Most listeners must now be aware of the furor that engulfed the Muslim world early in
2006 after a Danish newspaper printed caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that many Muslims deemed defamatory.  In turn, the furor inspired impassioned defenses of free speech in Europe and elsewhere.  Most provocative was a cartoon depicting Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb.  The implication was clear: modern Islam has veered toward religious fanaticism and violence – a charge its adherents vehemently reject.

Religious fanaticism has a long history, however - a history, as Fear Of God reminds us, not limited to Islam.   Islamic extremism has nevertheless dominated the news in recent years as a consequence of the September 11 attacks in the United States, and so both September 11 and the recent uproar triggered by the cartoons of Mohammed impart timeliness to this song.

Listen to FEAR OF GOD

Complete lyrics:

A memory haunts me, the night of the storm
On a muddy road, I walk alone
An ancient man comes down the road
I say “hello”, he says “I’m God.  Do you fear me?” 

I say, “Hey, man, ain’t afraid of you”
He says, “you ain’t seen what I can do”
Lightning shatters the thick black night
A dungeon shimmers in the flickering light

A man lies stretched on a strange device
Surrounded by priests with eyes of ice
The old man says “that’s called a rack
What you said before - want to take that back?
Do you fear me?”

 I say “old man, just let me through
I got places to go, and so do you”
The streak of lightning is like a fiery snake
And a girl stands bound to a tall wood stake

Joan of Arc, he says, has a heretic heart
The Church commands that the burning start
The fire rises to taste her skin
She cries “My God”, I watch him grin.
He says, “fear me”. 

Her cries are mixed with the fire’s hiss
“Oh Lord, My Lord, please spare me this”
I hear her last cry, I watch her last breath
Then I see her shrouded in the smoke of death

The rain pours down ‘til it starts to flood
The sky turns red and the rain is blood
I start to slip, he grabs my hand
“I’m God”, he says, “don’t you understand?
Do you fear me?” 

I start to tremble, he sees my fright
He calls me witness to his fearsome might
So the world will know he’s in our midst
And where he mingles, there’ll be no rest

He doesn’t need racks, he doesn’t need stakes
Just a bomb or an Uzi is all it takes
From the mount where Solomon walked at night
Where Mohammed the prophet rose in flight
The world will learn what I came to learn
When I saw the rack, and I watched Joan burn -
Fear Him!