December 29, 2025

It's time for my fourth and final installment of music-based sins in this "Sin of His Father" series. I am tired, uninspired, and will just turn the installment over to James, the one band for which Lincoln and I (and his mother) share the most love.

Ape your father's sins/

Your mother's mood swings/

To perfection.¹

I ain't touching the line about his mother's mood swings, but you better believe he's aping my sins. This, is why, I must say

Ladies and gentlemen/

Welcome to my disease/

Give me a standing ovation/

And your sympathy please.²

"Johnny Yen" released seven years before I have even heard of the band, and thirteen years before Lincoln's birth, may be the single-most important song in his and my collective appreciation for the band. It features prominently on James' 2002 Getting Away With It. . . Live DVD. As a toddler, Lincoln lives in a home that will play this DVD (and accompanying CD) repeatedly. It's not often one can find the direct correlation between cause and effect. An obsession with music, in terms of dissecting it, analyzing it, rating it, is the disease that Lincoln inherits from me. Don't take my word for it. Take his. Lincoln, like me, is a member of rateyourmusic.com, and here is what he writes about "Johnny Yen" in his articulate and lengthy review of the DVD/CD: 

Johnny Yen -- This song itself is the best example of James. Equipment failures before the song lead to massive doubt. They figure out an idea, and perform a song I've never cared for from their first album to a live version that I truly consider to be utterly outstanding. The last 2-3 minutes feature James' definitive chemistry and ability to jam out and make it beautiful and epic. "From chaos comes beauty."

Definitely a chip off the old block -- well, with the exception of him not citing the direct quotation there at the end. But he ain't wrong, you know. The band's manic energy really comes out in this live version. Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, your standing ovation and sympathy please.

Our mutual obsession may not be for the best. Who can say? But we can hum along to it.

There's nothing to say/

I get in the way/

Unable to break obsession.³

"English Beefcake" makes a delayed entrance into our mutual obsession. I had been hooked on the song from the first time I heard it, but it seemed to have taken Lincoln a little longer, probably inspired by the fantastic (and generally surprising) performance included on the 2019  Live In Extraordinary Times DVD/CD (Are you noticing a trend, yet?).  Hear those lines above over and over, as the accompanying music mostly drops out and Tim Booth's haunting repetition drives home the obsession. Sorry, Lincoln, there's nothing to say. This is who we are.

Eventually this appreciation for language, as driven home by rock and pop lyrics, had to consume Lincoln as much as me. He may have more unfinished novels than I do. Perhaps he too asks, maybe in the dark of night:

Where is my craft leading to/

Am I damned or am I blessed?⁴ 

I hope "Top of the World" never leads him to rue the sin of needing to write. I never intended to give him burdens. I certainly hope his craft leads to something more than a personal website. More importantly, "Top of the World" may remind him of what is most important in life:

Will my good friends desert me/

Or will they prove themselves?⁵

This is a mentality not lost on the two of us: Lincoln's loyalty to good friends is admirable, making me realize that he too, when he is in his sixties, will probably, like his old man, still be in constant contact with the friends he grew up with. After all, someone needs to keep you humble and remind you of when you did stupid stuff like drink too much. Healthy self-perspective is crucial when doubt and exhaustion threaten to undermine us. While neither one of us wants to invoke sympathy, I do believe we both can kowtow to the sentiment of "Someone's Got It In For Me":

What a state I'm in/

My self-pitying/

Here's another victim/

Singing suffering.⁶

We are both sensitive enough to recognize when we fall into such self-pity and how difficult it can be to avoid that. The song demands us to "let it fall away," but that is no easy task.

Ultimately Lincoln has developed a stronger spiritual armor than I have, a characteristic that has become what I admire most about him. James sums this up in the accurately entitled "Life's A Fucking Miracle":

What shapes our lives is our mind/

Thoughts become material/

Power lies with those/

Who control our story lines.⁷

Lincoln's senior high school English project argued how America is, and has always been, an oligarchy. I always assumed that it must have been quite the presentation in ultra conservative Cass County. It was then that I saw the promise of his mind. We can than add on top of it a spirituality that crushes mine (although it is a comparison akin to Power Football conference versus Division 3 Football conference). The combination must lead his mind to ponder the deeper questions, although he may share those more with his mother. The most profound question I am likely to get is,"What James' song do you most want to hear them perform in concert?" Anything that makes you happy, my boy, but let's hope it is an obscure track off of Whiplash.

And just when I thought I was free/

I got pulled in again.⁸

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¹"Sound." Seven. Fontana Records. 1992.

²"Johnny Yen." Stutter. Sire Records. 1986.

³"English Beefcake." Pleased To Meet You. Mercury Records. 2001.

⁴"Top Of The World." Gold Mother. Fontana Records. 1990.

⁵Ibid.

⁶"Someone's Got It In For Me." Millionaires. Mercury Records. 1999.

⁷"Life's A Fucking Miracle." Yummy. Virgin Records. 2024.

⁸"Blue Pastures." Whiplash. Fontana Records. 1997.

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Full Sins of His Father Series.