Idea for an Edited Collection on the Bible and Popular Music

Roland Boer recently took note of oblique biblical references and analogues in Nick Cave's music in a study which advocates a hybrid of biblical criticism and cultural studies. The idea is to read the Bible not only in terms of later texts clearly dependent upon it, but also through a more ad hoc juxtapositioning in which "[b]iblical texts and cultural products are thrown together for mutual illumination, revealing aspects of each that only show up in light of the other."

I was reminded, as I read Boer's piece, of the biblically-inflected music of Tom Waits, and in particular of his song "Sins of the [or 'my'] Father" (from his 2004 album Real Gone), which includes the verses: "God all mighty for righteousness sake / Humiliation of our fallen state / Written in the book of tubold Cain . . . ." Punning on the name of Cain's great-great-great-great grandson, Tubal-Cain (from Gen. 4:22) such that the book of the history of Cain and his descendants is the book of the 'too bold,' while at the same time reflecting self-referentially upon the musical style of one who (in the curious words of the Golden Legend) "had delight in the sound of his hammers of which he made the consonants and tunes of accord in his song," this Waits song creates interesting options for scholars of reception history-as-juxtaposition. Taking a step beyond even what Boer proposes, I'd suggest reading Waits and the Bible in juxtaposition with commentary traditions and a specific history of appropriation. I could refer, for instance, to the ways in which this song intimates (or exploits, or mocks) something of Calvin's grudging respect for Cain's descendants in his Genesis commentary: "Let us then know, that the sons of Cain, though deprived of the Spirit of regeneration, were yet endued with gifts of no despicable kind." It's not a matter of establishing lines of influence, of course, but rather it's a question of deploying, via suggestive juxtaposition, and the broadest possible understanding of intertextuality, cultural products such as this song for the purposes of a critical, productive and entertaining rhetorical/cultural studies.

Any takers?