BACK ISSUE
Remember When We Caught The Spirit? (Feat. Pastor Shirley Caesar and Ashon Crawley)
Can You Hear It? I Know You Caught The Spirit
This week, Josh and Tracy are taking you to church. First, they talk about their time in the pews, from the ways they've had to reconcile their faiths and identities to the music that has stuck with them. They hear about the deep, poetic roots of Gospel in Black identity from writer and professor Ashon Crawley. And they sit down with pastor and legend Shirley Caesar to talk about her reverence for the music, her unforgettable “greens, beans, potatoes, tomatoes” meme, and the importance of finding joy right now.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Speaker 1: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross.
Speaker 2: Hoe, but make it fashion.
Speaker 3:But you ain't heard that from me.
Speaker 4: Fierce.
Speaker 5: Can't stop.
Speaker 6: You see, when you do clown over stuff, the clown comes back to bite.
Speaker 7: I didn't get no sleep because of you all.
Speaker 8: It's Brittany, bitch.
Speaker 9: Y'all not going to get no sleep because of me.
Speaker 10: We were rooting for you, Tiffany. [crosstalk 00:00:22].
Speaker 11: Who said that?
[Intro Music Begins]
Josh Gwynn: Welcome to Back Issue.
Tracy Clayton: A weekly podcast that revisits formative moments in pop culture that we still think about.
Josh Gwynn: This week, trouble don't last always.
Tracy Clayton: Hallelujah.
Josh Gwynn: Gospel music.
[Music Changes]
[CLIP]
Jesse Jackson: It's morning time!
Damon Wayans: I have to speak to him in tongues. He was very upset.
Speaker 12: Be still and let God fight your battles.
Kirk Franklin: GP, are you with me?
Tracy Clayton: Each week, we'll go back to the past and revisit unforgettable moments that we all think we remember.
Josh Gwynn: And learn what they can teach us about where we are now.
Tracy Clayton: I am the illustrious doctor, Reverend Tracy Clayton, emeritus senior.
Josh Gwynn: Come on senior. And I'm choir director, Josh Gwynn.
[Music Ends]
Josh Gwynn: Hey Trace.
Tracy Clayton: Hey what.
Josh Gwynn: Today, we're going to talk about gospel music.
Tracy Clayton: Amen, I need some Jesus in my life. (sings) Hallelujah.
Josh Gwynn: We’ll be talking about the power of gospel with Professor Ashon Crawley and the person who is gospel, Pastor Shirley Caesar.
Tracy Clayton: Hold my mule!
Josh Gwynn: Where were you the first time you heard “green, beans, potatoes, tomatoes.”
Tracy Clayton: I don’t know where I was when I heard it but immediately after, I ascended to heaven, because it was perfect.
Josh Gwynn: Me also, as well. But, that’s later in the episode. First things first, I gotta say, I’ve been listening to a lot of gospel this year.
Tracy Clayton: Same.
Josh Gwynn: 2020 has just been plot twist after plot twist and just so much heaviness. And I just find myself going to gospel for some relief.
Tracy Clayton: That makes sense to me. Is that something that caught you off guard?
Josh Gwynn: I think a little bit, because my relationship with faith has always been internally contentious.
Tracy Clayton: That was a very pregnant pause right there. So I feel that it's on your spirit. Talk to me. Talk to me about this contention.
[Music Begins]
Josh Gwynn: Well, I grew up in church, right?
Tracy Clayton: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh Gwynn: I went to Sunday school, vacation Bible school, I even went to religious school, so I was going to church three to four times a week.
Tracy Clayton: Oh, you was one of those church-all-the-time people.
Josh Gwynn: Yeah. I was that kid.
Tracy Clayton: Bless your heart.
Josh Gwynn: We used to have Bible verse drills and learning all these Bible verses and getting up in front of classes and saying what they meant to me. And then we, at Sunday school, we always had Tang and Graham crackers ...
Tracy Clayton: Ew.
Josh Gwynn:... together.
Tracy Clayton: The pallet just doesn't sound sanctified if you ask me.
Josh Gwynn: But I've always really wanted to have faith, to feel certain about something. And I feel like when I was little, at times I felt that way, but then I started to come of age and I started to realize who I was. And I started to have parts of my identity in direct opposition to what I was hearing from the sermons and church. And that led me to start questioning. And eventually, I felt like I had to leave for my own self preservation. For my own self preservation.
Tracy Clayton: I was just going to ask if it felt like an unsafe space for you once you became conscious of the complexities of being human and that versus organized religion, because there's a really big tension there.
Josh Gwynn: You're right. There's a lot of tension there. I always felt at odds because I always did feel safe in church. I was surrounded by my community. I was surrounded by my family. I was surrounded by people who were speaking about morals. I was surrounded by people who were speaking about virtue, but at the same time, I was not old enough to really take the agency in being directly who I was. So I always felt like, “Man, if these people really knew, they wouldn't like me.” They wouldn't have me here. So that conflict really led me to feel as though organized religion maybe wasn't a place for me in particular.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah, I'm curious, what changed for you between then and now?
Josh Gwynn: This year I feel different because I think what's happening is my body is in survival mode.
Tracy Clayton: Hello.
Josh Gwynn: It has this muscle memory of times in which I felt secure and times in which I felt supported and times in which I felt-
Tracy Clayton: Safe.
Josh Gwynn: And it's like, “Hey, maybe if you listened to these things that were playing at the same time when you felt those things, maybe you'll feel them again.” For example, I will wake up in the morning and then grab my phone-
Tracy Clayton: Mistake number one.
Josh Gwynn: You know! And doom scroll for about 30 minutes and then I'll feel my breathing shallow. I'll feel my blood pressure go up. I'll feel the tension in my neck and my shoulders. And my first thought will be like, okay, what can I do to calm myself down now? And so the first thing that I'll do is I'll throw on ... You know my favorite song to throw on?
Tracy Clayton: Probably, but what is it in case I'm wrong?
[Music Ends]
Josh Gwynn: Sounds of Blackness, Optimistic.
Tracy Clayton: I was right. I should've said it. I should have believed in myself, I should have had faith in myself.
Josh Gwynn: Exactly.
[CLIP of “Optimistic” by Sounds of Blackness]
Tracy Clayton: That is such a good song.
[Music Begins]
Josh Gwynn: And it's one of those songs where it sounds so much of its time and the music video is even more so, it's giving you '90s.
Tracy Clayton: Absolutely.
Josh Gwynn: It's giving you bright graphic colors. It's giving you Queen Latifah hats.
Tracy Clayton: Yes. And so much spritz in those hairstyles.
Josh Gwynn: Exactly.
Tracy Clayton: And the little curls, the little waterfall curls.
Josh Gwynn: Yes. And the song itself, it just feels like a personal pep talk. Some people do power stances before big moments when they need to pump themselves up. I listen to Optimistic, which is like a gospel adjacent song.
Tracy Clayton: But basically gospel. It's diet gospel. Just one calorie. The margarine of gospel.
Josh Gwynn: I can't believe it's not gospel. It's inspirational at the very least.
Tracy Clayton: There you go.
Josh Gwynn: And it makes me feel calmer. I can feel my shoulders fall. I can feel my breath deepen. I can feel my body relaxing.
Tracy Clayton: Is the calmness that you get from gospel music and this song in particular, is it because it reminds you of your grounding and your faith and your religious upbringing? Or is it something about just the music itself that does it for you?
Josh Gwynn: I mean, the song is a bop let's admit ...
Tracy Clayton: I mean, absolutely.
Josh Gwynn: Regardless, but I don't think that if it only reminded me of my time in church or my walk with faith, that it would calm me down. I think it would actually make me a little bit more anxious because I felt very internally conflicted as a queer person. And so I think gospel music reminds me of a lot more than that. What's your relationship to faith?
Tracy Clayton: My relationship to faith can unfortunately be summed up by the story of my first tattoo.
Josh Gwynn: Tell me, tell me, tell me.
Tracy Clayton: So what happened was I was raised in church, not church every day though. Almost every Sunday, at least on Easter, because that's the one time that I guess Jesus watches extra close and everybody's like, we've got to go to church today. By the time I get in college, I'm like, eh, that's when I officially stopped going to church. I always kept the gospel music though. So I'm 18, I'm in college, I don't really do church anymore. I want a tattoo because I'm 18 and I'm no longer living in my momma's house. But the thing is I don't believe in anything deeply enough at 18 years old to get it on my body forever. I might as well have got an AC Slater's name tattooed on my body somewhere, glad I didn't.
Josh Gwynn: Me too.
Tracy Clayton: Anyway. Me, my friend Brittany, and my friend Candice, and my friend Deon, we decide we're going to go to maybe the one tattoo and piercing place in the city where we were going to college. I've never been a show-myself, show-my-body-off type girl, but I'm like, maybe I can be one day if I get this sexy ass tattoo in my lower back, which people disrespectfully call a tramp stamp, first of all, don't do that. But that's what it is, right? So I knew where I wanted it, but I was like, what do I get? I don't know. And we're looking through the book, and it being the year 2000, it's dolphins and butterflies and shit. And I'm just like, I am more sophisticated than that at least. And so we decide to go with the Chinese ideograms. Then I see the one that is supposed to mean faith. And I'm like, faith is important. You should have faith in things. It doesn't have to mean religious faith. It's important to have faith that you're going to wake up tomorrow. It's important to have faith that you're going to pass this test, but in the back of my mind, I'm also like, “When I get to heaven, if God got issue with the way I was acting on earth, I can be like, ‘but I got this faith tattoo lord.’”
Josh Gwynn: I listened to George Michael!
Tracy Clayton: Exactly. I've been on this. So I get the tattoo. 2004, I'm at this cute little outside fare type situation. And there is a Chinese calligraphy tent. And so I walk up to the lady and I'm like, "Hello, this is going to sound strange because I don't even know your name, but can you read my back for me and tell me what it says?" And she looks at it and she's like, "What were you told that it means?" I was like, "Faith."
Josh Gwynn: That's not a good first question.
Tracy Clayton: It's not great. It's not great at all. But thankfully, the translation, according to her, was teacher or to teach. I mean, in hindsight, I guess it still sort of represents faith to me, but what it represents is my constant tension with that idea. And when I was younger, the tension was just within spirituality and gospel and church and that kind of faith. But then I get older and I get depressed and when you get depressed, you lose your faith in a lot of stuff.
Josh Gwynn: Yeah.
Tracy Clayton: It's hard to hope as these past four years have definitely taught us. When you just ain't got it. Sometimes you've got to talk to Shirley Caesar and Kirk Franklin and see what they've got.
Josh Gwynn: He'll tell you what to do.
Tracy Clayton: He'll sick it right back at him.
[Music Ends]
Josh Gwynn: So I think that we should put together our inspiration mixtape, the songs that we've taken with us from this church background that still have survived to the secular world.
Tracy Clayton: So I have a playlist on my phone called Get Your Jesus on.
Josh Gwynn: Wait.
Tracy Clayton: So on this playlist are both songs that have very motivational messages that I listen to for the message. And then there are some that just remind me of down-home and church and songs at my church.
Josh Gwynn: Like the physical space of church.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah. And that kind of transports me back to a time when I was young, I didn't have any responsibility or full knowledge of how terrible the world was. So one is a song that was made famous by the incomparable Mississippi mass choir called Your Grace and Mercy.
[CLIP of “Your Grace and Mercy” by Mississippi Mass Choir]
Tracy Clayton: And I love this song because no one has completed this song in less than 47 minutes. It takes so long from start to finish because it's just all the acrobatics. And people get to shout.
Josh Gwynn: Oh, I love it.
[CLIP of “Your Grace and Mercy” by Mississippi Mass Choir]
Tracy Clayton: Then the organist starts feeling it. And it's just like, “Y'all, I've got to go home and put this chicken on the stove.” Right?
Josh Gwynn: Yes.
Tracy Clayton: But there's just something about a mass choir. It just reminds me of those red velvet pews at Fifth Street Baptist Church.
Josh Gwynn: Shout out.
Tracy Clayton: Shout out. There's a part after four or five words, you hear a lady in the church just scream out loud, just like bloodcurdling.
[CLIP of “Your Grace and Mercy” by Mississippi Mass Choir]
Tracy Clayton: And I'm like, lady, he hasn't gotten through a sentence yet.
Josh Gwynn: Wait, at the beginning?
Tracy Clayton: Yes. He finishes the first round of the chorus and she's like, ah. (singing) Speaking of the mass choir genre of gospel songs. Almost any version of, I Won't Complain just makes my soul feel good.
Josh Gwynn: Why?
Tracy Clayton: Because the whole song is a complaint when you listen to it. He said, "I had some good days. I had some hills to climb. I had some weary days. I had some sleepless nights. Can't pay my bills. The dog ran away, but ... " But
[CLIP]
Rev. Paul Jones: I won’t complain.
Tracy Clayton: You did just kind of...
Josh Gwynn: I love it.
Tracy Clayton: It just makes me happy.
Josh Gwynn: I feel like this is a big theme within gospel music. One of my favorite songs is Don't Feel No Ways Tired, made famous by Reverend James Cleveland.
[CLIP]
Reverend James Cleveland: I don’t believe he’s brought me this far to leave me.
Tracy Clayton: Yes.
Josh Gwynn: I remember hearing the song Don't Feel No Ways Tired and then going to history class being like, “These things don't matter.” How?
Tracy Clayton: Something is off. There is some tension here between this messaging.
Josh Gwynn: Make it make sense, Lord. You know another recurring theme that actually gives me comfort in this genre of music, even though it's kind of morbid?
Tracy Clayton: You said morbid so I think I know.
Josh Gwynn: Wait. Guess.
Tracy Clayton: That they're all about the day that they die and they get to heaven and they're finally happy.
Josh Gwynn: How is this comforting? Why is this comforting?
Tracy Clayton: I don't know.
Josh Gwynn: But it is. One of my favorite gospel songs of all time is literally about rejoicing in the day you die.
Tracy Clayton: Yes.
Josh Gwynn: You know Goin' Up Yonder, right?
Tracy Clayton: Oh, absolutely.
Josh Gwynn: One of my favorite performances of Goin' Up Yonder was at Aretha Franklin, RIP, at her funeral ... Shaka Khan got up there with her fan because she didn't know the second verse of the song.
Tracy Clayton: Girl.
Josh Gwynn: And so she's reading the lyrics off of her fan. And the paper says all of the lyrics of the second verse. And then at the bottom it just says, “bam.” I loved it. I loved it.
[CLIP of Chaka Khan singing “Goin’ Up Yonder.”]
Tracy Clayton: Idol.
Tracy Clayton: If there are non-black people listening right now and you need an illustration of how terrible shit has been for black people since we was brought over here.
Josh Gwynn: Okay.
Tracy Clayton: So much of gospel is about, don't worry, one day we'll be dead. And this will all be over.
Josh Gwynn: Like, that's the silver lining, is that one day you won't be breathing one day. One day, you won't have to experience the bullshit that is the world.
Tracy Clayton: And one day it won't be no white people for us to bother with.
Josh Gwynn: Exactly. Puts things in perspective.
Tracy Clayton: Don't it?
Tracy Clayton: Most of my gospel loves are old school gospel, right. But I do love me some new age stuff too. And a song that honestly, like all kidding, all joking aside, always, it just like gives me something is Yesterday by Mary Mary.
[CLIP]
Mary Mary: I decided to put my trust in you.
Tracy Clayton: So this was after hurricane Katrina and they made it in tribute. So you hear the New Orleans funeral procession, jazz band playing in the background. It's just like, I decided that I cried my last tear yesterday. And I was like, “You know what, Mary and Mary, so did I. So did I.”
Josh Gwynn: If we mention Mary Mary, we have to mention-
Tracy Clayton: Your favorite gospel song to twerk to.
[CLIP]
Erica Campbell: I luh God. You don’t luh God? What’s wrong with you?
Josh Gwynn: I love God. You don't love God?
Tracy Clayton: What's wrong with you?
Josh Gwynn: Songs like that, where it's like, gospel is also hip kids. It just reminds me again of this time in my life where I didn't have obligations, I didn't have responsibilities. All I was expected to do was to listen to my parents and show up to church and watch this youth pastor talk about how Jesus was my homeboy too, because they were trying to make it relatable and approachable to me.
Tracy Clayton: Yes. You know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of this genre of standup comedy that's basically just like church comedy.
Josh Gwynn: Yes.
Tracy Clayton: You just reminded me of this song way, way back on Comic View.
[CLIP]
Edwonda White: I say Jesus is the homie. We be kicking it all the time. And the choir say he the homie.
Tracy Clayton: So, so, so funny. And I think that the reigning King of funny gospel stuff is Ricky Smiley.
Josh Gwynn: Ask Rick Smiley.
Tracy Clayton: Ask him! So I feel like everybody knows like, oh, church announcements bits he used to do with the church lady hat and just like so perfect. He used to do these prank calls as the church lady. And they were just so wholesome and pure. It wasn't like when white people call somebody and just like, “Hey, your kid died. It's a prank.”
Josh Gwynn: I hate that.
Tracy Clayton: I hate that so much.
Josh Gwynn: Or when they call and they're like, “We have flowers, who do you want us to send them to,” to see if someone's cheating? It's like, wow. So you're just like a emotional terrorist. Great.
Tracy Clayton: You just think it's funny to ruin lives and also to get my boyfriend killed.
Josh Gwynn: And also stop playing on my phone.
Tracy Clayton: Get off my damn phone. Seriously. So my favorite Rickey Smiley church lady prank phone call is this one where he calls another church lady and somehow they start singing Pass Me Not together.
[CLIP]
Ricky Smiley: Hear my humble cry. Thank you Jesus!
Speaker 14: You feel his spirit? Yes lawd.
Josh Gwynn: Wait.
Tracy Clayton: And then, instead of singing with the lady, Rickey Smiley starts telling her how the words first.
Josh Gwynn: Kirk Franklin style.
Tracy Clayton: Kirk Franklin style, yes. I think it's so, so, so funny. It's so pure. It is so pure.
Josh Gwynn: The fact that she was just like, mm-hmm (affirmative), whatever you need. I got you.
Tracy Clayton: Right, right.
Josh Gwynn: I can sing it. I got you.
Tracy Clayton: Then she started to put some sauce on it, once Bernice got into it.
Josh Gwynn: One of my favorite church humor devices is the Gospel Rewrite.
Tracy Clayton: I love a musical rewrite. I love it. I love it.
Josh Gwynn: I love it. Do you know who Cameron J. Henderson is?
Tracy Clayton: I do not. Who's that?
Josh Gwynn: Cameron J. Henderson is this YouTuber who goes viral all the time because he remakes pop songs as gospel songs, or he'll just do covers of pop songs. But in these videos, it's like Eddie Murphy meets amen.
Tracy Clayton: Oh, I'm in already.
Josh Gwynn: And by that, I mean he plays 10 characters and you can tell that they're different characters because they have different wigs on.
Tracy Clayton: That's my favorite thing, when the only thing that's different is the wig.
Josh Gwynn: Exactly. And he has this character named Starkesha who has a box braid wig on. And she always looks like she doesn't want to be there. And he does this cover of Normani's Motivation
[CLIP]
Normani: Imma break you off, let me be your motivation to stay and give it tonight.
but as a gospel song.
[CLIP]
Cameron J Henderson: He turned my life around, got that holy innovation, now I am living so right. Pray about it, ooh, just pray about it.
Tracy Clayton: Wow. I love it.
Josh Gwynn: And my friends say pray about it, just pray about it all the time to each other.
Tracy Clayton: So genius.
Josh Gwynn: Another example is, do you know who KevOnStage is?
Tracy Clayton: Yes. Yeah. I love KevOnStage.
Josh Gwynn: KevOnStage is so funny.
Tracy Clayton: Hilarious.
Josh Gwynn: He has this video where he does a gospel version of Bodak Yellow by Cardi B.
Tracy Clayton: Oh my God.
Josh Gwynn: Instead of changing the words, he just changes the way that they're delivered.
Tracy Clayton: I need it.
[CLIP]
KevOnStage: One time I make bloody moves, one time. I make bloody moves, hey, hey. I make bloody moves, he died. I make bloody moves, on the cross. I make bloody moves, my sin. Josh Gwynn: I love it.
Tracy Clayton: What a spin on the gospel rewrite. Wow.
Josh Gwynn: I have one more example.
Tracy Clayton: Okay.
Josh Gwynn: There's a YouTuber named Christina Marie and on Instagram she's _queenxtina and she did this gospel rewrite that she calls a remix to Ella Mai’s Boo’d Up. You have to hear the chorus.
[CLIP]
Christina Marie: I could never repay you. Listen to my praise going hallelujah, glory hallelujah!
Josh Gwynn: Genius.
Tracy Clayton: Wow.
Josh Gwynn: MacArthur Genius Award.
Tracy Clayton: Around, around of apple sauce.
Josh Gwynn: Do you remember how big Stomp was?
Tracy Clayton: Oh, absolutely.
Josh Gwynn: It was at very wedding, every funeral, every birthday.
Tracy Clayton: Street party.
Josh Gwynn: They would play the cha-cha slide and then they would play Stomp.
Tracy Clayton: I say we bring it back, honestly.
Josh Gwynn: I mean, I'm here for it.
[CLIP]
Kirk Franklin: You better put them hands together and have a holy ghost party with me.
Josh Gwynn: Another one of the moments that really sticks out to me when I think about gospel crossing over into, " mainstream pop culture," is that gospel music was such a staple in R&B in the 90s. Every R&B group had one gospel song that was the last song on their album.
Tracy Clayton: Yes, yes. Yes.
Josh Gwynn: I think about the Destiny's Child gospel medley.
[CLIP]
Destiny’s Child: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
Tracy Clayton: I love it.
Josh Gwynn: They also had that song where Kelly comes in with the strength of all of her ancestors and it's just like, amen. It's so good.
[CLIP]
Destiny’s Child: Amen.
Tracy Clayton: Fun fact, if you enjoy their rendition of that, listen to the original, it's called Total Praise by Richard Smallwood.
[CLIP of “Total Praise” by Richard Smallwood]
Tracy Clayton: It is just so good. It's one of those songs where I always feel overcome by the sonics of the music and just this unity of all these voices singing together and everything just fits together so perfectly. And it is just, it's good when they do it, the three of them. Imagine a choir hitting that shit. I shouldn't say shit. I shouldn't say shit. Sorry, Lord. My bad. God forgives, that's what I was told.
Josh Gwynn: He's not done with me yet. But the overwhelming nature of the physical sense of hearing the sound, feeling the vibrations in your chest, it can take you places. Take The Preacher's Wife soundtrack, for example. Whitney Houston, RIP. Yo, this album is top two and it's not number two. It is so good. And she performs with the Georgia Mass Choir. She has a song called I love the Lord. And you hear Whitney, one of her vocal peaks and she's directing this huge crowd of other talented singers, even in this call and response that feels so full and so crowded with all of these people yelling out about how much they love God, it feels so individual. It feels so vulnerable, even though you hear this crowd of people singing.
[CLIP of “I Love the Lord” by Whitney Houston]
Tracy Clayton: It just feels very insidery because we have the references. Like of course, Whitney Houston is going off, because this is how Whitney Houston started to sing. This is her in her element of elements. A lot of us have references for that sound, the visage of seeing this big old choir. And to have that in a movie like The Preacher's Wife with a superstar like Whitney Houston, where she is in her element, it really does feel like stuff like that was made for people who came from a similar place.
Josh Gwynn: That cultural space.
Tracy Clayton: Exactly. Exactly.
Josh Gwynn: There's this moment where Whitney Houston is singing to Arsenio Hall, when Arsenio Hall had his late night show. He asks her, "What's the first song that you remember singing?" And she says, "Guide Me Now, Great Jehovah." And he's like, "Let me hear a little bit of it." And she tilts her head back, closes her eyes and-
[CLIP}
Whitney Houston: Guide me o thou great Jehovah, feed me til I want no more.
[Music Begins]
Josh Gwynn: In that moment, you can hear her tap into something that is beyond her and that she just knows to be true. For me, what gospel music does is it gives me a fast track to that feeling that I think a lot of people get through sermons or get through the word. I didn't get that through the word. I didn't get that through a lot of the things that they were saying in church. But the feeling that you feel when you hear a choir, all singing together and a pianist is riffing around this person who just is feeling it in the moment and everyone's together, unified, feeling the same thing, that is what I feel like I get. It gives me a fast track to that feeling without having to circumvent or interact with, what at times, has felt dangerous and confrontational to my existence.
Tracy Clayton: Absolutely. I agree.
Josh Gwynn: It also connects me to my blackness in a really fundamental, really elemental type of way that feels very deep.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah, like it's anchored somewhere.
Josh Gwynn: Anchored deep in it.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah. And I've never thought about gospel music in this way before. So I think we might've just did something a little bit. I don't know.
[Music Changes]
Josh Gwynn: Tracy, there’s so much that we could say about gospel. But I think we need to take a moment, park it here, talk to someone who does this, who studies this, who thinks about the effects of gospel on the body and our sense of community.
Tracy Clayton: That is a wonderful idea. We need to break this down with someone who thinks about this stuff a lot.
Ashon Crawley What gospel music is, when black folks do it, the attempt to say through song that we are worthy, that we are sacred, that we are lovely and loving and can be in deep, caring relationship with one another.
Tracy: Professor Ashon Crawley - he works at the University of Virginia - and we asked him how he thinks about Gospel Music.
It is the making of sound and song that says that there is something better than this, that there is something more urgent than this, that there is something vibrant and deeply spiritual that we all have the capacity to reach.
The sound of the choir, the sound of the Hammond, the sound of this improvizational drive that black folks do when they are singing this music is the sound of love, like it is the sound of what it means to care for the fact that we breathe like so the ways that we use our breath when we sing, the ways that the preachers use their breath, when they're preaching, the ways that we use our breath, when we're shouting like it takes a lot of energy to do these things, that our breath is really, really important.
Josh: When we think of this year - and you know I hate doing that -
Tracy Clayton: Honestly, I don’t recommend it, just don’t do it.
Josh: Side effects may include... It’s really hard for me to divorce the fact that we’re finding comfort in gospel music, which is a form that Professor Crawley says emphasizes the importance of our breath - of our ability to take in physical oxygen in a year where that ability has been threatened, by a global pandemic of a respiratory disease, by the pandemic of racism, the deaths of Eric Garner, George Floyd, or Eric Harris. All people killed by the police. All who said they could not breathe.
Tracy Clayton: It’s so wild that I did not pull all those things together until right now. I think I just have trouble processing as well. Listening to how Professor Crawley explains how white supremacy literally robs us of our breath the same way a respiratory disease might really puts it in context for me and helps me understand.
Ashon Crawley: I think of these collective sounds that the sound of the Hammond organ working with the sound of the preacher, working with the sound of the choir, working with the sound of the hand clapping, that this is a collective practice of breathing. It's a collective practice of recognizing the importance of what it means to breathe in a black life, because our breath is not guaranteed and our breath is often the thing that is targeted for violence and interruption. And so these practices feel so sacred to me and the sounds feel so good to me because what they're doing is they're showing how real our breathing is and how beautiful our breathing sounds, how beautiful the breathing vibrates, what that feels like when we can sense it.
[Music Ends]
[31:40 INTERVIEW - PASTOR SHIRLEY CAESAR]
[Music Begins]
Shirley Caesar: I grew up singing gospel. I don’t know any other kind of music.
Tracy Clayton: If you do not know who Pastor Shirley Caesar is that’s fine. I’m not judging today. She is so much more than the “greens beans potatoes, tomatoes” lady She’s got roots that run deep like the Nile, roots that run deep like the river that Langston Hughes was talking about in his poetry.
Josh Gwynn: Get your pastor on. Get your preaching on.
Tracy Clayton: You knowI used to read, it’s true. She been out here, y’all. She is an icon. She is a legend
Josh Gwynn: And she is the moment. She talked to us about how she conceptualizes gospel music, what the role of the genre in our pop cultural landscape today, and if it’s okay to take what you need from it, even if you ain’t in church on Sunday.
[Music Ends]
Josh Gwynn: What do you feel when you hear an organ and a choir? What moves inside of you?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I tell, okay. Come on feet. Let's go to dancing. And especially with my Mike Mathis. Michael Mathis, that's my minister of music. And he's like a part of me, a part of my family. And it's just something about him that once he, I'm ready, I'm ready, girl.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah. I mean that alone. We were both just like, yes, I feel it. I feel something, just in that little bar that you gave us right there. And I think it's so amazing. I've always wondered, I was born in the South. That was a baptized black southern Christian around six or seven years old. And from me being a youth, my understanding of what the pastor was saying in the pulpit, sometimes I got it and sometimes I didn't, but the thing that always got was the music and the feeling of the music. Even if I didn't understand what they were saying, I could feel what they were singing. And I've always wondered how is singing the Word different from speaking or receiving the Word?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: After a while, people would get bored with you just standing there just talking to them, but once you put some music to it, and I'm getting happy just talking about it, but all of a sudden, boy, you go to rocking, you go to the folding those arms, which is all together different.
Josh Gwynn: Me and Tracy were talking earlier about how a lot of our formative memories are around when we were children in the space and people were singing and this gospel music was playing. Why do you think that there's such a strong connection and such a link that can't be broken between Black culture and gospel music?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Well, let's go all the way back.
[Music Begins]
For a long time, that's all the slaves had. They had their song. If they didn't have anything else, they had their song. They made those songs up through their problems and through everything.
Josh Gwynn: And circumstance.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yes. (singing). All those old hymns, and they wrote them out of their crisis. You got to understand that singing will never go out of style. Even in Heaven, there'll be no need for preaching, there'll be no need for testifying, but singing, I promise you, I got my spot already on the choir.
Tracy Clayton: Amen. I hear you. This reminds me of what you were saying about going all the way back to our ancestors and how music was the one thing that helped to keep them going through some really, really difficult times.
[Music Ends]
Shirley Caesar: Yes, yes.
Tracy Clayton: And I remember when I was a little girl growing up in 5th street Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky, my grandmother would not be happy with me if I did not say that, I do remember being young. And I feel like there was a transformation for me between the type of gospel music, let's say, that my grandmother loved, she was more of an old-time religion lady, Pass Me Not, He Will Remember Me, and I as a kid always wanted the flash. I wanted a drum section. I wanted some horns. Do you sometimes hear a gospel song and being like, "That sounds a little too much what they doing in the clubs."?
Josh Gwynn: Too secular? Yeah. Yeah.
Tracy Clayton: Yeah. Do you have those moments?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yes, I've had them, but it really doesn't bother me now because when Kirk Franklin first came out with songs like Stomp and-
Josh Gwynn: Stomp. Jam. I love that song, Pastor.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were jamming. They were really jamming then. And a lot of the church people didn't allow it, but he did not change his style. And when they found that out, they said, "Well, if we can't beat them, we may as well join them." So I don't see anything wrong with it now. In fact, I like both of them.
Josh Gwynn: When you think of how this genre of music that starts in the church has traveled so far and to so many different people, whether they go to church or whether they don't, what do you think the role of gospel music is, even for people who maybe aren't church-goers, who just find comfort in the music itself?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Everybody is going through something.
Josh Gwynn: Yes, ma'am.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: When you can reach back and you can sing an old hymn that says, "Oh, Lord, I want you to help me," (singing), something about those lyrics helps to bring them through. So as we write these songs, we know that it's going to hit somebody. I've got a song out, it's called Take Your Knee Off My Neck Because I Can't Breathe.
[CLIP of “Take Your Knee Off My Neck Because I Can’t Breathe]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I noticed that the police were steadily killing our young Black boys, young Black men, and then went on over to the women. I said, "No, we got to go for the jugular, man." It talks about, "Take your knee off my neck because I cannot breathe. How would you like it if that was done to you? How would you like it if somebody would come and shoot up your house while you’re in the bed? How would you like that?"
Tracy Clayton: You just alluded to Breonna Taylor. That happened in the city where I am from. I think that's another thing that leads me back to gospel. There've been times when I didn't really know or understand what it is that I believe, if that makes sense.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yeah, it makes sense.
Tracy Clayton: But I've always known that I believe in something. And during some of those times when Breonna Taylor was murdered, I remember just feeling so confused and hurt and angry, and I didn't know where to turn to get any sort of solace.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: And you had a lot of, "Why? Lord, why? Why did this happen?" All of that. So when I look around and I see how the voting went. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
Tracy Clayton: Amen. Amen.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I just believe, young lady and young man, I believe that God is getting ready to vindicate us.
Tracy Clayton: Even in moments where I feel like so confused and I don't know who's up in the sky and this, that and the third, sometimes it doesn't matter because going back to my grandmother's gospel, I'm thinking right now of Hold On To Unchanging Hand, that was one of her favorite songs. And I think that when the world-
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yeah. That's my favorite hymn.
Tracy Clayton: Oh!
Josh Gwynn: Really?
Tracy Clayton: Something in common.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yes.
Tracy Clayton: Oh, my goodness.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Amen.
Tracy Clayton: Amen indeed. But I think it's that idea that something constant is always going to be Gospel and the importance of joy and just having it in your life and being able to find it, even when it doesn't seem like it's there anyway.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: There's a difference in joy and happiness.
[Music Begins]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: See, happiness is ephemeral. Yeah. It's not going to last. The joy of the Lord gives you a strength. Let me tell you something. I've lost all of my family members, but me. I'm one of 13 children, but that doesn't take my joy. I miss them, especially around the holiday season. I miss them. Whenever they would come to my house and my brother would bring his keyboard in and place it on top of my piano and, boy, they'd be down here singing. I couldn't get downstairs fast enough. I miss that, but I still got joy. After all the things I've been through, I still have joy.
[Music Ends]
Tracy Clayton: I need a reminder that there is something good, somewhere, somewhere, happening. It's that joy.
Josh Gwynn: Somewhere.
Tracy Clayton: Right. And a joy that I've had in the past handful of years is seeing a new generation of young folks discover you and gospel via Hold My Mule, which of course is the meme…
[CLIP]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I got beans, greens, tomatoes, potatoes, lambs, rams, hogs, dogs. You name it
Tracy Clayton: How did you feel when you discovered what the youth were doing with this song?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Girl, boy, they would just finger popping and stuff and shaking it.
Tracy Clayton: Loved it.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: But you know what? I tried to be creative when I'm singing. And so when I got to the end of Hold My Mule and I was talking about (singing) and then I got...
Tracy Clayton: Somebody get the collection plate. Pass it around.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I remember on one of the songs I said, "He was standing in the bean patch, the cabbage in front of him and the color greens here." And then I said, (singing).
Tracy Clayton: Love it. It just instantly makes me happy. It really, really does. The first time I heard and saw the videos that the kids were making, I was like, "Ooh. Pastor Shirley going to get you all. I don't know. I don't know if she's going to like this one."
Josh Gwynn: "You all are in trouble."
Tracy Clayton: "Y’all in trouble."
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I mean, bot, they were just shaking it and shimmering it, and I'd never seen such happening, such going on in the old folks... But you know what? I was on this cruise and somebody called me and they called me to tell me that my beans and greens had gone viral. I couldn't believe it. By the time we got here, people started asking me, said, "Did you know about beans and greens?" I said, "What about it?” I had no idea. And lo and behold, some young man picked it up and zoom it went. So, hey, I'm grateful. I am grateful for (singing).
Tracy Clayton: Oh, my goodness. I worry a lot as a sometimes wayward Christian, which is how I sometimes describe myself. Sometimes I find that I feel bad for enjoying things like the meme or even for enjoying gospel music when I haven't been to church in such a long time.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: So what you need to do is come back to church.
Tracy Clayton: The answer was right there.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: But I think that I kind of share some of what Tracy is saying in terms of that guilt sometimes.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I do too. I was really just playing.
Josh Gwynn: I feel like there's a lot of people within our generation that maybe grew up in church and maybe had to find a different way, because they didn't feel included or they didn't feel like they could square their identity with what was happening at the sermon. But still, especially this year, they find comfort in the music. Do you think that it's bad for people to take comfort in that, even if they maybe don't consider themselves practicing Christians?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: I don't think that it's bad. You know what? During these troublesome times, you got to reach out and find joy. I've heard the young lady said that sometimes she feels guilty because she's able to find joy in other places. You're going to have to find your joy. You got to have some joy. However, I would consider that as being happy, because real joy comes from the Lord. But happiness? Oh, yeah. The Bible said, "Think yourself happy."
Tracy Clayton: Sounds like my therapist. That's what she says.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yeah. See? "Think yourself happy." I know something about tears. I know something about having to be strength for all of my family members. I know something about that. I know something about getting away from them and crying like a baby. I know what it is to cry after losing your mom, losing my husband. I had to find joy. And it does not mean I don't have no more mountains that I got to climb, no more problems, but I just have to be ready for every turn. And sometimes I have to reach back and get my song, get a song. And that's what you have to do. You got to find some real joy from somewhere.
Josh Gwynn: Say you're having like a really bad day and you just feel really low and you close your eyes, what's the first gospel song that you hear?
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.
[CLIP of “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine”]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: That's an old hymn. And then I go back to her grandmama song, which is mine, To Hold To God's Unchanging Hand.
[CLIP of “Hold To God’s Unchanging Hand”]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Lord, I know that this corona is beating us. It's killing us. But God, in spite of that, I'm going to hold on. I'm going to hold on, because I know that we've been indoors for but because I know that weeping endures for but a night, and sometimes night can last a long time. But the time is going to come because joy comes in the morning and the time is going to come when you can say, "Good morning." Another song, though, that helps me is called He'll Do It Again. Just take a look at where you are now and where you been. Let me tell you something. You're better off now than you were then. You may not know how, and you may not know when, but he'll do it again. I think about that song and it encourages me.
Tracy Clayton: Oh my goodness.
Josh Gwynn: I feel so encouraged now.
Tracy Clayton: I really, really do. I just realized that such a big part of gospel and its healing power and properties is seeing what it's done for somebody else, even if you feel like it hasn't done for you.
Josh Gwynn: It gives you empathy.
Tracy Clayton: Oh my gosh, just hearing and seeing your testimony and hearing that somebody else has been through it and back around again, and they still have hope, they still have faith. It's contagious and I needed it today.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Yes it is.
Josh Gwynn: Right on time.
Tracy Clayton: Absolutely. May not come when you want him.
Josh Gwynn: He may not come when you want him.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: But you know what? He's an on time God.
Tracy Clayton: Yes he is.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Not only is he on time, but he's in time. Let me tell you, been there, done that. Got the t-shirt, got the cap. Been there. Amen. Yes. Sir.
Josh Gwynn: Yes Ma'am.
Pastor Shirley Caesar: This is how I could send it straight through this little cord here, straight into your heart, straight into the hearts of millions of people to let them know that don't give up. Don't give in. Don't throw in the towel. Weeping endures for a night. Your morning is coming. Your morning is coming. This too shall pass. You're going to come out of it.
[Music Begins]
Pastor Shirley Caesar: Now you may come out with some scars, but you're going to come out of it.
[Music Fades]
[49:49 End of Interview with Pastor Shirley Caesar]
[Music Begins]
Tracy Clayton: All right, Josh guess what time it is.
Josh Gwynn: What time is it?
Tracy Clayton: You got a watch, it's 5:11. Just playing. Just playing. It is time where we take a page out of Tyra, thee Banks's book and we reflect upon the things that we have discussed ... I'm trying to add a T-H to everything, like they do in the Bible.
Tracy or Josh: Did we--
[CLIP]
Tyra Banks: Learn something from this!
Outro Music
Josh Gwynn: I learned that someone has parked their Passat in the preacher's parking lot.
Tracy Clayton: What?
Josh Gwynn: We learned that gospel is something that we can return to. We learned that culture returns to it. Another thing that it brings up for me, even though I don't necessarily feel faith, I feel something in the embodiment of it that I can feel within gospel that practicing that I feel like I can find some peace. It’s like a fake it til you make it type of thing. The solace that I find in the ritual of it, putting my body in the phases that it’s accustomed to, that it associates with family and togetherness and blackness, that is a good in and of itself even if I am still on a journey of figuring out what I feel and what I believe, what feels true to me.
Tracy Clayton: Speaking of spiritual journeys and stuff, I was a practicing Buddhist for about two months back in 2006. I was looking, I was trying, Lord. I'm going to make a confession. I got a copy of Buddhism for Dummies. Very insightful.
Josh Gwynn: Did it help?
Tracy Clayton: It did. Here's one of the things that it taught me that I now just realize I can apply to the black ass gospel that I came from. The book started off talking about how Buddhism is not a religion. It's a way of life. There are Jewish Buddhists and Catholic Buddhists and just plain Buddhists or whatever. At the beginning of the book, they explain that Buddhism is here for us to take what we want and what resonates with us and to leave everything up.
Josh Gwynn: Oh.
Tracy Clayton: It's okay to just engage with the gospel and to leave the sermons alone. If the sermons aren't what feeds you and the gospel is, then eat up Boo. It's okay. It's fine.
Josh Gwynn: I think it's good to lean into the things that make you feel good. As long as they're healthy and they're not illegal, anything that can leave you optimistic, see? See what I just did?
Tracy Clayton: Hey, circling around, coming on back to the front.
Josh Gwynn: Anything that can make you feel optimistic can't be bad.
Tracy Clayton: Amen.
[Music Changes]
Tracy Clayton: Now is the time for our announcements. Pastor, members, and friends, Back Issue is a production of Pineapple Street Studios. It was created and is hosted by me, that is Sister Tracy Clayton, and also Joshua Gwynn. He running around the sanctuary somewhere. I think he needs some of that ritalin or something. I don't know. Our lead producers are Josh Gwynn and Emanuel Hapsis, who is just a fine, a fine individual, Lord, that's a good one right there. Managing producer is John Asante. I think that's the boy that came in here on the exchange program. Our senior editor is Leila Day. She make a good banana pudding Lord, a good banana pudding. Our associate producers Alexis Moore and Xandra Ellin, who are my favorite biblical heroines. You can find them in the book of Ruth, chapter 70 something verse something other. Our intern, Ms. Briana Garrett. Special thanks to Gabrielle Young.
Tracy Clayton: Our executive producers, ain't seen him around the church for a long time, is Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky. Starting to think y'all on the sick and shut ins list. You think Jesus don't know about your tithings, Jesus know. Jesus know. Thank you to our choir, instrumentalist director, Mr. Don Will. It sounds like God will, but it’s not. You can follow him on something called the Tweets @donwill and also thank you to our visiting choir director 6 cents, who was the organist you heard at the beginning of the show. 6 cents, I don’t know if that is a gospel given name but we love you anyway. Praise God. We would also like to thank our guest organist Mr. Keys Moore that was on the organ. Y’all my need to put something in the collection plate. Can we do that? We can’t do that? All the money goes to God? If you would like to listen to Pastor Shirley Caesar’s gospel song, Take Your Knee Off My Neck then there’s something called Spotify that the chirrin say you can listen on and when you find it, come help me find it.
Tracy Clayton: You can follow me, Tracy, @brokeymcpoverty. I ain't got no money, but I still tithe. You can also follow Josh as soon as he sits his behind down, somewhere running around the church @regardingjosh. Subscribe to this podcast wherever free podcasts are sold. Tell your friends and your neighbors because the joy of God ain't no good if you keep it to yourself. Amen.
Tracy Clayton: Also, somebody reach out and tell me what the hell is a podcast. I got to go get some macaroni cheese. Until next time, may his peace be with you till we meet again and do not forget, stay out of my parking space. I know I ain't got no handicap sticker, but I got a bad foot. Y'all stay blessed.
Josh Gwynn: Wrap it up.
Tracy Clayton: Wrap up what? Would you tell Jesus to wrap it up? It wasn't me. It was God doing it.
Josh Gwynn: Hallelujer.
Tracy Clayton: Praise God.
ENDS [:55:41]