9 Crimes

"Leave me out with the waste this is not what I do,
Its the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you,
Its the wrong time for somebody new,
Its a small crime and I've got no excuse"




Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice's song "9 Crimes" is a really interesting portrayl of the struggle to make sense out of morality without absolute standards of right and wrong. Rice is definately not a Christian artist and some of his songs have some pretty subtle but raunchy content. Although I avoid a few songs, I actually really like Rice and have listened to him pretty heavily for a few years now. He is becoming more popular in the U.S, but he has been at the top of the charts recently in the UK and Ireland. The Irish Times called him "a most excruciatingly honest songwriter," and I have to say I would agree. His songs are hauntingly beautiful and generally pretty intrequing.

My favorite song of his, 9 Crimes, reminded me a lot of what Dr. Kersey talked about in regards to the "Godfather" and "No Country for Old Men" in last fall's lecture about Christianity and culture. Dr. Kersey mentioned that people are wired by God to live by a code of ethics, however if they reject Christian morality, they often try to fill the void with a code of their own. I think this is what Rice is doing throughout the narrative of this song. I'm pretty sure the song is about cheating, but it could be applied to a wide range of "crimes" or sins. At the beginning of the song Rice sings "take me out with the waste" ascenting to the fact that what he did has made him dirty - maybe even garbage. He follows by saying "this is not what I do" - in other words, he know he did wrong but he is trying to rationalize it by telling himself he wasn't really being himself in what he did.

Throughout the song further wrestling and justification takes place with phrases like "its a small crime" (trying to rank sins with his own man made system to create his own code), "but she's pulling me through" (he needs the sin even though it is wrong), and eventually he even admits "I've got no excuse." He has no excuse, but neverthless he still commits the crime.

The entire verse consists almost solely of one phrase "is that all right with you?" - when we reject God's standards of right and wrong all we are left with is a desperate search to ascertain what those we love will let us get away with. All we can ask is "is it all right with you?" if I do this sin against you. In essence, how far can I push those I love without loosing their love forever? This is that sad reality of a world stripped of absolutes.

One of the things most striking about this song though, is that it reveals that even the world is still searching for a sense of morality and an ordering of ethics. Instead of throwing off the issues of right and wrong as meaningless Rice is trying to rationalize what he did, revealing that he still cares about doing right. I think this is why I like Rice so much, he may not know God but at least he is honest about the real guilt that accompanies not knowing Him. It goes back to one of the issues Romanowski brought up in his book - some secular art can have value primarily because it honestly relates the human experience. In this case Rice is beautifully and tragically relating what the quest for morality feels like stripped of Christ.