Spiritual Messages in Popular Music

[MooMeat42]

Since I started my spiritual development, I noticed that certain music has messages about spirituality and metaphysics. I noted that each artist from which I found a spiritual message actually really rocks (in my opinion); just really resonates with me. For example, listen to Stairway to Heaven. I never really knew what it was about, but maybe I do now. I interpret the "lady" in the song to be the soul going on a journey to find out if the afterlife is real or not through astral projection (she (we) doesn't find an answer). It's a direct message to the audience. But the phenomenon doesn't stop there. It continues today and is becoming more frequent. The following list is of bands that I can confirm have music especially about metaphysics:

*Dimmu Borgir, Dream Theater, Led Zeppelin, Mastodon, *Meshuggah, *Periphery, System of a Down, *Tool
*indicates that the band focuses almost exclusively on metaphysics

Yeah, I only really have metal and rock on my hard drive. But these artists all make direct references to spirituality.
The point of this thread is that I thought it would be a cool project to compile a library list of artists which have a message to get out about the something greater. To make an obtainable list of sort of an inspirational sound track for anyone on a spiritual journey. If you have music you would like to post to the library, please comment in the following format:

(Genre1)
Artist 1, Artist 2, Artist 3,..., Artist n
(Genre2)
Artist 1,..., Artist n

If you know only one piece from an artist that applies, then add it to the (Genre) as "Artist - Song"
Please indicate artists who seem to focus exclusively on the subject with * an asterisk
Please confirm music you're unsure of by studying the lyrics
Things to consider before posting:
Is it actually about religion (christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, etc.)? Is it actually about doing drugs and hallucinating? Can you back it up by citing the lyrics to a degree that you're not making stuff up about what it might mean?

[Xanth]

There are spiritual messages in just about every single aspect of your life... most of which you've probably never even stopped to listen for.

Take video games for example.  World of Warcraft's last expansion, Mists of Pandaria... was absolutely LOADED with great life lessons, but the problem is that most people will simply write them off as "oh it's just a video game".  It's NOT... a life lesson is a life lesson regardless of where it comes from!

[MooMeat42]

There are spiritual messages in just about every single aspect of your life... most of which you've probably never even stopped to listen for.

I have. I just wanted to make a library of music with direct references to it. For example, Periphery has 2 albums about learning to AP. In contrast, many many pop-music "artists" know nothing about it. I'm not here to make trouble, just thought it would be cool since there is no list on the whole of the internets

[Xanth]

I have. I just wanted to make a library of music with direct references to it. For example, Periphery has 2 albums about learning to AP. In contrast, many many pop-music "artists" know nothing about it. I'm not here to make trouble, just thought it would be cool since there is no list on the whole of the internets

Cool cool.  Hopefully others will have some more titles for you.

Oh, I just thought of one... but I doubt you'd know them or would want to listen to it. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biBo2eAp024  Enjoy!  It's one of my favourite songs of theirs.  hehe

[Stillwater]

There are thousands. In fact, good music is mostly about spirituality. I will get you a good list though tomorrow hopefully, when I am better slept 

[Kzaal]

Pink floyd hehehe

[Szaxx]

Hawkwind  the group and if you know of Michael Moorcock who has many paperbacks which depict the art in a way of his own.

[Volgerle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcN4BRpmGI

[jackblair]

Honestly, just as Xanth said, most things have some valuable lesson that we can gleam from them. Music is a bit more complex, but many artists have lessons to teach and messages that are purposfuly or interpreted as spiritual. Some people can learn from movies, some music, some religious text, some people nature, etc.

[Stillwater]

I think the others have expressed it well- there are some artists that merely make shallow references to "spiritualist" practices, but don't go deep into it. (Type 1)

There are others whom I would say are are writing about explicitly spiritual concepts, while using the well known language. (Type 2)

Then there are others that make no mention of language attached to spirtualism, but that elevate common subjects to the level of the spirit (Type 3)- this is the most skillfull of the approaches I feel, but the others are not bad in their approach, or less meaningful.

Some examples, by type:

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros- Dear Believer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF8lhoHr6mU
(Type 2)


Pure Bathing Culture- Ivory shore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLnmZMD2qXM
(Type 3)

And here she does it more explicitly in type 2:


Pure Bathing Culture- Silver Shore's Lake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9issNe_Ets0
(Type 2)


Springsteen is a master of elevating mundane scenes of Americana into spiritual sacraments. Some sort of Greek Poet that managed to get lost and to be born In Jersey 

Bruce Springsteen- I'm on Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJQgwqojirs
(Type 3)

Hell, even as a cover, here by Natasha Khan, this simple song about longing is drenched with spiritual force.


Bat for Lashes- I'm on Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q--r4i3Q2gI
(Type 3)


Tv on the Radio- I was a Lover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDzTjyiRVAM&list=PLCAFC602C94E3B922&index=8
(Type 2)


Kate Bush... is some sort of demigod... at least she is something more than merely human. Every one of her 300 or so songs is intensely spiritual, literally irrespective of the subject. She is the original female pop-star (the pre-madonna primadonna, hehe), and oddly one that is only known in musical circles now. So I will here unload a small pile, lol.


Kate Bush- An Architect's Dream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTQuXr0pDuw
(Type 2)


Kate Bush- Hounds of Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOlkRP6zNlY
(Type 3)


Kate Bush- Suspended in Gaffa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr2acDdfbvY
(Type 2)


I always liked this album cover... the world flows out from beneath her skirt. Such a powerful image on so many levels.


Kate Bush- Delius (Song of Summer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDytl4QPRsU
(Type 3)


Kate Bush- Alchemy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpNOuWefbGc
(Type 2)


If you like these few artists, I can give you many more, if you are looking for it! Music goes very deep for me.

[Stillwater]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcN4BRpmGI

Brilliant video.

[Thread Killer]

A National Acrobat. - Black Sabbath.

[Kzaal]

Any songs from Bob Marley.

[Volgerle]

Brilliant video.

Yeah. It makes me being choked with emotion every time.

I also think Kate Bush is one if the most fantastic artists around - and yes, very spiritual, indeed.

[Stillwater]

She can definitely bring a person to some crazy places if you are willing to follow her there. I think that is the power of a lot of musicians... they can dissolve your reality, and put a new one in its place.

The same walls, the same trees... but now they are alive, and now they talk back.

There is an animating force which musicians and painters and a few other people know about... and they have found a way to pull others into their world with them.

[Szaxx]

And in the animation from the Beatles, 'tiptoe through the meanies' that one hasn't left me alone in a looong time. Lol.

[EscapeVelocity]

Trying to reply to this thread got me kicked out by the Sonic Lords for 2 weeks...we will try again.

Volgerle...spectacular video and song.

SW...Kate Bush; the eclectic princess...first song I remember was SNL or Fridays: Rolling the Ball

Here are 2 that got my attention; the first from Robert Fripp of King Crimson, tremendous solo album...with a Peter Gabriel song you can find in various forms, but this is, to me the most special...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wS8V8vCUqw

And this little gem I found in 1982, the whole album is magical...imperfect, yet perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0WYG2JyisA

[EscapeVelocity]

Then there's always Stevie...he gets it...what a groove; this transcends Time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X00XdLhFLSg

And one last one from Sheila again, a lovely but stilled voice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QDLkhBa7c

[Stillwater]

SW...Kate Bush; the eclectic princess...first song I remember was SNL or Fridays: Rolling the Ball

Hehe... I think you mean "Them Heavy People", from her first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ceRq57SsaM

That song, of all things, was partially about projection actually.

Always loved Peter Gabriel too...

Never listened to many of Robert Fripp's solo works, but King Krimson has some brilliant songs... Exiles... Islands and the Formentera lady... the entierty of "In the Court of the Krimson King" really...

They were a brilliant band until they got on that on that strange hard electric guitar fest in the 80's...

Kate Bush also cited King Krimson of all things as an influence as well, lmao.

I am surprised I had never heard Sheila Chandra.

[Volgerle]

Peter Gabriel for me is the male Kate Bush, and vice versa, Kate Bush the female PG.

Both are unrivalled by any other artist in all their overall creative work for me, acoustically as well as visually, etc.

It was only logic that both of them were working together for a song (Don't Give Up).

Like Kate, PG's live shows are all somehow spiritual in nature for me. Just check out "Growing Up" Tour or ten years earlier the "Secret World" tour. Amazing. I cannot tell why this is so but for me there is something metaphysical to his work. Same for his earlier Genesis years.

In some songs he is even more direct about metaphyiscs. Consider "More Than This" which is about our limited (physical) reality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qta5_pY9y0

Imv, there are of course so many better songs of him, but the message is great (and fits the topic of this thread).

On this one PG also used some Sufi (= Islam mystic) famous singer's sample on this song, he also played together with him of course. If this doesn't give you chills or awe I cannot help you, best way to end your concert too, imv:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N8s9mSuxSs

From Wiki: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (13 October 1948 – 16 August 1997) (Urdu: نصرت فتح علی خان‎) was a Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis. Considered one of the greatest voices ever recorded, he possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities

Yeah, King Krimson were a great progressive rock band, I listened to a lot of prog stuff years ago (being a slightly prog musician myself), those were the old school proggers influencing a lot of other prog bands. I only had one CD though. Good stuff.

[Stillwater]

The male Kate Bush, lol... I really do wonder who that would really be.

It is hard to get in just one artist... Peter Gabriel is part of it (it was a great duo btw, wish they did more)... but then so is David Bowie.  Maybe the Tears for Fears duo is another part, and Sting yet another. Maybe the final fragment of the male Kate Bush soul was given to David Byrne of the Talking heads.

[Volgerle]

The male Kate Bush, lol... I really do wonder who that would really be.

It is hard to get in just one artist... Peter Gabriel is part of it (it was a great duo btw, wish they did more)... but then so is David Bowie.  Maybe the Tears for Fears duo is another part, and Sting yet another. Maybe the final fragment of the male Kate Bush soul was given to David Byrne of the Talking heads.

Mastermind Byrne of the Eighties! Yeah!

I watched "Stop Making Sense" countless times.

Best Live Music DVD next to the two of Mr Gabriel for me.

Best performance of a singer before a microphone in a live setting for me is this, and I really mean 'performance' here multidimensionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7pVjl4Rrtc

"same as it ever was ... same as it ever was ..."

Priceless.

[Stillwater]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-mxVxFXLg


"I don't think you have a very good voice, but you're a singer. How do you do that?"

"The better the singer's voice, the harder it is to believe what they're saying, so I use my faults to my advantage."



Always loved that.

Sometimes, you just gotta dance with a lamp, because it's the right thing to do.

[IAmWill]

Bobby McFerrin - Don't worry Be Happy