Unholy: Sam Smith, The Grammys, and Live & Let Live

Critiquing The "Unholy" Performance At The 2023 Grammys

Sam Smith’s and Kim Petras’ performance of their single “Unholy” at the 2023 Grammys has rattled a few cages, especially in the Christian world. Their performance on Sunday night certainly lived up to its name, and that’s what seems to be getting the majority of the criticism.

I’d like to offer, however, a different critique. One that starts with another unholy night.

The night I watched a man beaten to death with a baseball bat.

On that night in 1991, a buddy and I were out to score drugs in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for us, our regular spot was out of commission which posed a problem: two clean cut white guys weren’t gonna have much luck on their own. We looked too much like cops, and my buddy driving a Crown Vic wasn’t helping matters.

So as enterprising fiends, we picked up a local resident to score for us. We buy his drugs, and he finds us a dealer and makes the deal.

Where he took us was a street that made a “U” thru a neighborhood, and at the base of the “U” he got out of the car to go deal with a group of three men sitting on the stoop of a house about 100 feet away.

As he got to within about 10 feet of the stoop, one of the men started to yell at him. I said to my buddy, “this doesn’t look good” but he insisted this was just part of the process.

Our guy stopped and then all three of the men got up and started walking towards him with the original guy still barking and now waving his hands menacingly in the air.

Again, I said, “hey, this is bad; lets get out of here”, but my buddy insisted we weren’t going anywhere. That guy had our $200 and, more importantly, those guys had the drugs we were dying for.

And die somebody did.

Cause one of those other two swung a wooden bat and caught our guy flush in the side of the head.

From 100 feet away, it sounded like the crack of a home run ball, but instead with a mist of blood and brain matter leaving the bat. It was unbelievable to watch. But absurdly, my pal didn’t want to leave.

Me: “Lets go. NOW!”
Pal: “Nah, they’re just arguing”
Me: “No, they just killed that guy”
Pal: “He’ll be ok”
Me: “They knocked his f’n head off!”

It took the guy with the bat starting to jog towards us to give my buddy a reality check, to finally put the car in gear and drive away.

I’d love to tell you we went straight to the police, but that didn’t happen. No, we went to a different neighborhood, found a different local, and made a different deal, this time sans baseball bat.

That unholy night has always haunted me, but what does it have to do with Unholy at the Grammys?

I’ve always been a “live and let live” guy. I was one in 1991 and now I’m a “live and let live” Christian.

What that means to me today is that while there is MUCH I don’t agree with in the world, I tend to ignore it as long as you’re an adult and your garbage doesn’t spill over onto me and mine.

Wanna abuse drugs? Bad idea, but you’re an adult. Cheat on your wife? That’s gonna end poorly, but you’re an adult. And even when it comes to my faith, you’re an adult and you don’t have to follow my path.

My reasoning is that I’ve never stopped doing something because I was prohibited from doing so. In fact, the prohibition usually made me want to do it more. I’m grateful some kind people gave me the “bad idea” speech, but I’m certain my faith wouldn’t work if I didn’t come to it willingly.

So I’m going to allow others to lead the charge that this looked like a Satanic ceremony, that it was lewd & lascivious, that it shouldn’t be on Network TV. I’m in agreement with that, but my “live and let live” instinct is to just be the guy that says:

“Hey America, this is a bad idea”.

But if the mainstream media is any indication, you’d wonder why I’d even have an opinion.

Reading some outlets, I’m wondering if I watched the same performance. Kind of getting the 2020 “mostly peaceful” vibe.

Here’s Access Hollywood’s take. An epic night. Racy. Never heard Satan referred to as merely racy, but ok.

(Note: I was going to include the full video of the performance, but CBS/Viacom is playing whack-a-mole with them on YouTube. So you get Access Hollywood)

Grammy.com calls it a “fiery performance” and Variety.com “horror movie inspired”. But I think People.com takes the cake because they didn’t even report on the performance. They only note a “show-stopping all-red moment on the red carpet”.

To their credit, some outlets did report on the controversy. But mainly to question why there is a controversy.

Billboard.com writes (and the author has to have a wry sense of humor) “Instead of celebrating the fact that the pair made history for the LGBTQ community that night, conservative viewers slammed the performances for promoting the worship of Satan”. You’re shocked conservatives didn’t celebrate LGBTQ history? And were bent over Satan worship? Really?

Upworthy.com asks “Was it a historic moment of inclusion or a historic display of a Satanic ritual broadcast to the world?” I’d take Door #2 but you know what? I guess I’m wrong: “Taking it from the song creators themselves, it seems the message really being put out is that of acceptance.” Oh, my bad. That was an “acceptance” performance.

Folks, we’re being gaslit.

That seems to be the theme of this century’s “Roaring 20’s” and “move along, nothing to see here” is its motto. We are the boiling frog in the pot, but no one wants to acknowledge that we’re in a pot, let alone boiling. The Grammys are just the latest example.

A functioning society works when we can have an open discussion about the path we are on. We’ll never agree completely, but differing opinions keep us from tilting too far to one side culturally (I’m keeping politics out of this).

Within Christianity, I’m the progressive liberal. To some, I’m the Sam Smith. But amongst good faith people in our faith, we can discuss and disagree. Granted, there are some folks who REALLY don’t like my opinions but I never feel like I can’t have them.

But in our secular world, that seems to be the case.

A couple people close to me told me not to write this article. I said “why not?” and they said because this is a LGBTQ thing, it’s a trans issue. To me, it’s a Satan issue, and if it was put on by the Elks Club, I’d have the same damn complaint.

We can’t have topics off limits because we might upset the grievances of one group or another. But we do, and that’s where the Grammys Unholy night converges with my unholy night in Las Vegas.

I should have never picked up that poor guy in Las Vegas, but my desire to get high got the best of me.

I should have yelled, beeped the horn, done something when I knew he was in trouble, but I so wanted to get high.

I should have gone to the police so his family could have gotten some justice, but my high was more important than that.

Our journey as a society is somewhere between the car and that stoop. Somewhere before the yelling starts.

But very few people want to get involved before the action kicks off. Much like I didn’t want to jeopardize my high, many don’t want to risk their relative comfort.

In the words of Churchill, they want to feed the crocodile in the hope that it eats them last. Except this reptile is the snake of Eden, and I’d gladly feed myself to the croc rather than being consumed by the Enemy.

We shouldn’t need that supernatural incentive, but perhaps that’s just our sad reality.

For as a human, I’m called on to do something before the bat gets swung, but as a follower of Jesus I am compelled to do so. One’s a recommendation and the other a requirement.

So I’m beeping my horn.

Society doesn’t have to agree with me, but I must share my voice, no matter the cost.

Its unholy otherwise.

Picture Credit: (Getty Images for The Recording Academy/Emma McIntyre) http://bit.ly/3Ylzgfy