Posted on 10/13/2005 6:51:04 AM PDT by chambley1
When C.D. Hylton High School's marching band performs during Friday night's football game, they will be playing a different tune.
This year, the marching band is performing a Georgia-themed halftime show, to celebrate their upcoming trip to perform at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta in December, band director Dennis Brown said.
Until recently, the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" was in the marching band's line up of Georgia-themed music.
The lyrics of the song describe the devil's attempt to steal the soul of a fiddle player in Georgia by challenging him to a fiddling duel.
On Oct. 2, The Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger published a letter to the editor arguing that while no one objected to that song about the devil, there would be objections if the band were to play a song about God or other spiritual beings.
After that letter ran in the paper, Brown dropped the song from the marching band's program.
"We did play the song at one game, because our theme was 'Georgia on my Mind,' " Brown said in a phone interview Tuesday. "Then we read Mr. [Robert] McLean's letter to the editor and we have since dropped it from the show."
In the letter, McLean wrote, "A high school band director would be fired for playing 'Amazing Grace' but no one bats an eye for the playing of a song about the devil … [H]ow can one mention the devil, and not be able to mention a Christian God?"
Brown said that the letter was the first objection he had heard to the song.
"That was the first time we heard anything negative about it. A lot of teachers have told me how much they like the song. And four years ago we played that same selection, and didn't hear anything like this," Brown said.
Brown made the decision to drop the song to prevent any negative attention the students or school might receive because of it, he said.
"Our goal was just to entertain the community. I don't want the kids or Hylton High School to receive any negative attention because of the song," Brown said.
McLean said he did not intend his letter to be criticism of the school or the song.
"I like the song. I thought their version was good," McLean said in a phone interview Wednesday. "I just thought it was kind of ironic that they could play that song, but they wouldn't be allowed to play a song about God."
The marching band will replace the song with "Pick Up the Pieces," beginning this week, Brown said.
Hylton principal Carolyn Custard could not be reached for comment by Wednesday evening.
We have been picking up pieces ever since the American nomenclatura dictated that we follow political correctness.
Sounds like Brown is some kind of leftist himself and agrees with the concept of removing God from everything, even in non-vocalized, by-implication-only references in musical pieces. Either that, or he's just a spineless wimp.
Talk about mixing apples and oranges. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is not a song "about the devil" in the same way that "Amazing Grace" is a song about God. Besides, the devil lost the fiddling match, didn't he? As a Christian, I can be happy about that.
I wonder if Texas HS bands would have the same problem if they played "God Blessed Texas"? Oh, I guess they might if some busybody contended that it's a religious song.
God haters know no bounds.
His comments seem like any other posting on FR, simply pointing out that it makes no sense to ban one song and not the other.
His comments seem like any other posting on FR, simply pointing out that it makes no sense to ban one song and not the other.
The letter writer was named Mclean. Brown was the one who caved in to it.
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