This is the second song from the batch I found on that old editing hard drive, recorded the last time Curt Vernon came to visit in the fall of 2009. Two more to come after this one.
I want to be upfront about this one, because the title is the title: it’s called “Pornography Will Murder You,” and it is the most confrontational song Curt has. It’s about pornography as something being done to real people rather than something private and harmless, and it does not soften that at any point.
Then, about halfway through, it turns. The back half of the song is the story of the woman caught in adultery, the crowd with the stones, and Jesus writing in the dirt, and Curt puts the listener in her position rather than in the crowd’s. That move is the entire point of the song, and it’s the reason it lands as something other than a lecture.
Same setup as the rest of these. Empty parking lot, one streetlight, closed storefronts glowing off in the distance, black and white because there wasn’t enough light to do anything else. One guitar and one take. There’s a friend sitting just off to the side in the frame, and by the end of this song nobody is saying much.
Curt’s church puts a warning above the link to his music that says the lyrics may cause conviction leading to repentance. They weren’t kidding, and this is the song they were talking about.
His whole album is free, and it’s on Curt’s page here along with the rest of these parking lot recordings. If you want something a little easier to start with, the music video I shot for “I’m A Rebel Bride” is over there too. The live version of that same song is right here, and “Onward Christian Soldiers” came from the same night.