Lyrics:
Atheists Don’t Have No Songs
(Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila’s for the Jews,
Baptists have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.Romantics play Claire de Lune,
Born agains sing He is risen,
But no one ever wrote a tune
For godless existentialism.For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of faith.For atheists,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.Some folks sing a Bach cantata,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.Pentecostalists sing they sing to heaven,
Coptics have the books of scrolls,
Numerologists can count to seven,
Atheists have rock and roll.For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of Faith.In their songs,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.Catholics dress up for Mass,
And listen to, Gregorian chants.Atheists just take a pass,
Watch football in their underpants.
Watch football in their underpants.Atheists, Atheists, Atheists,
Don’t have no songs!
Thanks, Jules. And thanks to Pacificvs (Adrian Covert) for the lyrics! (Also see John Kinney’s comment on the Pacificvs post, which stitches together a more complete version of the lyrics from several different performances he found online.)
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* …and not only Mac Davis and friends.
Jules says
Oh, perfect post title that I wish I’d thought of!
fg says
hahahah I maybe freezing but I’m laughing.
Seems to me who ever got rock & roll of the music genres mentioned is doing pretty well. (the A’s) As for footie in underpants – can’t think about that now. Requires central heating whatever you believe.
John says
Jules: It practically wrote itself. :)
fg: Yeah, without central heating a lot of stuff goes by the board. There’s a saying something like “There are no atheists in foxholes.” There probably aren’t a lot of avid football-watchers in cold apartments, either, especially in their underwear.
marta says
HEY! That was on Austin City Limits! I’ve been there!
Okay. Enough with the exclamation points. Love the song (and Steve Martin). As for the “no atheists in foxholes,” I believe Christopher Hitchens has a great reply to that. And somewhere on the radio (not RadioLab though!), I heard another atheist discuss this comment and why it was irritating at best, insulting at worst.
….”I know, it’s only rock and roll, but I like it…”
the querulous squirrel says
Wonder why Muslims were omitted? Prejudice, fear, or mere inability to sing in key.
John says
marta: I’ve never been to Austin. But from what I know of it, it seems the sort of city which other cities interested in the arts probably look up to. It’s hard to forgive Texas for some things, but Austin definitely is in the plus column!
John says
Squirrel: When I first saw this video, I thought at once of this:
Or maybe we’re both thinking too hard!
marta says
@John – Yeah, I understand the things Texas needs to answer for. Oh, yeah. But, Austin is another story. There is a bumper sticker that reads something along the lines of “Austin–you can see Texas from there.”