Michael Knowles REACTS To "Fear" By NF

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Speaker 2 Hey, everybody, it's your hip-hop cultural Maven wonder, Michael Knowles, and I'm here with a new song by Oof.

Speaker 2 The song is called Fear. Oonf has just come out with it.
Take it away.

Speaker 4 Hello, darkness, my old friend. Hello.

Speaker 4 Knocking at my door again.

Speaker 4 Begging me to come outside

Speaker 4 and let you back into

Speaker 4 my life.

Speaker 4 Now, usually I'd be strong enough

Speaker 4 to lock the doors and keep them shut.

Speaker 2 This is like an American Mumford and Sons.

Speaker 4 But not today,

Speaker 2 Which I like.

Speaker 4 So go ahead and come on in.

Speaker 4 So go ahead and come on in.

Speaker 4 So go ahead and come on.

Speaker 4 OCD is worse than ever. Hands are bleeding.
Maybe I should take your pills. Don't know what's going on with me.
Some days I actually think I might be scared.

Speaker 4 So frantic probably not, but even writing this is making me begin to spiral. Oh god.

Speaker 4 Made a promise to myself I wouldn't let the fear back in. But then I did though.
Whoa. Told the world that I was sick of running.
Then went back to running. What a job.

Speaker 4 Disappointed at me too. I thought I finally had finally made a breakthrough.
Guess not.

Speaker 4 It's the same song and dance. You have seen it before.
Darkness holds out his hand. Then we walk to the floor.
Every decision made isn't mine anymore.

Speaker 4 Like a puppy with strings, I just don't have a choice. What's the truth? What's a lie? Help me, God, help me, Lord.
Face your fears, dry your eyes, grammar die. What's the point?

Speaker 4 Lost the keys, lost my hope, lost my will, lost my joy. Lost a friend, lost my hope, lost my faith, lost my voice.

Speaker 4 Standing

Speaker 4 back

Speaker 4 watching

Speaker 4 my

Speaker 4 mansion

Speaker 4 burn

Speaker 4 to ash while high

Speaker 4 Hold the

Speaker 4 gas can

Speaker 4 asking

Speaker 4 God

Speaker 4 if he started

Speaker 4 this fire.

Speaker 2 Put a pause here. Very interesting line.
So he opens up, you know, it's kind of happy little folksy song. Hello, Darkness, my old friend.

Speaker 2 Line from Simon and Garfunkel, but done in a, I don't know, like a folky, Mumford and Sunsy kind of way.

Speaker 2 He says, you know, usually I lock the doors to keep the darkness out, but today I'm going to let it in and I'm going to look at it right in the face.

Speaker 2 And he's tempted to go back to his drugs and his pills. And, you know, he thought he finally had made a breakthrough, but it's there.

Speaker 2 You know, sin is still there crouching in the corner waiting to devour him. And then he's in a church and he's washing his hands in water.
It's a symbol of baptism.

Speaker 2 But you're getting another image too, which is gasoline. So is it the water that will save him or is it the gasoline that's going to burn everything down?

Speaker 2 He's standing back watching his mansion burn to ash while I hold the gas can, asking God if he started this fire, which at first glance seems ridiculous.

Speaker 2 It seems as if he's pointing out, no, no, no, my problems are my own fault. I'm doing this.
I'm the one holding the gas can. I'm burning the mansion down.
And I'm blaming God.

Speaker 2 Isn't that so ridiculous? I need to take responsibility for my own actions. But it does raise a question about causality.

Speaker 5 The reality of the concepts of your question are just as questionable as what you're questioning.

Speaker 2 Well, God made me

Speaker 2 and God made the world.

Speaker 2 And so. Why do you make me like this? Why do you make me like this? Why do you make the world like this?

Speaker 2 Why do you make a world in which Adam and Eve had the free will to abuse their freedom and to kick us out of the garden and to leave me right here? Now, should I blame God?

Speaker 2 And the answer is no, but that's when

Speaker 2 you let the darkness in a little bit and you really face that question, it's a little more complicated.

Speaker 5 There's a couple of mysteries in that question.

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Speaker 2 Is this what you wanted? Is this what you intended?

Speaker 4 Make all my hopes and my dreams come to life just to lay them to press.

Speaker 4 Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 Is this what you want now?

Speaker 4 Give me a false sense of peace just to show me what peace really is.

Speaker 4 Is this what you want now?

Speaker 4 On the verge, on the edge. Is this what you want now?

Speaker 4 Petrified, scared to dazzle. Is this what you want now? Praying to God, desperate brain.
Is this what you want now?

Speaker 4 What you want now? Is this what you want now?

Speaker 4 Hanging on by a thread. Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 Empty heart, nothing left. Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 Breaking down, spiraled. Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 What you wanted? Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 Is this what you wanted

Speaker 4 to have?

Speaker 4 Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 What you wanted? Is this what you wanted?

Speaker 4 dash is this what you have here. Skin guy is this what you feel.

Speaker 4 Slow hearted, is this what you hire?

Speaker 4 What you want here?

Speaker 4 What is this?

Speaker 2 Wow. Yeah, it's really quite good for a pop song.
It's quite good. You even get that image at the end.
You know, the image at the beginning is, Am I going to start popping my pills again?

Speaker 2 Then you go on this whole journey and he's in a church and he's trying to wash his hands in the water, but then there's the flip image of the gasoline and he burns it all down and he himself catches on fire and then he ends up stumbling and crashes onto the rug and you think, oh, he's just, he just did a bunch of drugs.

Speaker 2 That's it. It's all been a kind of a weird trip.
And the final question that we have pertains to God's active will and his passive will, because God creates everything, he sustains everything.

Speaker 2 In a certain sense, you know,

Speaker 2 he wills the bad things to happen, but he doesn't actively will the bad things to happen because he gives us free will.

Speaker 2 And so we play a role in creation and he passively wills for that to be the case, but he actively wills our good. So he doesn't create evil.
Evil is a privation of the good. And it's,

Speaker 2 very good. It's this song.
I don't listen to a lot of pop music, but this song is without question a kind of work of Christian art. And it's much, much better than like any modern Christian music.

Speaker 2 So it's quite good, actually. Yeah.
Good job.

Speaker 4 Good job, oof.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm Michael Noelle. See you next time.

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