"When God Made Me" Lyrics

Neil Young sings "When God Made Me"
"Did God give me my voice so that others could silence me?"

UPDATE 9/10/05 - Neil Young Performs "When God Made Me" on "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast".

UPDATE 8/1/05 - An incredible volume of comments have been posted on this article. Scroll down for reader reaction.

Here are the lyrics for the new Neil Young song "When God Made Me" from Sharry (Up in T.O. keepin' jive alive) posted on Rust:

WHEN GOD MADE ME

Was he thinking about my country,
or the colour of my skin?
Was he thinking about my religion,
and the way I worshipped him?
Did he create just me in his image,
or every living thing?

When God made me.
When God made me.

Was he planning only for believers,
or for those who just had faith?
Did he envision all wars
that were fought in his name?
Did he say there was only one way
to be close to him?

When God made me.
When God made me.

Did he give me the gift of love
to say who I could choose?

When God made me.
When God made me.
When God made me.

Did he give me the gift of voice
so some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
not knowing what I might see?
Did he give me the gift of compassion
to help my fellow man?

When God made me.
When God made me.
When God made me.

The lyrics are ripe for interpretation. And everybody likes to analyze Neil's song meanings.

At first glance, certainly not Neil's most obtuse lyrics like ""And I saw you in my nightmares, but I'll see you in my dreams" but more like the enigmatic lyrics "What is the color when black is burned?".

On second glance there is a lot going on here. Start with the gospel choir-like Fisk University Jubilee Singers. The student vocalists introduced "slave songs" to the world and, in many opinions, preserved this music from extinction. So Neil has not embarked on some light-hearted exercise here as many seem to believe.

Neil and the Fisk University Jubilee Choir
From the comments below:

"Musically this is a nice song, but in terms of lyrics it's a different story. Lennon's song "Imagine" was quite unambiguous.

Young's is totally ambiguous, asking ten questions, but giving no answers. You might think the answers are all obvious, and so might I, but I doubt we agree on what those obvious answers are. Is that the beauty of this song, or its evil side?"

An interesting exercise to answer Neil's questions laid out starkly in the deceptively simple lyrics.

Others question Neil's motives. For example, on Get Religion, Douglas LeBlanc writes rather absurdly and demonstrates a complete lack of lyrical analysis -- much less christian-like empathy:

"For a few decades now, John Lennon’s “Imagine” has served as a secularist hymn. From the end of The Killing Fields to the post-9/11 America: A Tribute to Heroes broadcast, “Imagine” has been there to tell us that the world could be so much more pleasant if only everyone were inclusive enough to set aside what they believe about God, the afterlife and other trivial matters.

Neil Young played “Imagine” on America: A Tribute to Heroes, and now he’s written a song that could join it in the pantheon of believer-bashing hymns.
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You’ll likely hear “When God Made Me” many times in the coming decades, especially at elementary schools’ winter holiday festivals and weddings that favor vows custom-written by the bride and groom."

ECJ responds to the above post on Get Religion:

“The implied answer to every rhetorical question was ‘No.’ The song is a denial of both explicit revelation, and Exclusive Truth.

“Was He planning only for believers or for those who just have faith?”

He divides belief from faith, thus implicitly asserting that faith is more important than the object of the faith. Have faith in what? Can you have faith in God and yet disbelieve? Yes, you can, if what you disbelieve is the exclusive doctrine rooted in Revelation which demands conformity. If God is silent and we are all just struggling in the dark to find Him, then each man can follow whatever faith he thinks up in his own mind. Who is to question him?

“Did He envision all the wars that were fought in His name?.”

Since having faith is what is important, and not any specific content for that faith, then why should anyone fight over it? In essense he argues that the exclusive religious belief is dangerous because it leads people to fight. Of course, the important question is whether this exclusive belief is true. But he has already answered that in the previous line.

“Did He say there was only one way to be close to Him?”

This is the penultimate question. Is it true that God has revealed Himself through only one religion? Was Jesus lying or deceived or mistaken when He said “If you do not believe that I Am, you will die in your sins.” Place the question in the context of the previous two lines, and you see how the song frames the question.

This just scratches the surface. I could have just as easily focused on Providence. Or Sovereignty. I took the song and the artist seriously. And I think this is a reasonable and fair rendering of its meaning. It has nothing to do with grace and election. It presents a Theology of uncertainty - a god lost within the haze who knows nothing of holiness, and speaks with no clear voice."

In an interview with The New York Times by Jon Pareles, Young commented:

"I feel like our religion and our faith have been hijacked.

What is bothering me the most is the misappropriation of religion and faith, the misuse of God and the house of worship. It's one faith with different people trying to express it in different ways. It's all about being the little guy in the big world."

In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine by Alec Wilkerson:

"Young has a seeker's sensitivity, a susceptibility to impressions received in passing or only half-clearly. The hymn "When God Made Me" is deeply subversive. It is meant to unsettle those ardent believers whose certainty of holiness makes them feel they can abusively enforce their beliefs on the rest of the world.

"I was asking questions about faith," Young says. "But one kept evading me. I couldn't figure out what the last question was."

Not until Young realized that the recording studio was actually in a former church, was he able to complete the song.

From A churchless song: “When God Made Me” - Church of the Churchless:

"The way I see “When God Made Me,” it offers a glimpse of how much better religions would be if their focus was on asking questions that didn’t have ready-made dogmatic answers.

I’m going to make it the Church of the Churchless theme song."

Lastly, I agree with Wilco's lyrics from "A Ghost is Born": "Theologians, you don't know nothing about my soul".

More on the Live8 concert finale by Neil Young performing "Rockin' in the Free World and the Live8 concert highlights. Also, Technorati Live8 blogs.

UPDATE 9/10/05 - Neil Young Performs "When God Made Me" on "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast".

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