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The Stories Behind Our New Single
Wed., Nov. 29. 2017 8:07pm EST
Our latest single has some interesting background stories. Let's see what we can find out when we go "behind the music":
CASKET PLACE
Longtime ApologetiX fans will recognize that one of the songs on our new single is a remake. "Casket Place" was originally released on our Ticked CD in 1997, although the lyrics on the new version are significantly different. ApX lyricist J. Jackson explains:
"We had originally considered just doing a remake with the same lyrics as '97, but when I looked at the words again, they hadn't aged as well I'd like. And this time around, I wanted to focus more on Bible passages listeners could look up themselves.
"It's been 20 years, but Al Gore is still talking about the earth's life support nearly being destroyed. Some fans were sad he wasn't in this new version, too, but I thought the verse numbers were more important. And you can always listen to the old version and use this one as a sequel.
"Or, as Mr. Gore might call it, An Inconvenient Truth and An Inconvenient Sequel.
"But we're not setting dates — only God knows the day or hour … or year or decade or century, for that matter. As the new lyrics say, 'He might just tarry more; He might just come.'
"However, as one of our other songs, 'Bathwater,' says, 'we're still one day closer now than yesterday.' And we're 20 years closer than our previous version. I'm just pointing out things I see and places in the Bible, so people can draw their own conclusions."
STRAIGHT STREET
Believe it or not, J. says the original version of "Casket Place" isn't even as old as the original version of the other song on the new single: "I think I wrote the first version of 'Straight Street' back in '92, but it took us 25 years to record it.
"I've always loved the concept (Ananias remembering how God called him to go pray for a blinded Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9) and the 'down on Straight Street' line, but that's really all we kept. I pay a lot more attention now to getting lyrics to rhyme with the original than I did back then."
The photo for the single cover was taken in Sewickley PA. "We looked online to see if there were any places called 'Straight Street' in the Pittsburgh area," J. continues, "and that was the only one we could find. And one of the streets that intersects with it is Church Way."
That's ironic, because one of the early names for the Church was the Way, and it's used at least five times in the book of Acts, including Acts 9:1-2 at the beginning of the account of Saul's conversion:
"Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem."
J. says he's happy to be getting more songs about the Apostle Paul's "origin story" into the ApX library:
"This summer, we finally recorded 'Born in the Jewish Faith,' where Paul related his conversion experience. I waited 20 years for us to record it. Back in 2015, we did 'Stone Him Rough,' where Paul talks about Stephen's stoning and how it laid the groundwork for his conversion.
"I think I wrote that one about a month or so before we recorded it, so that was the opposite of what happened with 'Born in the Jewish Faith.' And now we have 'Straight Street,' 25 years after I wrote the first version.
"We actually had two other parodies about Paul's early days in our early days. 'The Second Half of Acts' is on Rare Not Well Done. The other is on one of our early cassettes. It's great to finally flesh out Paul's story more for our fans. They ought to know by now I love Apostle Paul!"
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