I Am The Resurrection And The Life

Here I am, on the way to Heathrow. Not for any exotic journey, but for a board (and bored) meeting. We met in 'Johannesburg' but that was as exciting as it got. Any way, on the journey thither, I put the CD on. The Stone Roses. But why play it all, when we all know (don't we?) that all builds up to the final track, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life', with its huge instrumental indulgence at the end. (As a friend put it, if the air guitar did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it for this track.)

But this song raises questions for me. It's bloomin' obvious that there are, uhum, religious resonances here. The singer finds life, energy, hope and dignity... by quoting the Bible, John's gospel, Jesus. 'I am the resurrection and the life.' But I do not want to domesticate the song. It is a little hard to find the fulness of compassion and reconciliation in 'You're a no-one nowhere washed up baby who'd look better dead'. So do we just conclude that trendy '90s Mancunians were good at picking up the odd leftover from Christianity, from Christendon's culture, and leave it at that?

I cannot leave it at that. The song peaks when it transfigures its distancing from and disdain for the other and moves on to Resurrection and Life (rising about an octave in the process - try singing along). 'I am the resurrection and I am the life/I couldn't ever bring myself to hate you as I'd like'. Echoes here, for me of Nietzsche's idea that the 'superhuman' is the one utterly, utterly free of resentment. And as for that distancing, and disdain, well, you know that is biblical too. Think of the psalms. The psalmist is famously so confident of their relationship with God that they know they can get it all off their chest, from the demand that God kills off their enemies to their self-hatred and sense of abandonment.

I know the Stone Roses are passe. But in other ways too I am convinced that our society is not so much 'post-Christian' as residually Christian. And... it's important to sing along, a little too loudly, to the songs which have moved us, and move us still.