The Songs of Peter Grey
extras

(The Songs of Peter Grey Grooveshark playlist here)


(click here to purchase)

Some records of which Peter's parents approved ->

(clicking some of the images will link one to YouTube videos)


Not only did Jim Nabors play "Gomer Pyle" on The Andy Griffith Show, but he sang in a big yawny voice also.

 


Novelty records were safest, followed by ones with lyrics which didn't say much of anything, if it wasn't going to be about Jesus. Songs which were clearly about something, but not Jesus, were verboten.

 


Failed trombonist Marcie Tigner was much more successful making records singing children's hymns in a little girl's voice.

So shocked was Peter by the obvious instruments of rank Satanism being sold at R & R Records and Books, that he took his father to show him this album cover:


They actually read from the actual bible at the start of this song, it turned out. Blasphemy!

   
Some books of which Peter's parents approved->

The Jungle Doctor was a missionary who preached to the amiable, superstitious Africans, and taught them about Jesus.
The Jungle Doctor had amusing conversations with colourfully primitive African natives he was freeing from superstition in his capacity as a missionary/charity worker and bearer of the white man's burden for the two years he spent in Africa.

 

The Sugar Creek gang were a group of mischevous but bible-believing scamps who had adventures.
The Sugar Creek Gang were a group of mischevous but bible-believing scamps who had adventures.
They permitted Tintin, despite it being a comic...

...because it wasn't garish like Spider-Man


The actual issue of Spider-Man Peter's mother threw away back in the day because it was garish.
...and the Hardy Boys were okay also:

   
Peter could follow a decidely ungarish, black and white Spider-Man in painfully slow motion in the daily newspaper:

Marvel creator Stan "Stanley Lieber" Lee got his brother Larry to draw these strips for him.
Peter would have been fascinated to know that Stan "Stanley Lieber" Lee was having his brother Larry draw these strips.

Star Wars, too:


(nonstop tax joke action here...)

Peter knew that this was certainly the coolest car in the world and would one day buy a modern Dodge Charger of his own:

 

 

MP3s of the teaching of Charlie Shovel, who was really a very nice man:

 

   

 

Actual Peter Grey Songs:

 
a song Peter did about what seemed to be his church's attitude about dealing with other people and life outside the church:
Red Sweater
a song Peter did about choosing not to commit suicide, using a razor blade as a guitar pick :
Disappointed
When he got sound editing software, Peter edited together a techno-ish song with bits of preachers his father had recorded as samples :
Follow The Flock
Peter made a song out of one of John Ingwer's poems:
Eugene's Poem
Peter made a song about trying to figure out what kind of person God was :
Who Are You Anyway?
Peter wrote what he felt God's response was, into a song::
Promises (God's Country)
Peter wrote a song about how his parents were dissatisfied with his life, but unwilling to finish their sentences when criticising it:
Proud Someday
Peter wrote a very heartfelt song about his life not seeming to be working out very well:
Someday
Peter wrote a song about what it felt like to have God seem to be forcing him to grow, whether he wanted to or not:
A Bigger Frame
Peter felt he was committing blasphemy doing a mashup of a Sunday School song and Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler." But he hoped Kenny wouldn't mind.
Tell It Again? (I Don't Remember It Going Like That)
The original went like this:
Into A Tent
Peter went to a church with modern Christian pop music. To him, it sounded like this:
What Can I Say?
Peter wrote a song about meeting Benjamin Ingwer:
Hello Down There
Christian Rap that Jen was listening to while on the phone asking why Peter wasn't coming to the Youth Group Weekend:
God's House
When a new Christian radio station first aired in Matawacka, it all sounded like this to Peter:
He Loves Me (Cuz I Believe)
Peter wrote a song about what happened to his father at church:
Daddy's Cryin'

 
When Peter saw the beards on the 12" Action Squad Karate G.I. Joe dolls the other kids played with at school (obviously, beards aren't very Army, but this was a Chuck Norris rip-off...), he resolved to grow a similar beard as soon as he was able. In stricter Brethren assemblies, they weren't allowed, as they seemed too bohemian.


Imagine the exciting adventures this Joe could have, plotting courses, adjusting for windage and current...

   
A few of the hundreds of books Peter read to catch up on missed TV and movies:

Peter decided that black was the best colour of all for a car to be.

The Doctor was a British scifi hero, so he didn't have a gun, and mostly won the day by condesending to absolutely everyone and being glib and smart. A silly Sherlock Holmes in space.

Peter's father let him take Star Trek: Log Seven one June after the gym office lost-and-found box needed emptying at the end of the school year. Peter loved Star Trek instantly, and didn't know at first that this was a novelization of a Saturday morning cartoon show based on the 60s TV show.


Star Trek 2 : The Wrath of Khan would later be half remade into Star Trek 2: Into Darkness, which took away all the thinking and talking and wrath and vengeance and replaced it with a lot of disjointed posing, running and shouting. It could have been called Star Trek 2: Kirk Plus Khan, Besties , Peter thought. It was a Pandora's Box story that, once you opened it, you were glad, and could just put the genie back in the bottle and close it up, no harm, no foul.

Star Wars was the coolest thing ever. Peter knew this from reading this book, which George Lucas put his name on the cover of, but which Alan Dean Foster, it turned out years later, had really written.


"Force? Force of the devil is more like!" Peter's father always said, though he confused Star Wars with what he called "Star Track."
Peter found out that Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off (and who his dad was) from a copy of Cracked Magazine that was in the Library.

 

 
Indulging in The Things of This World further

 

 

 
Once Peter went to University and was supposed to be reading Victorian novels, some of which he'd already read years before, there was no one around to stop him buying all the comics he wanted:

Timothy Heinz did not like the Christian heavy metal group Stryper and demanded that Peter never play them for him again. Ever.:


A quieter, much prettier Stryper song is here. It is rather hilarious. Peter saw a pair of sisters sing this song at a Christian youth camp, wearing striped shirts. He was immediately besotted, so never got their names.
When Matt MacAvoy killed himself and could not be at Benjamin and Martha's wedding, they played this Stryper song with a spotlight on his empty chair in tribute. It was oddly triumphant and moving.

Timothy also didn't like Christian proto-grunge group King's X :


(click the pic and listen to the outro to the song to hear Doug Pinnick's lynx-like yowl)
One of Peter's go-to albums at University was The Northern Pikes' Snow In June:

Another was Pink Floyd's Animals:

going to England and videoing himself standing in front of this factory and playing the first song from the album on a borrowed guitar made Peter deeply happy.
going to England and videoing himself standing in front of this factory and playing the first song from the album on a borrowed guitar made Peter deeply happy.
Peter's "happy" album was Max Webster's A Million Vacations:

Once Peter had graduated University, he got his courage up, had his first beer (which he didn't like) and later went to see his first movie at the movie theatre ever (which he did). It was this one: