I Wrote a Paper for My History of Rock Music Class About Reason Rally!

Reason Rally

On March 24, 2012 Reason Rally was held on the National Mall. It was a gathering of about 20,000 atheists, the largest gathering of it’s kind in the world! At this rally there were a multitude of speakers, videos, and musical artists who were amazing. All of these people had the same messages: it’s okay to not believe, there are a lot of us! I even got to meet my favourite blogger, Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist)! There were many artists, but I’ve only chosen three to write about because they are the three that have stuck with me.
The first artist (as in the very first person for the day) that performed on the stage was Andy Shernoff from The Dictators. He sang “Get On Your Knees For Jesus ‘til He Comes” and “Ready to Rapture.” Both of these songs were comedy songs and they were hilarious! The crowd sang right along and got really into it. My favourite part was in “Ready to Rapture” when he said:

“…judgment day is come,
are you ready to rapture?
Our saviour, you have spurned,
he loves you forever,
but the unbelievers must burn…”

It brought back my first memories of me questioning in Sunday school why people who were good but not Christian weren’t going to Heaven. It was a great performance to kick the rally off with. I always say that the quickest way to unite a lot of people is either with food or comedy, and the organizers chose comedy.
The next musical artist that came the stage after a speaker was Shelley Segal, who is totally adorable. I had never heard of Shelley before and at first I thought that she was a complete folk singer because it was just her and her guitar, but I have since bought her album entitled “An Atheist Album,” and she is much more folk/rock. She played songs called “Saved,” “Eve,” “Apocalyptic Love Song (for Hitchens),” and a brand new song called “My Morality.” “Eve” really hit a nerve with me, since I’m a feminist, along with being an atheist. This song is about how the Bible tells women that they are not as important as men and that they need to be subservient, even there is no scientific, empirical reasoning behind it. It’s also about how just because Eve ate an apple, she and all other women are punished with painful childbirth, as though shoving something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon would be anything but painful.
I really think that Shelley was my favourite artist of the day. She sang with honesty and an earnestness that a lot of mainstream artists don’t really have anymore.
The final artist that I want to mention is Tim Minchin. He was someone else that I had never heard of, but I immediately fell in love with him when he walked on stage. My boyfriend says it’s because I like guys with weird hair and/or a lot of eyeliner, but I digress. From what I remember he played “Thank You God (Sam’s Mum),” “Pope Song,” “Confessions” and a 9 minute beat poem entitles “Storm.” “Thank You God” is about faith healers and how instead of getting medical treatment and praying for something useful like ending famine in Africa, getting people out of poverty, or bringing Freddie Mercury back to life, they pray for things like finding the peanut butter and fixing middle class people’s cataracts.
“Pope Song” is about the pedophile priests and it contains the word “fuck” about 80 times, which makes it one of the best songs ever.
All in all, it was a great event. I had so much fun and made a lot of new friends and discovered music that I now love and scare my grandma with. I feel as though the music really pulled the event together, because music, like comedy, is one thing that everybody loves.

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I love being in a class where I can write a paper that's like a blog post!

Kari