Collective Soul's "Shine" Soon to Be Christened Virginia Tech's "Helter Skelter"

[MadBadger]

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/music/archives/2007/04/collective_soul.php

From the Village Voice

Collective Soul's "Shine" Soon To Be Christened Virginia Tech’s "Helter Skelter"
posted: 1:12 AM, April 18, 2007 by Camille Dodero

Two roommates of Virginia Tech gunmen Cho Seung-Hui told CNN's Gary Tuchman on Tuesday night that the 23-year-old English major listened to a lot of Zeppelin and Nirvana on his laptop, but he mostly played the same song over and over again: Collective Soul’s “Shine,” the 1993 release off of the Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid album.

Any time an individual indulges in anything over the top before committing a crime, lawyers salivate (the Twinkie defense) and the media overblow (consider us part of the problem as we head this off at the pass). By 11:17 pm last night, the Wikipedia entry for the song already included information about Cho Seung-Hui’s listening habits. (It was removed from the entry by 1:30 am.) The creepy guy who supposedly used to stalk some women on the campus and wrote shitty plays, ended 32 people’s lives this week. Virginia Tech will be sued, over and over and over again. The media were quick to pin blame on the university for not warning students sooner, and you can be sure today they will start to pin blame on the counselors and police who interacted with this Cho Seung-Hui in the past and didn’t lock him up for good.

Should be a day or two before they add “Shine” to the pantheon of the deranged alongside The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” (which Charles Manson claimed to be the diagram for the coming apocalypse after directing the Tate and Labianca murders), U2’s “Exit” (which Robert John Bardo claimed drove him to kill My Sister Sam actress Rebecca Schaffer), Ozzy Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution” (one of the many songs nineteen-year-old John McCollum listened to in the Osbourne canon before shooting himself in the head in 1984), and KMFDM’s “Son of the Gun” (the Columbine douches). KMFDM had to go as far as put out a public statement in the wake of those school shootings.

Compared to these songs, “Shine” — with lines like “Teach me how to speak/Teach me how to share/Teach me where to go/Tell me will love be there…Oh, heaven let your light shine down" — sounds like a church hymn. (Though in McCartney’s defense, "Helter Skelter" was evil in its chords and blisters rather than its going-down-the-slide lyrics). Dolly Parton covered “Shine” — hell, she won a Grammy for it in 2002. But that’s not going to stop someone from tracking down Ed Roland for analysis on how his band helped usher in the post-grunge era with a limp, whimpering spiritual — and how it may never be played in Virginia again, thanks to some asshole, who like so many other assholes have throughout history, woke up one morning, decided to end it all, and thought it prudent to take some innocents down with him.

— Bill Jensen

[Phillycat]

1. When I hear shitty music, I want to kill myself, not others.

Blergh.

[NightWatcher]

2. I always knew that Collective Sould sucked, this proves it.

I listen to Nirvana and Led and I have never killed anyone.

[whirlygigspin]

6. it doesn't make sense

I wasn't impressed with the roomates...they invited the guy out for a drink the first week of school and never talked to him again? Aren't they seniors????

4 years and no one talks to you??? this is normal?

They said he never went home and knew he would be alone during breaks and holidays and no one thought to invite him anywhere?

Team spirit indeed.

I don't get it

[DixieBlue]

8. me neither.

how do you just do that to someone?

[lectrobyte]

10. Well, it's easy to be an outcast if you work at it. Or even if you don't.

I don't get the being alone at breaks and holidays, though. If you can't get a lift from Blacksburg to the Northern Virginia area over a break and back, then you are just not trying...

[jollyreaper2112]

16. not a bad band

I'd find it more likely for someone to go on a mass killing spree after listening to nonstop ABBA.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. At least "Helter Skelter" is a good song.

I'm just being honest.

[acmavm]

4. Music doesn't kill people. People kill people.

[blogslut]

5. And so it goes

To this day, I find it amazing that Manson turned a song about a playground slide into some messed up prediction of a coming racial war.

[NashVegas]

7. Oh Fuck

I guess this means we're going to have to hear this one come back to radio again. Ugh.

[supernova]

9. Hey! I like Shine!

:hide:


:yoiks:

[lectrobyte]

11. It was a catchy song, but from what I remember the radio play wore it out, and

Collective Soul just seemed like a manufactured one-hit wonder to me at the time.

[MadBadger]

12. Talking about Collective Soul

One hit wonder not really. Maybe a two or three hit wonder. The song "the World I know" i remember was their big radio song.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. That's impossible.

Because obviously rap music made him do it.

[devilgrrl]

14. Phew! I thought you were going to say Daniel Lanois' 'Shine'

SHINE

I have wandered far and wide
All the way from Paris to Mexico
'Til I was gone and didn't know

In the end the thing that keeps me walking
Is your shine, your shine in the morning, your shine in the distance,
Your shine inside the laughter and the ghosts

They have spoken of the river forever bending inside the fever
Of the saints that walk all night with no domain

In the end the thing that keeps them walking is your shine
Your shine when they wear no coat, your shine when the feelings low
Your shine when it's too late to turn around

I have frozen up my dreams, thinking I was all alone
Fighting every minute for each turning stone
I have reached the rocket speed
I have touched the ground that feeds
Scaling fences, looking for the healing sun

In the end the thing that keeps me walking is your shine
Your shine in transmissions, your shine in decisions,
Your shine when I labor to the new day,
It's your shine, your shine, your shine, shine, shine on

[lectrobyte]

15. this one. I could only really remember the chorus part, but it seems

to have no violence or insanity in it. But then again, I remember reading a few years back that the
majority of scizophrenics are usually obsessed with relgion, so maybe the heaven bit really pushed his
buttons.


Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell what will I find ( will I find )
Lay me on the ground
Fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find ( will I find )

Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)

Love is in the water
Love is in the air
Show me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )
Teach me how to speak
Teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )

Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)

Im going to let it shine (x2)
Heavens little light gonna shine on me
Yea yea heavens little light gonna shine on me
Its gonna shine, shine on me
Its gonna shine, come on in shine