Galaxie 500’s 1988 debut single and signature song “Tugboat“^[1]Featured in the 2012 film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was almost too on the nose if you ask me. is famously a direct allusion to Sterling Morrison, lead-guitarist for The Velvet Underground. Whereas the other principals of that legendary band–Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico, Maureen Tucker, even Cale’s replacement Doug Yule–all pursued solo careers to varying degrees of success after the Velvets’ demise, Morrison instead elected to pursue a PhD in English at the University of Texas-Austin, specializing in Medieval Literature^[2]His dissertation was purportedly on the four known signed poems by the Old English Christian poet Cynewulf.. He never joined another band. To quote the Doctrine and Covenants, he ceased to seek for riches but for wisdom^[3]D&C 6:7.

As a former English PhD candidate at a central-time-zone university myself–one who also listened to way too much Indie-music in college (not to mention harbored way too many fantasies of playing in a cool-as-hell rock band)–I am naturally quite charmed by the story of Sterling Morrison. Indeed, I almost resonate too much with him, because Morrison also had to find alternate work when his teaching assistantship ran out.^[4]Man, has Academia always been this stupidly difficult?! Though even here, the alternative work he finally settled on still ended up being impossibly romantic: he became a tugboat captain in the Galveston Bay area near Houston.

The members of Galaxie 500 (all Harvard grads themselves) were obviously quite charmed by the legend of Sterling Morrison as well–the alt-rocker with the soul of a scholar–and so made their debut single a tribute to him.^[5]Though again, they were almost too charmed by the legends of The Velvet Underground, even following their same trajectory: frontman Dean Wareham abruptly left the band after only 4 years just like … Continue reading Sterling Morrison should also be of especial interest to those of us essaying to be Latter-day Saints, because, again, he alone of the Velvets consciously eschewed the temptations and pride and vanities of this world, to instead “seek out of the best books words of wisdom”^[6]D&C 88:118 as an English PhD; to pursue “intelligence,” which per our own scripture is “the glory of God”^[7]D&C 93:36; that is, he chose to “lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better”^[8]D&C 25:10–an ideal that so many of us pay lip service to, but so few of us ever actually do.^[9]Our lips are near, but our hearts are far…

And above all else, he chose to spend his life to serving others^[10]“For when ye are in the service of your fellow being, ye are only in the service of your God.” -Mosiah 2:17.. Because seriously, he become a tugboat captain; that is, he dedicated his life to bringing sailors home to safe harbor. How much more obvious can your religious symbolism get?

And it is now, as I re-listen to “Tugboat” for the umpteenth time, that I cast my eye back towards my own faith, and behold how many of my co-congregants also sing such safe-harbor hymns as “Brightly Beams our Father’s Mercy“–who belt out “O Babylon, O Babylon, We Bid Thee Farewell” as they preach how we must likewise resist “the world”–all while still actively pursuing the honors of the same. For as we all know, Mormons, relative to our tiny numbers, are vastly over-represented in the realms of business, law, politics, medicine, pop-music, pro-sports, and (yes) academia. I review our current roster of Apostles and General Authorities, and there read off a frankly-impressive list of PhDs, JDs, MDs, MBAs, CEOs, and VPs for such pyramid-schemes as NuSkin and others. These are obviously not the humble ones of the world.

Now, it is of course not a sin to excel at something; “Eternal Progression” is a core part of our doctrine, and we should all be constantly striving to improve ourselves anyways. But I also don’t think it out-of-line (or even particularly novel) to note that it matters as much what we excel at as how; that one can climb to the top of a ladder only to find it leaning against the wrong wall; that Joseph Smith was not a wealthy and successful businessman but an obscure farm boy with a third-grade education; that the original twelve Apostles were largely fishermen (that is, small-boat captains as well); that Christ was a carpenter; and that the Lord “has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen”^[11]1 Corinthians 1:27.

For as we also all know, at the final judgment bar of Christ, we will not be quizzed on how much money we amassed, or what terminal degrees we attained, or what honors we received, but rather (at least if Matthew 25 is to be believed) how well we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, helped the stranger, and visited the imprisoned.

That is, we will solely be asked how many of our fellow sojourners we helped bring home to safe harbor.