I didn’t really know much about Larry Norman, but a friend was very keen on his music, collected the vinyl LPs, and dragged me along to a live concert at the Hammersmith Odeon one time. A versatile rock artist, Larry Norman was a thorn in the flesh of the Christian establishment after his conversion by continuing to perform rock music, but with Christian lyrics. (“They say I’m sinful, backslidden, but like a moth drawn to the flames/Here I am, talking about Jesus just the same”). How times have changed.
His music spoke to a generation – “I wish we’d all been ready” was like an anthem for the Jesus people of California, out of which emerged a range of alternative forms of Christian faith and community, youth mission movements, Keith Green, John Wimber and the Vineyard church, and beyond. Larry Norman and Arthur Blessit (he of the mobile cross and Jesus stickers) almost seemed like two sides of an image shattering double act. Norman’s theology may have been questionable, but the influence was huge.
He was also a great comedian. His imitation of Mick Jagger (jaw jutting out, little waddling ducksteps across the stage) at the Hammersmith Odeon was priceless. Then the house went very still when he followed this up with the comment “He never said ‘thank-you’.” His songs celebrated friends. “He loves you” was addressed to a range of them – Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Charlie Watts and others – imagining them playing in a band together – “McCartney on the Hoffner bass/With his blistered thumbs;/Dear Bobby watch your fears all hide/And run away as love inside starts growing;/Ah, you’re older and less colder now/Than the jokes and folks you spent your childhood snowing;/And someone died for all your friends/And better even yet he lives again;/And if this song does not make sense to you/I hope his Spirit slips on through – he loves you.”.
Many of his songs are timeless and still speak to today – “Drinking whisky from a paper cup/You drown your sorrows till you can’t stand up/Take a look at what you done to yourself; why don’t you/Put the bottle back on the shelf?”. He saw the world with a child’s eyes, and he was that child: “Think back to when you were a child/Your heart was happy and your soul ran wild/Each day was different, and life was a thrill/You knew tomorrow would be better still”. But he was also the person damaged by experience in the same song: “But things have changed you’re much older now/If you’re unhappy and you don’t know how/Why don’t you look into Jesus, he’s got the answer”.
Larry Norman’s life lived out the songs; he was hurt by the criticism which his music drew down on him from the Christian community he did so much to energise. His personal failures were a disappointment to some, but a message to others that none of us is without weakness and character flaws, and that just as he bounced back (“Here I am, talking about Jesus just the same”) so can we.
There was something about his life that spoke through the music, and there was a non-conformity, a “fierce independence” as one person has put it, which blazed a trail for others that today it is almost entirely non-controversial to travel down. And at the heart of it all: “if you know a wonderful story, you want to tell it to your friends, /That a lifetime spent with Jesus is like a street that never ends”. Rest in peace, Saint Larry!
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