Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine once praised the late-‘60s, Detroit-based rock band MC5^[1]Short for Motor City 5, natch. as having “basically invented punk rock.”^[2]Though this is of course a disputed claim; other candidates for first Punk act include the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Suicide, The Stooges, the New York Dolls, White Light/White Heat-era Velvet … Continue reading Certainly, they at least innovated the concept of the politically-charged, revolutionary-minded Rock Band that groups like Rage Against the Machine^[3]Who also did a straight-forward cover of MC5’s signature song “Kick Out the Jams” on their 2000 covers album Renegades. were still working within decades later.^[4]One can’t help but wonder whether the gratuitous “Motherf*cker!” that Zach de la Rocha belts out in the climax to “Killing In The Name” is an homage to the gratuitous … Continue reading

Though with this key difference: virtually none of the political rock bands that followed in MC5’s wake has betrayed even a hint of a sincere religious sensibility^[5]And in the case of bands like Bad Religion and Dead Kennedys, have actively been contemptuous of the same–though arguably not without reason. But MC5 frontman Rob Tyner^[6]Born Robert Derminer, btw., by contrast, engaged in preacher-style theatrics openly, unironically, and un-apologetically; e.g. in the opener to their 1969 debut live album Kick Out the Jams^[7]Often cited as “one of the most powerfully energetic live albums ever made.”, he riles up the crowd by belting out, with the unmistakable cadences of a revivalist preacher, “Brothers and sisters, I want to see a sea of hands out there! Let me see a sea of hands, I want everyone to kick up some noise, I want to hear some revolution out there, brothers, I want to hear a little revolution!” Joseph Smith said he intended to lay a foundation that would revolutionize the world, and so too does the MC5.

Moreover–and what is further key here–Rob Tyner invites all present at this open-air meeting to convert to the revolution in a moment, with language identical to that of a camp-meeting preacher inviting all to let Christ into their hearts: “Brothers and sisters, the time has come for each and every one of you to decide whether you are going to be the problem or whether you are going to be the solution. You must choose brothers, you must choose! It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision, five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet! It takes five seconds to realize that it’s time to move, it’s time to get down with it. Brothers, it’s time to testify and I want to know, are you ready to testify? Are you ready? I give you a testimonial, the MC5!” The band then tears into their opening number “Ramblin’ Rose.” Alma saw no other way to reclaim the people than by bearing down in “pure testimony,” and so too does Rob Tyner.

That repeated line of “it takes five seconds”^[8]Also quoted by Spacemen 3 on their 1989 track “Revolution.” is also of a kind with that of the Born-Again preacher still extant today, wherein evangelical converts are expected to be able to identify not only the day and the hour but even the very minute when they “accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” and were saved. And I need to here emphasize that Rob Tyner is not apparently co-opting the language of the revivalist preacher sarcastically or ironically (the MC5 were often brash and provocative, but never ironical), but–as with their calls for revolution–with the utmost sincerity. And it feels further relevant to note that Rob Tyner, like many a good Upper Midwestern boy born mid-century, was baptized and raised in the Episcopal Church; and moreover that Midwestern Episcopalians in the late-19th/early-20th century were heavily involved in the Social Gospel, a widespread movement within American Protestantism that sought to apply Christian ethics to solve social problems such as poverty, crime, alcoholism, worker exploitation, the evils of war, racial tensions, and etc.

It was the Social Gospel preachers–working in the generation of Rob Tyner’s parents and grandparents–who were on the frontlines fighting for basic rights we still take far too much for granted today^[9]And which we are still in severe danger of losing again!, including: eight-hour work days, overtime pay, workman’s comp, maternity leave, the right to unionize, the abolishment of child labor, universal access to education, poverty-alleviation programs, and living minimum wages.^[10]Often forgotten in the controversy surrounding the Scopes Trial, is that the reason why William Jennings Bryan preached so passionately against the theory of evolution was because he feared that the … Continue reading It was also white Social Gospel preachers who overwhelmingly chose to march with Martin Luther King, Jr., who was also himself a premier example of a Protestant preacher fighting for social justice. Hard as it is to imagine today, there was an era within living memory wherein American Christian preachers were as likely to fight for equality and worker’s rights as they were to vote for conservative family values.

This Midwestern Social Gospel was the then-recent tradition that Rob Tyner was working within when he invited all present to take just “five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet,” repent, experience a mighty change of heart, and be saved. Indeed, when the MC5 allied with the White Panthers in supporting the Black Panthers in 1967, or performed for eight hours straight as part of the anti-Vietnam War protests outside the Democratic National Convention in 1968, or simply railed against the wealth of “high society” on “Motor City Is Burning,” they were not abandoning their religious upbringings, but fulfilling it.^[11]Christ, too, we always try to forget, had some very choice words to say about rich people and the eye of a needle…

Naturally, I find myself speculating as to what an LDS protest music could look like; cause needless to say, unlike the MC5, the idea of a “five-second” choice to accept one’s salvation simply isn’t part of our religious vocabulary. When Mitt Romney said he had “accepted Jesus Christ” as his “Lord and Savior” in an attempt to pander to evangelical voters in 2012, it sounded as false to the evangelicals as it did to members of his own faith, because we simply do not have the same concept that salvation occurs within a single moment.

Just the opposite, in fact: “And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done?” asks Nephi in one of our most quoted scriptures, “Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”^[12]2 Nephi 31:19-20 Salvation in LDS theology is not a one-and-done deal as in many sects of Protestantism, but a literal life-long process, one wherein we must “endure to the end” to be saved.

For as we often (and rightfully!) note, someone who is converted to the Gospel in a moment of enthusiastic feeling, is just as liable to fall away again once the feeling dissipates.^[13]The inverse, of course, is also true: that someone who is logically reasoned into the gospel can just as easily be logically reasoned out of it–but that was not modus operandi of the MC5 … Continue reading The MC5 themselves even provide a concrete example of this phenomenon: despite releasing Kick Out the Jams to great acclaim (or at least great notoriety) in 1969 and even breaking into the Billboard charts Top 40, they had already broken up by 1972, amidst both internal drug abuse and external apathy from a rapidly dwindling fan-base that had swiftly moved on from their flash-in-the-pan antics. They would much later go on to have endless reunion tours^[14]Even after Rob Tyner died of a heart-attack in 1991. and fawning documentaries made about them in the decades to come,^[15]They even released a fourth and final album just last year in 2024! but of course those reunions never sparked any great electoral revolt or mass-movement, nor were they ever more than pale reflections of their initial run.

But hey, at least they did have an initial run! And it’s not like we’re not often touring on past glory ourselves! We are a long, long ways from the tremendous spiritual outpourings of Kirtland, Nauvoo, and Liberty Jail, and our Pioneer Treks are only ever tepid facsimiles of the real thing. Nor have we ever produced a real protest music within our own tradition: this, despite the fact that Joseph Smith, Jr. attempted to set up a perfect United Order of no-rich-no-poor in Missouri–which Brigham Young in turn tried to replicate in Utah territory–and despite the fact that the sacred Law of Consecration is still encoded as the highest and concluding covenant of our most sacred Temple ritual to this day. Heck, we don’t even have a strong tradition of protest or social activism, like, just in general. We sure like to quote Joseph Smith’s “I intend to lay a foundation which shall revolutionize the world,” but we don’t really enact it. With only the rarest of exceptions^[16]e.g. Eugene England, Lowell Bennion, etc., we were decidedly not involved in the Civil Rights struggles and anti-war protests of the ‘60s at all—nor are we as a people engaged in anything similar today.

That’s not to say we can’t, or don’t have any examples to follow: On the contrary, our own Book of Mormon is replete with prophets like Lehi, Abinidi, 3rd Nephi, Samuel, and more, who all bravely continued the ancient Hebrew tradition of prophets risking their lives to preach loudly and apocalyptically against the corruption of the prevailing social order. Orson F. Whitney famously once said we could have Shakespeares and Miltons of our own; so too could we have Rob Tyners and MC5s.^[17]Indeed, given that Kick Out the Jams came out over 55 years ago, we are long overdue to be beyond them by now.

But then, I suspect that if we did, it wouldn’t sound anything like the MC5 at all: it would perhaps look less like the revivalist preaching of a Rob Tyner, than the quiet confidence of a sacrament speaker, who seeks to encourage the congregation to not just rise up in a momentary flourish of passions, but to continue to fight the long fight long after the initial exhilaration wears off, and endure to the end. Indeed, even on just a practical and temporal level^[18]Though according to D&C 29:34, there is no difference between the temporal and the spiritual anyways., an “enduring to the end” mindset is also the only our protests and activism can persevere long-term anyways.