Songs In The Key Of Hate: The Wesboro Baptist Church's Parody Covers

After antagonizing the mourners of dead soldiers and school shooting victims, the Westboro Baptist Church recently set their sights on god's latest enemy: the teenage fans of past-it emo bands. They were out in full force at a Panic! At The Disco gig in Kansas City, picketing the entry to the venue.

True to form, the Kansas picket backfired. The band donated over $1000 to Human Rights Campaign, plus the spotlight returned to the firebrand group still reeling from the death of leader Fred Phelps.

As shambolic as the event was, the WBC has always come across as a satire, a dive-circuit cover band of a fringe organization: too broke to source sarin, too insular to flee to Guyana, clearly too contemptible to attract anything other than universal derision. Call them the Klansons.

Ahead of their 13-deep protest, church members took time out of their finite lives to record and release this self-proclaimed parody. It's one of many. In fact WBC seem to be the only group in the world that's done more parodies than Weird Al. Here's a handful to bring you even closer to the precipice.

"I Write Sins Not Tragedies"

Before P!ATD became a total pastiche of the Beatles songs that Ringo wrote, they vied with My Chemical Romance to be 2006's emo heartthrobs. Where one had vampires and nail polish, the other had top hats and eyeliner; one drew on Irvine Welsh, the other indulged in sub-Smiths relationship satire. The last aspect is what the WBC has zoomed in on, denouncing an issue only them and those on pensions get riled about: gay marriage. Based on that and the frankly inexplicable "techno" tag, these covers aren't overly cerebral.

Worst lyric: "And the whole crowd has no shame, what a shame, they're all fags, fag pimps or whores"

"Superfreak"

Typically heard in furtive bar banter and Sam Smith, the WBC at last crack out their black accent impressions, which would possibly have civil rights activist-era Fred Phelps up in arms. The conflation of sex with hellish suffering is wince-inducing, you can practically smell the rubbing alcohol and shame emanating from their genitals. Biblical moralism meets 80s R&B meets a Dave Chapelle joke from 2003—can't say it's not a melting pot of ideas.



Worst lyric: "She liked the boys in Satan's band/ The devil was her all time favorite."

"Pumped Up Kicks"

Religion is certainly having a tumultuous time, but multiply that several times for a group that abhors all transgression and promotes transitional lenses. Put simply: the WBC needs to enthral the youth market. You can see the church's thinking: if Foster The People's music can sell Sketchers, then it can do anything. However, all those welcoming gestures are felled with the introductory verse; malevolent lyrics through a vocoder. A potent reminder of how horribly compressed the original vocals are, bearing over the tracks like an ominous narrator. Which is sort of the point, really.

Worst lyric: "All the other kids with the 666, you'd better run, better run, outrun God's Son."

"Rolling In The Deep"

Although fundamentalism can spring up anywhere, there's something distinctly American about the WBC's meshing of unchained free speech, puritanicalism, and individualistic sense of purpose. However, with their appropriation of Londoner Adele's music, sung by female members of the church, perhaps they're more open-minded than given credit for. Has late-stage WBC gotten over the difficult second album angst to embrace new influences?

Worst lyric: "Now your sorrow, we tell you loud and bold. It's pay back from God in kind; you reap what you have sown."

"Poker Face"

Let's cap it off with a live, non-placard bearing outing. WBC mainstay Shirley Phelps-Roper appears with her daughters at Central Michigan University, for some reason appearing in a maths lecture hall. Nonetheless, after letting RedOne's instrumental pulsate for a few seconds, Phelps-Roper and co goes in for the preaching and pop glory. Some thoughts:



- Uniform dedication to the center-parting well before the current 90s revival.

- The vaguely rhythmic hand movements and over-the-eye gesture. Even if Gaga's message can't change their minds, they'll just dance anyway.

- How mercurial the atmosphere is. This ranges from the embarrassment of performing that the singers acknowledge to the varying shock, humor, disgust, and indifference shown by the audience. If it didn't cut out by the end, you could assume they'd be lifted over shoulders by ardent new fundamentalists, stomped to death by a mob, laughed off or shuffle away in silence. I'd wager silence.

The Westboro Baptist Church's Soundcloud is truly depressing. 140 repetitions of exactly the same hateful sentiment, created in the knowledge that no one approves or cares and without the awareness of trolling. The loud, wretched protests, the tawdry signs, the media showdowns, the pouring of creative energy into this latest futile gesture, it all seems like shrill noise to fill up empty lives. There's a strange, hellish nihilism to it.

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