Larry Norman in a Better Land

“An intimate evening with Larry Norman”. That was the newspaper headline.

If memory serves me, it was in the spring of 1983 when Larry Norman performed for college students not two hours from my home. (Kathy was able to attend the performance.)

In a box of clippings stacked away in storage, I likely still have the account of that intimate concert. I missed the event and now I will not have another opportunity to see the daddy of Christian rock music do a concert.

I even missed the news of his death. I went to the CGR site (it is here) and found a forum threat titled “In Honor of Larry Norman’s Passing.”

Turns out he died in February of a heart condition he had been battling.

In the 1970s, Larry Norman wasn’t afraid to challenge conventions . . . just like another musician whose untimely death prompted in me feelings of personal loss, Keith Green.

I have strummed Norman’s “I Am A Servant” on the guitar and I’m familiar with his haunting lyrics about the end of the world in “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” I know a few of his songs, certainly not all of them.

He asked the Church a question, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” Not merely giving a rationale to play religious rock and roll, he was bringing his conversion to meet his passion for music and determining what fit and what didn’t correspond to a Christian lifestyle.

It was a public evaluation for all to view, if you took the time to read the liner notes on his LPs. Not everyone agreed with his conclusions. But thanks in part to Larry Norman, it isn’t necessary to wear a crewcut and love southern gospel music to hear the gospel.

Why Should the Devil Have All The Good Music? Even as Norman acknowledged an existential search by secular songwriters, he challenged the church to find bridges of communication with culture. Consider the questions:

How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? (Dylan’s response: The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.)

Who’ll stop the rain? (John Fogerty’s solution: And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain?)

If God had a name, what would it be? And would you call it to His face? (answers to Joan Osborne’s questions provided by Mel Fletcher here.)

Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven? (Eric Clapton’s response: I know I don’t belong, here in heaven.)

They ask the important questions, seeking structure to help make sense of life’s particulars.

Thanks Larry, for the answers your musical message gave us – that there is a another land.

A land where you have gone.

A better land.