thinking about it further, I think what makes it chilling to me and not just the usual bit of finger-wagging, is that it's in the first person. If it were "he", and "his" brother, it would seem that way. But as it is you (or anyway I) enter into his frame of mind, which is not just his indifference to his brother but his unconsciousness of his indifference and what it does to his relationship with God.

I was sort of expecting you to say that you were familiar with Pedro the Lion (which seems to have been mainly Bazan), sinc you've moved in evangelical circles.

Suspected--I suspected.

AMDG