This Is Gospel – Panic! At The Disco

This is an interesting one. So I listen to Spotify while I work, and depending on my mood I’ll listen to anything from classical to country to rock. Just yesterday one of the Panic! At The Disco songs in a playlist of mine came up, and I decided to click on the band’s name and see what they’ve done more recently. I saw that they just released a new album so I clicked on the first track to check it out. The song had a curious title, This Is Gospel. As I started listening, it seemed I was hearing someone’s very raw, very personal perspective of their painful journey away from the church. Initially I thought, “Well, he could be talking about any faith. Any denomination.” However, after a couple of times through, I started doing a little research to see if I was even close in my interpretation.

To my surprise, I find that Brendon Urie, who wrote the song, “grew up in a Mormon family in Las Vegas” according to an interview from 2008. http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/jun/20/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic8” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/jun/20/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic8

It goes on to say

Mormonism didn’t set Urie apart from other kids – 70% of his schoolmates subscribed to the religion – but at 15 he drifted somewhat from the faith. He started smoking weed and listening to jazz and punk, and formed Panic with Ross and drummer Spencer Smith. When the band first started, Urie would have to skip rehearsals to go to church, but as he became more rebellious, he started rowing with his parents and staying away from home.

I then found an exclusive on MTV about the new album, which states

As Urie previously told MTV News, while much of Too Rare is an ode to Panic’s Las Vegas roots, he’s also writing about his own personal experiences. First single “Miss Jackson” finds him repenting for previous relationship wrongs, and one of his favorite album tracks, “This Is Gospel,” lived for months on his laptop before he found the courage to share it with his bandmates.

“There are quite a few songs that are very personal, about things I’ve been through with different people in my life.”

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1711049/panic-at-the-disco-asap-rocky-inspiration.jhtml” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1711049/panic-at-the-disco-asap-rocky-inspiration.jhtml

With all that, I’m pretty sure this song is about him leaving the church and the various effects his experience has had on him.

There’s a lot of feeling in the music and the lyrics, but the video is actually quite powerful visually as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGE381tbQa8

It would be so interesting to sit down with him and pick his brain about this one.