When Love Makes You Hate, You Know You're Loving Wrong...

Sometimes it shocks me just how much hate there is in the world. I'm not talking about war, guns, bombs or murders, although obviously those are terrible things. No, what I'm talking about is how people can hate with the least provocation.



Some things you might not know about me:

• I'm a Christian


• I love music


• Two of my favourite bands are Switchfoot and Green Day

I recently bought Hello Hurricane, and having only listened to it a few times I already love it. Living in the United Kingdom makes it pretty difficult to get music by Switchfoot, since they're not such a big deal over here, but after visiting a Christian Music store, and getting the CD especially ordered I got hold of it - true dedication, yes?

In a moment of boredom I got to thinking... How good would it be if my two favourite bands met/ collaborated/ whatever. Well, stranger things have happened, right? To Google I merrily went and searched the two bands - not much came up which was relevant, but I was intrigued by some people who had set Green Day music videos to Switchfoot songs - intrigued, that is until I scrolled down and read the comments. Here's a sample of what people said [sic]:

f*ck you for making this vid u stupid f*cking *sshole what the f*ck is wrong
with you using this gay f*cking christian for a GREEN DAY tribute how about
using some GREEN DAY u dumb pr*ck

Ur a POS for making this vid dont put a switchfoot song on a green day vid and your mother hates u




When someone protested at the angry commentators' complete verbal destruction of both a band, their music and s person's religion, this is the reply they recieved:

f*ck u f*ggot i will say whatever the f*ck i want about ur gay christian music

Well, what a lovely specimine of a human being! If I'd been the person who posted that video, I think I'd have been in tears at the negativity - and presumably that wasn't the worst there was, as a few comments had been removed.

I find it incredibly depressing that people can have this attitude - Switchfoot are a talented band, whose lyrics are meaningful and have touched me on many occasions - and though the members are Christian, not every song is a Praise song, they make a wide range of music which can appeal to everyone.

I can understand that those who aren't Christian might be intimidated or at least wary of the Christian Rock genre, but does that mean that it should be dismissed offhand, and its fans subjected to such abuse? I doubt a Christian would do the same to a Green Day in the same situation.

A fact about Green Day and Switchfoot: A they actually have some common ground - for one thing Rob Cavallo, who produced a good many Green Day albums also produced Hello Hurricane.

Obviously, the angry Green Day fan feels very passionately the band, but when loving something means you hate everything a little bit different, the you must be loving it wrong - and it's about time to weigh up your priorities. I doubt Green Day would want their fans to abuse other bands, or people who experiment with combining sounds, would they?

My message is this: be a little bit sensitive to the opinions of others - it's easy to get sucked into a little world where your own obsession is the only thing in your world, but let other people in. And if you can't do that, at least allow them to exist outside without attack.

(Switchfoot are headlining at the Frenzy Festival in Edinburgh in June, and I'm very excited!!)