Progressive Rock, Religion, and Theology

Frank Felice is associate professor of composition, theory and electronic music in the School of Music, Jordan College of Arts at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University.

Artful academics meet art rock. Much like the music they analyze, Frank Felice and James F. McGrath’s scholarship is virtuosic, complex, and inventive. And also like the artists considered, their multidisciplinary approach, with its attention to music theory, poetics, and theology all at once, blurs genre boundaries. Deserves to be read with 2112––or equivalent, as tastes dictate––playing in the background.

• IntroductionChapter 1: ELP’s Tarkus: Religion and Politics in a Post-Apocalyptic LandscapeChapter 2: Yes: Prophets of a Spiritual and Musical New AgeChapter 3: Genesis’ Supper’s Ready: Messiahs and MetamorphosesChapter 4: Jethro Tull’s Songs about God: A Prog-phetic Condemnation of IdolatryChapter 5: Kerry Livgren’s Kansas: From Syncretism to Monotheism and Complexity to SimplicityChapter 6: Rush’s Freewill: Beyond Election to Choice as a Theological AnthemChapter 7: Neal Morse’s Similitude of a Dream: A Recasting of Pilgrim’s ProgressConclusion