Pt 1: Interviewing Weird Alma

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 824

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking the donate button on the top right side of the page. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 17, 2017, and we are just so very excited to have with us a new artist who's emerged onto the scene of sort of Mormon culture. And in some sense, he's not a new artist. In some sense, he's been around a while. But today we are going to be celebrating the music of Weird Alma. Weird Alma is the sort of artistic name of our guest today. His name is Eric. Hello, Eric Herman. Is that okay to say it or do we not want to say it?

Eric Herman [00:01:29] Eric Herman and Weird Alma, they are two distinct personalities. Have you seen the movie Split?

John Dehlin [00:01:37] Oh, no. Tell me about that.

Eric Herman [00:01:39] It's a multiple personality.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] So who are we interviewing today?

Eric Herman [00:01:44] Maybe a little of both. You never know who you're gonna get at a certain time.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] Okay, well, we're interviewing Weird Alma Eric, about this new album. The album is called Straight Outta Kimora, and there are so far, eight songs that have been released. And they're hilarious, they're intelligent, and the music in them is actually quite sophisticated. I'm really impressed. So today we're going to be bringing to you the music of Weird Alma, and we're actually going to play it as we interview Eric. So I'm gonna go ahead and play the first song from the album, which is called Taperback Writer. We're gonna talk about it, and then we're gonna actually be interviewing Eric along the way, hear about his story, hear about his motives, why he's doing this album, what it means to him. And then we'll also be playing songs as we go and discussing the content of each song. How does that sound, Eric?

Eric Herman [00:02:47] Sounds good. Let's do it.

Pt 1: Taper Back Rider

John Dehlin [00:02:48] All right, so let's play the first song from Straight Outta Kimora by Weird Alma called Taperback Rider. Here we go.

Eric Herman [00:02:58] Taper Back Rider. Dear Mormons, wait. Before you leave the pews, I have an article in the Deseret News. It explains how back in ancient, they didn't have horses, so they had to be taper bag riders, Taperback rider. It might be hard for you to get this thing. It's an explanation known as loan shifting. Joseph didn't know what a taper was, so he said they rode horses, but they really all were taper bag riders. Tape a bag rider. Taper bags rider. You might be thinking something isn't right. Was the Book of Mormon translation loose or tight? If pure alarms q moms and C9s are words, then why couldn't Joseph just have used the term table back riders? Table back rider. I warn you, that sounds like apostasy. I have PhD so you should trust and be. It'll all make sense if you believe it's true. If you have any questions, look me up. My name is Taper Dan Writer. Taper Dan Writer. Taper Back writer. Take a dark rider. I got Q moms on my C9s.

John Dehlin [00:05:11] That is weird Alma with the first track on his album Straight Outta Kimora. Taperback writer. We've got Weird Alma with us today. We're really excited. So I'm just going to begin by saying, I don't know if you know this about me, but I grew up listening to parodies. And so it started with Tom Lear, who was a Harvard trained mathematician who wrote really brilliant satire and parodies in the late 50s and 60s. I followed that up with Alan Sherman, who was this incredible parody writer in the 60s and early 70s who did hello Mudda, hello Fada. Here I am at Camp Granada. Lots of songs. And then I grew up listening to Weird Al as a kid. I've been to Weird Al's concerts twice. I love his work. And then I listened to Dr. Demento as a BYU student in the late 80s, early 90s. And so I love satire and parody. So we're at Alma. Do you have any of those as influences in your life?

Pt 1: Weird Al's 'At Alma'

Eric Herman [00:06:21] Yeah, Lear and Sherman, I've heard at different points I'm not as familiar with them, but I'm a little younger than you, I guess. But, you know, so what hit me as I was growing up, Dr. Demento also, you know, he's been going forever and you know, things like SNL would do parodies. It wasn't always music parodies. Sometimes it was parodies of commercials and things. You know, Monty Python, the Simpsons, you know, do a lot of parody type stuff in their work. And then, yeah, Weird Al obviously would be huge influence on this work in particular.

Pt 1: Weird Al on His Songs

John Dehlin [00:06:59] So were there any albums or songs by Weird Al that you just loved growing up? That meant a lot to You.

Eric Herman [00:07:05] Well, I've really gotten into him, especially more the last maybe five or six years. One thing I didn't realize about him is how. How well some of his non parodies work. I've been a big Frank Zappa fan most of my life, and he does a song called Genius in France. I don't know if you've heard that, but it's not a parody. But it's what he would call a style parody. And you listen to it and you pick up all these kind of references to Zappa and it's brilliant.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] No, I think he does a song that parodies the Talking Heads called Dog Eat Dog, which isn't a direct parody of like, Same As It Ever Was or whatever that song is, but you get the Talking Heads sense from it. Is that what you mean?

Eric Herman [00:07:54] Yeah, and they Might Be Giants trying to think of the name of that one. It's brilliant. So in the last several years, I always appreciated him.

John Dehlin [00:08:05] Okay.

Eric Herman [00:08:06] He does these funny parodies, Eat it and you know, Like a Surgeon and all that. But I think I really came to love Weird Al when I discovered all the other stuff that he does. You know, he's really just a brilliant composer and writer and satirist all around.

Pt 1: Eric Herman on Taperback Writer

John Dehlin [00:08:22] Okay, so I have to just jump in and ask you, how did you get the musical instruments on Taperback Writer to be so accurate and reflective of Paperback Writer by the Beatles? I mean, it sounded like you had, you know, George and Paul in the studio.

Eric Herman [00:08:41] Okay, so I'm going to. Your estimation of me is going to drop.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] No, it won't. No, it won't.

Eric Herman [00:08:49] There is a website that you can just, you know, kind of buy the backing tracks for. And I now I could do this. I have in the past, my wife and I, you know, 20 years ago, we did a parody of Sergeant Pepper, the whole album, based on our dog, who was named sergeant Pepper, basically, that album, through the Eyes of a Dog. It wasn't the whole album, but, like, each song had a little thing, and it was just a fun, silly side thing. And we did record all the instruments, but that took a long, long time. You know, this project is, you know, it was more of a lark, really. You know, and the idea of the songs, I, you know, had a lot of fun doing that and creating that. I didn't want to spend hours and hours recording all the instruments. I believe it's karaoke, something-dot com, you know,

John Dehlin [00:09:47] but even so, there's. There's really good harmonies. So you have to know music, right?

Eric Herman [00:09:53] Well, I do Know music.

John Dehlin [00:09:54] So tell us quickly. Tell us a little bit about your background professionally, whatever you want to tell us.

Eric Herman [00:10:01] Yeah, well, picked up a guitar at age 13, and that changed my life, man. At that time, I wanted to be the next Van Halen. That was the thing at the time. And I was good, you know, a couple years. I could play a lot of that stuff. And at a certain point, I realized there's always somebody flashier and with better hair. And, you know, I don't know, the whole thing of the guitar God thing really just lost interest to me. And it was really around that time, I was maybe 15, 16, that I really heard stuff like the Beatles. You know, I'd heard it before in the Elevators and Station Wagons growing up, but I never really listened or. Or felt it. You know, Beatles, Pink Floyd. And at the time, stuff like U2 was coming on and REM and stuff like that, I really got into. So it changed it. It changed my. My view of music at that point, from trying to be some flashy guitar player to using guitar and instruments to serve songs, you know. And then from there, I played in bands in a lot of different bands, played in the coffee shops. Singer, songwriter kind of stuff. And then at a certain point, 2002, 15 years at this point, somebody suggested I should do music for kids. And at the time, I thought, you're crazy. I don't want to be Barney or whatever, you know. And long story short, that has been my job for the last 15 years.

John Dehlin [00:11:38] What do you mean you do music for kids?

Eric Herman [00:11:41] Well, if you look up.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Is it like Raffi?

Eric Herman [00:11:47] A little bit. I mean, I do, you know, all different styles of music, you know, rock music, but, yeah, with kids. Sense of.

John Dehlin [00:11:56] Go ahead. What's your most popular song? I'll actually play it right now.

Eric Herman [00:12:01] Yeah, the elephant song. That's easy.

John Dehlin [00:12:03] Is that on YouTube?

Eric Herman [00:12:04] It is.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] So the elephant. Tell us about this song.

Eric Herman [00:12:09] Well, it's all about elephants.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] And what's your artistic name? Do you go by Eric? What? Do you go by Eric Herman?

Eric Herman [00:12:16] H E R M A N. Okay,

John Dehlin [00:12:17] so that's what I search. Okay, tell us about the song one more time, and then I'll play it.

Eric Herman [00:12:21] Well,

Eric Herman [00:12:24] it was supposed to be a serious song at the time. This is before I really got into doing kids music. I watched this documentary about elephants, and I thought, oh, this is beautiful. These two elephants had been separated at a young age and came back together later, and they still knew each other, and they had this great bond. I got to write a meaningful song about that, and I Came up with a guitar part for it, but I could never get lyrics. And my wife, she heard me working on this song forever, and she knew it was about elephants. And she started making fun of me when she'd hear that music. And at one point she said, elephants. I like elephants. And I said, no, quiet, quiet. I'm working on this. But some kind of light bulb struck there, and I thought, you know, wait. I was thinking about maybe trying the kids music thing. Maybe this could work for that.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] And

Eric Herman [00:13:22] when I started doing kids music, playing some shows out, I learned a bunch of these different songs. But something about that song, boy, kids just went crazy. If you play it, you'll see what I mean.

John Dehlin [00:13:34] No, I'm about to play it, but I just noticed it's got 30 million views.

Eric Herman [00:13:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:40] That is massive. 30 million?

Eric Herman [00:13:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] Yeah. Holy crap.

Eric Herman [00:13:44] YouTube featured the video in, like, 2007 or something.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] All right, well, let's play the elephant song.

Eric Herman [00:13:52] Maybe a part of it.

John Dehlin [00:13:54] Tell Me when to Stop by Eric Herman. Is that all right?

Eric Herman [00:13:57] Sure. Okay.

Pt 1: Elephants, I Like elephants

Eric Herman [00:14:02] Elephants, I like elephants Elephants, I like elephants I like how they swing through trees. Elephants. What?

Eric Herman [00:14:16] Elephants don't swing through trees. They don't? Well, what am I thinking of? Monkeys. Oh, well, in that case.

Eric Herman [00:14:25] Monkeys. I like monkeys. I like how they swim in the ocean. I like.

John Dehlin [00:14:34] That's fish.

Eric Herman [00:14:35] Oh, I see.

Eric Herman [00:14:37] Fish. I like fish. I like how they scratch at fleas and sniff at trees and bark at the mailman. No, no, those are dog.

Eric Herman [00:14:56] Ah.

Eric Herman [00:14:57] Gotta like dogs, right?

John Dehlin [00:15:00] Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:15:01] Yeah. Curled up on the window sill, purring and chasing mice. What then?

John Dehlin [00:15:09] Cats.

Eric Herman [00:15:10] Cats, of course.

Eric Herman [00:15:12] Cats. I like cats. I like how they say gompos.

John Dehlin [00:15:23] They go, meow.

Eric Herman [00:15:25] They do.

Eric Herman [00:15:25] I'm thinking of roosters.

Eric Herman [00:15:27] Oh, yeah, that's good.

Pt 1: The Animated 'Roseanne' Song

Eric Herman [00:15:30] All right.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] I think we get the sense that is really quality music. And it's funny, it's witty. Who did the animation on that video?

Eric Herman [00:15:41] That was my dear wife, Roseanne.

John Dehlin [00:15:45] You're kidding me.

Eric Herman [00:15:46] Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:15:46] Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:15:47] And you know, the funny thing is today's her birthday.

John Dehlin [00:15:51] Oh. Happy birthday to Roseanne. That's her name.

Eric Herman [00:15:54] She's not with us anymore. She passed away.

John Dehlin [00:15:57] Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry.

Eric Herman [00:15:59] But that's her work. She was amazing. And I'm happy to just merely mention her name today and tell a little bit of her story, because she's amazing. Part of what I've done, a big part of it. And she had this idea one day, oh, I could make a video for this song. Let me show you a little demo. She did that on Microsoft Paint.

John Dehlin [00:16:23] Yeah, I could tell.

Eric Herman [00:16:24] I mean, just like, it wasn't meant to be the actual video. She just did this thing in like an hour and shows it to me. And I said, yeah, that's pretty good. So I don't know, can we hire somebody to like, actually make it animated or something? You know, more than that? Well, thankfully we showed it to a couple friends and they said, no, no, no, leave it like it is. My kid just watched that 20 times in a row. Something about the simplicity of it, you know, works great for kids. And we were thinking she was a little embarrassed by it when it got, you know, became successful because she would have maybe done something a little bit more elaborate. But I think it's brilliant and she was brilliant and constantly doing little things like that.

John Dehlin [00:17:14] That's awesome. Well, shout out to Roseanne. Is that her name?

Eric Herman [00:17:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:19] Thank you for sharing her story. How many albums have you done as a child songwriter?

Pt 1: In the Elevator With Raffi

Eric Herman [00:17:27] Well, eight CDs and two DVDs at this point.

John Dehlin [00:17:32] And I only know, like, Raffi. Where would you rank like relative to Raffi in terms of, like, popularity or commercial success? Is he the standard? Is he not the standard?

Eric Herman [00:17:44] Well, I would say the Wiggles are bigger, you know, but. But I kind of hit the wave of this new movement sort of in kids music that came around about mid-2000s, you know, 2004, 2005, where it was more. Yeah, it speaks to a kid's sensibility, but also parents don't necessarily mind hearing it a hundred times.

John Dehlin [00:18:11] Right.

Eric Herman [00:18:11] You know, and I'm, you know, in that field, I'm reasonably well known. But there's, I would say there's the Wiggles, there's Raffi, Imagination Movers, Justin Roberts, Recess Mike. And I'm kind of below that, maybe in the next tier down or whatever. But it's been a full time job for 15 years now, and I can't complain.

John Dehlin [00:18:35] And you're still doing it. You're still doing it.

Eric Herman [00:18:37] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:37] Okay.

Eric Herman [00:18:38] I'm done for the winter, essentially. But okay.

Pt 1: "Taperback Rider"

John Dehlin [00:18:41] Yeah, let's talk about Taperback Rider really quick before we play some more songs. So tell us about why, you know, what was the inspiration behind that song and what are your favorite parts about it and why?

Eric Herman [00:18:53] Well, like a lot of parodies, you know, it starts maybe with just a pun. Taper. Okay, what can I do? Taper sounds like paper. All right. Oh, boom. You know, and initially the thought was, you know, so many of these songs are very, very inside baseball to not even Mormons, but also kind of the ex Mormon Community, I guess, you know, where Dan Peterson is referred to as Taper Dan, Affectionately referred to as Taper Dan for being someone who was a proponent of that idea that. I don't know that he was the first. But in any case, he got that nickname. And originally I was thinking of writing

John Dehlin [00:19:43] the song Taper Dan. Right. Taper Dan Peterson as the ambassador for old style Mormon apologetics, giving bad scientific answers to problems with Mormon history. And so somebody says, well, okay, there weren't horses in Native America during the time of the Book of Mormon. Maybe they meant tapirs when they rode horses. Right.

Eric Herman [00:20:10] I find that a little silly. So I figured I'd write a silly song and the originally it was. The whole thing was gonna be Taper Dan Ryder. And then I kind of realized it might be funnier and also explore the idea a little bit better to have it also a pun on writer to writer.

John Dehlin [00:20:35] Yeah, yeah.

Eric Herman [00:20:35] To picture the actual, you know, Nephite warriors riding across the plains on these cute little tapers.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] But it's also a little bit sophisticated. So you get into this idea of loan shifting. Talk about that.

Pt 1: Comments on The Book of Mormon Songs

Eric Herman [00:20:53] Okay, well, that's. That is the apologetic term for it. I. I considered myself an amateur apologist for many years in the church followed a lot of that stuff. And, you know, that. That's kept me. Kept me going. But so I wanted to, you know, with some of these songs, I want to present an argument essentially, so I want to also give the other side of it. Yeah, of course I'm biased to the one side that I have now, but I hopefully represented that side well enough that. That's the idea. Loan shifting means if somebody is translating a work and they don't know what a thing is, they use a word from their current time that they do know. So if there's some animal, you don't know what that animal is? Well, it kind of could be. What do I know, A horse. Okay, I'm gonna write horse instead. Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:22:00] Brilliant.

Eric Herman [00:22:01] And I think that would make sense if the Book of Mormon could be a loose translation. But that's one of the things I mentioned later.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] So talk about what? Loose versus tight translation. Where does that come from?

Eric Herman [00:22:16] Right.

John Dehlin [00:22:16] Isn't that Blake Ostler's work?

Eric Herman [00:22:19] I'm not sure. It might be. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] Yeah. It's just this idea that Joseph didn't translate word for word, but instead he would just get ideas or stories in his head and then write them in his own vernacular. Right, right.

Eric Herman [00:22:36] And I think that would actually be closer to what a real translation might be. You know, if you really had something, you would write it in your vernacular. However, every eyewitness account we have from the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith himself, when he's Talking about the 116 pages story, all speak to a very

John Dehlin [00:23:04] tight translation, meaning literal word for word. A word appears, he writes it down. Another word appears, he writes it down.

Eric Herman [00:23:11] Yeah, Emma said that Martin Harris, I believe, maybe David Whitner, I can't remember specifically, but three or four different people said he would see words on the stone, he would say those specific words. He would even double check that the scribe wrote it accurately. And then Joseph Smith, the story, the 116 pages after those were lost. And God says that we need to redo those not the same, but from these other conveniently included plates because evil men would change them. Change what you had on those 116 pages. Well, that implies that he would have redone it exactly the same, right?

John Dehlin [00:24:06] Exactly, exactly.

Eric Herman [00:24:07] If the evil men would have changed it. You know, I think if he'd have just. He had that opportunity right at the time to say, you know, translation, it's a little bit. It's a little bit, you know, here and there, a little bit wonky. I think that would have served that story better from the faithful perspective.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] So we'll get into this in a bit. But it sounds like you've had a Mormon faith crisis. Is that true?

Eric Herman [00:24:33] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:35] And we'll talk about. Because not only that, but it sounds like you've really thought through and studied these issues. So that's. That's a significant deal, right?

Eric Herman [00:24:44] For me it was. Yeah, that's. It took a long time. I had hung on by many threads for a number of years.

John Dehlin [00:24:52] But yeah, I'll just mention our listeners are joining in. I want to encourage our listeners on Facebook Live to join us. Astrid says she can't stop singing. Taperback writer. I agree. I had Paperback Writer in my head all night because of you. Chelsea says her kids love the song Bar. Jonas says the tender mercies of these songs fill my soul with exceeding great joy. So lots of positive comments. I do want to read one comment from Brent Metcalf. Do you know who Brett Metcalf is by reputation?

Eric Herman [00:25:28] I don't know him.

John Dehlin [00:25:28] The famous Brett Metcalf. Who Hot tub Jacuzzi'd with Mark Hoffman himself.

Eric Herman [00:25:34] Oh, yeah, of course.

John Dehlin [00:25:35] Expert. Expert on Book of Abraham. He writes Weird Alma is a very clever parody. My wife Erin and I wrote some lyrics for Rock Me Onondagus several years back. Think the discernment of Zelf I'd love to hear what Weird Alma would come up with on Rock Me Anandegus. So there's a request for another challenge. Okay. All right, so let's hear second song on Straight out of Kimora by Weird Alma. And the song is called you'd're Several months shy of 15. Tell us a little bit about this song before we listen.

Pt 1: You're 16, You're Beautiful In My Mind by Ringo

Eric Herman [00:26:16] Well,

Eric Herman [00:26:19] I didn't think that you're 16, you're beautiful in youn Mind by Ringo Starr could get any creepier, but, you know, here it is, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:26:29] So tell us about the original song.

Eric Herman [00:26:32] You haven't heard that?

Eric Herman [00:26:33] 4:15.

John Dehlin [00:26:34] You're beautiful and you're mine. Yeah. He writes it as an adult, right?

Eric Herman [00:26:40] Well, yeah, I think Ringo was 33 or something at the time. Now, here's the thing. When I was growing up, I never thought of that song as creepy because I was, you know, I was 8 or 9. When I'm hearing that, I'm thinking, yeah, 16 year olds are hot, you know.

John Dehlin [00:26:53] But

Eric Herman [00:26:55] after some years, it kind of dawned on me. Wait a minute, that's not great. But boy, I tell you, of all of the ones, this one just kind of wrote itself here because right in the original song, it talks about angel Divine, you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:27:16] All right, so I'm guessing we're gonna hear some Joseph Smith underage wife references here, perhaps.

Eric Herman [00:27:23] Yeah, let's. And there's an outro here that I had fun with. It kind of goes off on some different tangents, but I had a lot of fun doing that.

Pt 1: Joe Smith

John Dehlin [00:27:32] All right, so let's listen to your Several months shy of 15 off the straight Outta Kimora album by Weird Alma. Here we go.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:27:47] I'm the prophet Joe Smith, I've assumed teach you forthwith to be my wife number 29. You're several months shy of 15 and you're dutiful, so be mine. If you don't, I'll be floored by a big flaming sword wielded by an angel divine. You're several months shy of 15 and you're dutiful, so be mine. Oh, my, my, my, you're my baby

Video Clip 1 [00:28:21] practically you're my boo.

Video Clip 1 [00:28:23] Since you were 11 I've been grooming you. I know you devout so you should have no doubt but ooh, please don't let Emma find out. If you marry me, I'll exalt your family. I'll talk crap about you if you decline. You're several months shy of 15. You're dutiful, so be mine. You're several months shy of 15. You're dutiful, so be mine.

Video Clip 1 [00:28:57] By the way, my darling girl, would you mind burning this recording after you listen to it? You see, we don't want. Excuse me, sir. Burning audio. Oh, that's right. Thank you, William darling, that's my secretary, William Clayton. Right, so burning an audio file means to make a copy of it, and that's the opposite of what I want.

Video Clip 1 [00:29:15] So.

Video Clip 1 [00:29:16] Tell you what, my dear, burn the email that I sent you with that record. So you can't burn email. You can't burn an email. Well, hell, then. You know what, my dearest Nancy. Sarah.

Video Clip 1 [00:29:26] Sarah.

Video Clip 1 [00:29:27] My dearest Sarah, I hate to ask you to do this, but how about you just destroy your whole computer? Destroy it like a printing press. That's what I say. That usually solves everything, Sir. The cloud. Ah, the email will still be in the cloud. Well, you know, it doesn't matter anyway. Who's going to go poking around for that? Fawn Brody? Mormon Lee? You know, some days I wish I had stuck with the treasure seeking thing. Oh, that reminds me, William. Yes? For next week's schedule, let's set aside that Kinderhook translation for now. There's another writing project I'd like to start working on. I call it Illinois Smith and the Raiders of the Sinking Indian Treasures. That's brilliant, sir.

Video Clip 1 [00:30:09] Brilliant.

Video Clip 1 [00:30:10] Yes, yes. Oh, and in other business, did I tell you what happened with those enemies of the church that visited Nauvoo last week? No, you didn't. But, sir, we should probably stop the recording. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course. That's more than you should. Really? Well, I mean, I didn't kill them, but when you have Danites, might as well use them, right? Those guys will slit a throat for a ham sandwich.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] That is. That is your Several months shy of 15 by Weird Alma on the album Straight outta Kimora. I'm hearing some Mr. Deity in there. Is Mr. Deity an influence for that song?

Pt 1: Michael Jackson on His Songs About Sexual Assault

Eric Herman [00:30:50] No, I don't. I don't know who you're talking about.

John Dehlin [00:30:53] Oh, Mr. Deity was this series by Brian Keith Dalton that was out on YouTube probably five or eight years ago, where Brian Keith Dalton plays God, but he has this annoying assistant with the clipboard. And so it shows God up in heaven, like, designing the world. And he designs the world with, like, polio and child abuse and hurricanes. And his assistant's like, do we need sort of, you know, genocide? Can we go ahead and design the world without genocide? And God's like, oh, you're so annoying. Why are you always Asking these hard questions. Anyway, check out Mr. Deity and you'll hear similitude with that song.

Eric Herman [00:31:38] I think I was going for a Smithers and Mr. Burns thing.

John Dehlin [00:31:43] Oh, that works. Yeah, that works too.

Eric Herman [00:31:45] And hearing it just now, I think my Joseph Smith. I was copying J. Peterman from Seinfeld. I don't know if you.

John Dehlin [00:31:54] Yeah, of course.

Eric Herman [00:31:55] The kind of attitude he has. Well, that should take care of everything.

John Dehlin [00:31:59] Elaine's boss, right?

Eric Herman [00:32:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:03] Yeah. So somebody wrote. Let's see, Michael writes. It's funny and makes me want to cry at the same time. Talk about the role of parody. Because on the one hand, that's just this festive, jovial, happy song. And then in reality, it's talking about stuff that's, like, seriously awful and depressing. Talk about the strategy or the role of parody in your approach.

Eric Herman [00:32:33] Yeah, that's a very good question. And this song, I think, hits that right on the nose in a difficult way. You know, some of the other ones were pretty straightforward. I'm trying to make a point here. This one, boy, it's. Everything in there is real, you know, I don't know. You know, I've questioned whether I should do this. I mean, I write music, I create music. This was a huge part of my life. The thing I went through, the faith transition. It was bound to come out somehow or other. But this song in particular made me question how. Am I getting a little bit snarky, or am I. Am I taking it a little bit farther than I should? Or, you know, and people who know me, if they find out I'm doing this, how are they gonna react? But what kept me doing it was the fact that this was real. You know, everything in this song. 29 brides. I mean, I'm cracking jokes, but I'm, you know, 29 brides, the flaming sword, you know, the manipulation there, the don't tell Emma, you know, I'll exalt your family. I'll talk crap about you if you decline. Burn this letter. It's all there and it's all documented and it's all real. And. And, you know, I will stand behind my. I hope. If anything, I guess I wonder, should I make fun of it or does the song make light of it? I don't know. Because it is serious.

John Dehlin [00:34:16] It's particularly sobering in the time of, like, Harvey. Post Harvey Weinstein era. Right. Al Franken. Like, we're dealing with these issues right now about sexual harassment, sexual abuse.

Eric Herman [00:34:26] Right, right, right. I just saw the thing yesterday. I don't know if you've seen it yet. Rachel Jeffs, I want to say Warren Jeffs, star.

Pt 1: Warren Jeffs Gets Parodied

John Dehlin [00:34:35] Yeah, yeah, I saw that. Yeah. The interview. Oh, my gosh.

Eric Herman [00:34:37] With Megyn Kelly. And I was just floored, you know, just watching this and to realize. I know a lot of people will watch something like that and say, well, Warren Jeffs is a. He's a false version of what's real. You know, he's a false. He's a. What's the word I'm looking for? Imposter of what the real church is or what a real prophet is. You know what? No, if anything, he's closer. Warren Jeffs to what the original thing was to Joseph Smith. You know, a lot of those details in there. And it. Boy, the obedience from a young age. Obedience, obedience, obedience. A prophet is always right. Controlling their sexual habits, how they eat and sleep and all that stuff. It's right there. And it's the same in the LDS institutional church. More so earlier, you know, but it's. It was. It was definitely a part of that.

Eric Herman [00:35:50] So.

John Dehlin [00:35:51] Yeah, no, it's. It's heavy. It's heavy stuff, right? I mean, it's so weird, even. Can you hear me?

Eric Herman [00:35:57] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:58] It's so weird even to go from something so fun and jovial to a discussion so seriously. But then

Eric Herman [00:36:07] I think a lot of people would say that satire best covers some of that because it makes it slightly more palatable to at least confront or to. Oh, okay, I'm entertained by this. At least I'm willing to listen to it. And then maybe later you think about it or think about it from a different perspective.

John Dehlin [00:36:28] Yeah. Chelsea, who's one of our most devoted listeners, she writes, there's something so cathartic about parody, being able to mock something that's not funny and even painful. It feels so good. She writes, when the November policy happened, my first reaction was to write a song parody about it. There's something powerful and magical about parody, right?

Eric Herman [00:36:49] Yeah, that's exactly right. It's the familiar, too. Someone, you know, you quoted before. People are saying, oh, Tinkerback Rider. It's so catchy. Well, all of that goes to, you know, John and Paul, you know, all of that credit. I'm just repurposing it a little bit, you know, with some different words and a different approach. But I agree, it can be powerful because it's part of our culture. It's part of. We know these songs. I try to be somewhat broad in the songs I'm picking for that reason that people would hopefully would have heard of me. Maybe it's not your favorite song. A lot of these aren't my favorite songs either, but I've heard of my whole life.

John Dehlin [00:37:33] They fit. Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:37:34] They're familiar and they fit. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:37] Mark, my buddy in the uk writes parody and satire. Played a big part of my early faith crisis. The website that is now Sallymandersociety.com made me think in a new light of the brethren Brandt writes. I think laughing about these topics is great therapy for me. It's much better than letting anger persist. All right, so let's play the third song. This third song is called Book of Mormon Evidence. Do you want to give us a little bit of an intro before we play it?

Pt 1: Weird Alma

Eric Herman [00:38:10] No, it's a very short song. You can just play it.

John Dehlin [00:38:13] I'll just play it. Here we go. This is Book of Mormon Evidence from the digital album straight out of Cumorah by Weird Alma. A Book of Mormon evidence. All right, I love this one. Here we go.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [00:38:29] Book of Mormon Evidence. The apologist showed to me all about chiasmus. Nhm. And

Video Clip 2 [00:38:39] that's it. That's it.

Video Clip 2 [00:38:41] How about.

Video Clip 2 [00:38:43] How about maybe? Maybe? Not really. No, not really. That's all you got, huh? That's all you got, huh? I think you had. You had two versions of that going or something.

John Dehlin [00:38:55] Oh, did you hear two versions?

Eric Herman [00:38:57] Yeah, it's okay.

John Dehlin [00:38:59] I only heard. Oh, man. I only heard one version.

Eric Herman [00:39:01] Oh, well, hopefully everyone else did too, but I was hearing two slightly overlapping. It was kind of freaky, man.

John Dehlin [00:39:07] Oh, no. I'm super sorry. I hope that wasn't too annoying. The audience on Facebook can tell us if they heard two versions or one. If there's two, then I got to figure that out. But it basically said the lyrics are very brief. Book of Mormon evidence that apologists showed to me. It's a parody of the Book of Mormon stories. Primary song. And he says all about chiasmus. Nhm. And that's pretty much it. Talk to us about what you're meaning by that.

Pt 1: Protestants on the Book of Mormon

Eric Herman [00:39:39] Well, for one thing, I'm exaggerating. There are more things that people could point to. For one thing, I'll do a blanket statement. All of these songs, you know, fair. You don't need to come and do a rebuttal of them all. Okay. I know they're not meant to be comprehensive takedowns of things, but those, I think as we look at Book of Mormon evidence, as I did for years, I hung on that stuff, the chiasmus, Boy, that was a big deal. Alma 36. You know, it's a beautiful Chapter, I think it's written very well and wow, what do you know, it does do that thing where it goes the one direction and comes back the other direction and the verses line up when put into a compelling article. That's faith promoting. Look at this. This is evidence of ancient style of writing. Here it is, Alma chapter 36. Look at that. It was compelling. You know, that helped keep me in, I think, for a number of years where I might not have that alone in some respects because we look for other evidence. But you know, there are other things I would include. We have found other examples of writing on metal plates. Not big books of it, but you know, mostly that song. I'm going for comedy.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] Yeah, I know, of course, of course, yeah.

Eric Herman [00:41:25] Although in an exaggerated sense, I think there's something to it, you know, and it's more maybe a little bit poking fun at apologists who. Those are the go tos, you know, nhm boy, that was a huge, huge thing when it came out. Right. I mean I was still an active member and I just remember for those

John Dehlin [00:41:46] who don't know what is Nahom and nhm, just explain that.

Eric Herman [00:41:49] Well, Nahom is mentioned in the Book of Mormon as a burial place that the Lehigh and the company are traveling through at a certain point when they're

John Dehlin [00:42:01] still in the Middle east before they build their boat. Right. And sail to America.

Eric Herman [00:42:07] Right. And apparently, say 15 years ago, an inscription was found somewhere over in Yemen maybe, I don't know exactly. That has NHM on it. And using, you know, the type of language you might expect, where vowels aren't used, you could put a and O in there and there you go, there's Nahum. We have a place. Because until then, no, no Book of Mormon place had been identified. You can't go and see Zarahemla written on the walls of a temple in South America. So yeah,

John Dehlin [00:42:52] go ahead.

Eric Herman [00:42:53] What? I think other people can express this better than I can. I've read articles on it.

John Dehlin [00:42:59] But

Eric Herman [00:43:02] where it falls short, nhm, there's a few reasons why, but one of the things is significance. The Johnson brothers, Chris and Dwayne, I think they talk about this in one of their videos where you have to waste significance of evidence. If you came into a courtroom and said, I believe in the Book of Mormon. Mhm. I would count that as evidence. I no longer think it's good evidence though. But I would count it. I said, sure, you know, whereas I know some ex Mormons. There's no evidence. No, I would count that. Sure. I just don't Think the significance of it is good, because the letters, it could mean a lot of different things. And it's one thing in a huge landscape, there aren't other identifying markers. You know, like I said, other people can explain that better than I am right now. But what. I'll include chiasmus and NHM as evidence. I just. I no longer think they're very strong evidence. And there's a mountain of evidence on the other side.

John Dehlin [00:44:12] Sure, totally. Yeah. And. But I do, you know, I'll just. My view is that there's. There's really no credible evidence that is compelling enough to counterbalance all the overwhelming evidence against both the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon. So I think the point of your parody stands.

Eric Herman [00:44:39] Me too.

John Dehlin [00:44:40] Yeah. So that's brilliant. I loved it. Okay, well, I want to play the next song, and I'm a little bit worried that we're going to hear double music, so stop or wave at me if you hear double music.

Eric Herman [00:44:54] Did anybody in the lives?

John Dehlin [00:44:55] Yeah, some did and some didn't. It's a little bit weird.

Pt 1: Ode To Prophet Joe

Eric Herman [00:44:58] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] But the next song we're gonna listen to is Ode to Prophet Joe. What do you want to tell us about that one?

Eric Herman [00:45:04] Well, this was straight out of conference the last time, the Tad Callister talk.

Eric Herman [00:45:11] And

Eric Herman [00:45:14] like I said before, this whole thing was kind of a lark. I had done the one song trying to be like Jesus. That was kind of the first inspiration, really, at a certain point. I can talk about that later if you want to play it later. But all of a sudden, all these other ideas started coming, and I said, all right, my mind. I gotta have something to do. And I was on a trip for a few weeks, driving hours and hours, and this Tad Callister talk kept coming up on the news feeds and Reddit and stuff like that. And. And the thing about it is, again, it's. I'm hopefully I'm conveying his side of it somewhat fairly in the second verse and then rebutting it in the third verse.

John Dehlin [00:46:04] What did you not like about the talk or what was controversial about the talk?

Eric Herman [00:46:08] Well, the idea that Joseph Smith couldn't have written the Book of Mormon, you know, these are a lot of the same things that critics have, I think, shot down sufficiently many times. I think what bothered me about it especially was knowing that he's not saying these things to the world at large. He's saying it to those 15,000 people in the conference center, into the, you know, portion of the 5 million around the world that are listening, and they are becoming, inoculated to that idea or to the idea that. What I think is the more accurate idea that he definitely could have written the Book of Mormon and did and you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:47:06] Got it.

Eric Herman [00:47:06] I think I got it. That's it.

John Dehlin [00:47:08] So it's about a talk where he tries to make the claim that no Joseph Smith, no human could have possibly written the Book of Mormon.

Eric Herman [00:47:18] And there's other things he didn't have the time to do it. The books that people say the Book of Mormon was inspired by these or that he plagiarized some different books. We can talk about some specifics afterwards.

John Dehlin [00:47:30] Okay.

Eric Herman [00:47:31] Fired up.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] All right. Wave at me if you hear two songs playing in parallel. Okay, here we go. This is Ode to Prophet Joe on Straight Outta Kimora by Weird Alma. Take a listen.

Pt 1: Ode To Prophet Joe

Eric Herman [00:47:50] It was the 1st of October, another sleepy general conference day. I had to watch it with my family who was visiting from far away. I made it through the morning session, didn't care what they were squawking about. But then I heard a talk later made me wanna poke my eardrums out. I thought I I gotta find a baseball bat to smash this stupid TV with.

John Dehlin [00:48:31] Conference anger When I heard silly old

Eric Herman [00:48:34] Tad Callister go off defending Joseph Smith so Tad said to the members from that great and spacious conference stage Will Prophet Joe never have a lick of brains? And he was of too young an age Too many names and places, stories and events he couldn't make up himself and all those books the Book of Mormon rips off were never on his shelf by the time his talk was over I knew I would need to drink a fifth When I heard silly old Tad Callister go off defending Joseph Smith. Now we all know that the Prophet Joe was brilliant and a sly as a fox but when needed for apologists well, he was dumber than a box of rice and he never had those books. But wait, didn't he read the first chapter of James?

Eric Herman [00:49:56] Honorable Preacher wrote View of the Hebrews

Eric Herman [00:49:59] and Thumb's Dictionary had those names. He had the opportunity and time and talent to create that me. But still that silly old tat Callister goes off defending Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] All right, that was. That was Ode to Prophet Ode to Prophet Joe by Weird Alma from the album Straight Outta Compton. Alright, tell us just a bit about your faith crisis. What happened? When did it happen? You know, we're not. This won't be an in depth. This is just brief because we want to keep the songs coming. But just tell us, tell us, you know, did you do the mission thing? Did you do the temple marriage thing, were you in it? Were you ever orthodox? Give us like the two minute version of your faith crisis.

Pt 1: Faith Crisis

Eric Herman [00:50:53] Oh boy. Well, faith crisis, but you're asking all this other stuff too. I did not go on a mission. I joined the church at age 20. Golden Convert missionaries, ringing the doorbell. A little bit of a long story there, but I was ready and waiting for that to happen, looking for something of meaning in my life. And there it was. I was living in Buffalo, New York at the time, all my life until about 12 years ago. And it amazed me that all of this happened an hour or so from where I lived my whole life. The idea of a personal relationship with God, that you could connect with God personally and individually and maybe even actually that was appealing to me, very appealing. And joined the church. I was active for the first year, I was 20, 21 at the time. And then became very inactive for about five or six years. I was pretty avid drug user as growing up and quit that when I joined the church. I wanted to commit. I wanted to say, you know, I'm going to do this 100%. And I did. But then after about a year of still going to bars and still going to parties where people were drinking and doing stuff, I wasn't doing it. But after a while, you know, if you're around it long enough, at some point you're bound to. If you're in a barbershop long enough, you'll get a haircut. That's the phrase. So went out and to make a very long story very short, by the end of that five or six years I was a junkie and nearly dead and went to detox and got essentially my life saved by joining the 12 step program. And at that point, you know, how do I, how do I, where do I go from here? What do I do? Well, there's as you know, 12 step programs have, you know, higher power. Right? Well, what's my higher power? Oh, maybe I should go back to that church again. Right. That I, that I connected with originally and I did. And boy, I think at the time it was the perfect thing. You know, being a teetotalling Mormon was. I used to think that was tea, by the way. That's not it. But you know, was a perfect match for me at the time and dove back into life in a huge way, really more than I ever had before. And met my wife online. This was back in 1999 when that was unusual. Now it's like, oh, I married someone I met on Tinder. You know, it happens a lot these days. But at the time, it was unusual. It was Mormon matchmaker or some kind of thing like that. And she was amazing. And, you know, we had a. We lived a good life for many years. I was never. I was always faithful and active. I was. I believed it. I wanted to represent what I felt was true. But I also had little or no interest or patience for cultural doctrine, you know, So I think some of the cracks probably started there. You know, when I seen some of

John Dehlin [00:54:44] the

Eric Herman [00:54:48] social issues in the church or the way that people. You gotta wear white shirts. You can't watch rated R movies like all that stuff, it just did not make any sense to me. And now, excuse me, another thing is that when I joined the church, it was 1990. This was before the Internet, right? So I feel today like what I was sold is not what the product really was in a lot of ways. And I'm not bitter about that. You know, little resentments about certain things. But, you know, James Randi, the magician, who he debunks, you know, a lot of things, Uri Geller and faith healers and all that, he said, we think. We believe what we want to believe. We believe what we need to believe. And I think I needed to believe at the time. But as life went on and the Internet came around and I started finding out about different things and the racism and Book of Abraham, you know, all of that stuff. Now what do I do? How do I. And I practiced mental gymnastics, like many do. For me, the thing is, I had answers for all of those different things. And I used the word answer liberally. You know, I had something that I could maybe use as an. As a way to keep going forward in faith. Okay, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. But you know what? Maybe if God did this or maybe this thing happened, maybe that could explain that. You know, like there's. I don't know, hundreds of things, really. But that allowed me to continue forward and be active and faithful. At a certain point, maybe about three years ago, I started to realize that all of those different answers could never harmonize. You couldn't take the answer I had for issue number 33 and apply the worldview needed for that to answer number 78, if that makes sense. And there was 300 different things. And that's where it kind of fell apart for me. And I was able to step back and look at the. The totality of it all and just see, you know, it just makes so much more sense to say that it's just not True. And that it, you know, and it was a number of things, you know, you've, you've gone through, you've talked to many, many people who've gone through similar things. For me, I held on to the Book of Mormon the longest. All these other things. Yeah, boy, the temple ceremony being copied about 80% from masonry and the Book of Abraham. All these things. All those polygamy issues, boy, it's terrible. Social issues drove me crazy, but still I held on. Maybe the Book of Mormon was what it claims to be and everything went to hell after that. That's what kept me in for the last couple years, I would say, until the Book of Mormon just collapsed from all of the other reasons.

Pt 1: What Keeps You in the Book of Mormon?

Pt 1: John Deland on His Excommunication

John Dehlin [00:58:27] Were there particular books or podcasts or websites that were kind of instrumental in your learning all this stuff?

Eric Herman [00:58:35] Yeah, your show. And there's an interesting thing is that I remember if you rewound about four or five years, I'd be like, John deland, he seems like a nice guy, but I don't know, you know, because I was on the faithful side, you know. And then a weird thing happened about a year or so ago. I was like, he just seems like. Seems like he's nicer and more casual. And I equated that to two things. Maybe after, maybe you could tell me, after your excommunication, did that kind of take a weight off you, off of your life a little bit?

John Dehlin [00:59:14] It did, yeah. I was stuck in this cognitive dissonance of loving it and not wanting to leave it, but feeling guilty and miserable every time I attended. And I don't think I would have ever left. So when the church forcibly excommunicated me, it kind of made that decision for me. But some people would say I've gotten more mean and nasty towards the church after being excommunicated.

Eric Herman [00:59:41] I don't think so. For me, like I said, it seemed like it was a two step thing. On one hand, I think maybe, and I was speculating, maybe you just felt more free. But also I had changed and. Oh, that changes my perception of you. But your interview with Sandra Tanner, I couldn't even listen to that at first. Like I wouldn't allow myself to listen to that. And then later I did at a certain point and I said, oh my gosh, she is, she is a wonderful lady and speaks so much sense. So that was one of the things. The other big thing was Mormon expression, the transoceanic vessel episode. A lot of people know what that is. And that was right at the very, very end of it. And that was the final nail. There were a lot of nails. That was the final one. And also, you know, the concept of the Book of Mormon being pieced together. I mean, there's a lot of original stuff in there too, I think. But also, reading the. I actually read the Book of Mormon for the first time through ever in 2015. I had never actually done it before, and that didn't help. You know, usually people say, oh, read the Book of Mormon, it'll strengthen your faith. It really didn't, because everything I was reading, just, why am I recognizing this phrase in First Nephi from a phrase in the New Testament? And it's littered with that kind of thing. And then the character of Jesus when he, you know, this is the Jesus of Nazareth who just had forgiven people who crucified him, and now he's reveling in the death and destruction of tens of thousands in Third Nephi. You know, that was jarring, really jarring. And I kind of. I remember having these weird. Like, something is not right. And I had a hard time articulating some of it until I read B.H. roberts book Studies of the Book of Mormon. I like recommending that to members because he was a general authority, died as an active member still, but, boy, he does not pull punches on the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith when you dig into it there. So that was May or so of 2016. Transoceanic vessel. That was the final nail. I remember walking my dog one night right after hearing that and kind of thinking about all this stuff. And this. It was a very moment of clarity, of feeling almost like people would say, oh, I felt the spirit in that moment where suddenly, oh, it's not true, okay? And realizing that I have to accept that. And what does that mean? And have I wasted the last 26 years of my life? No. No, I haven't. But, you know, now what? And so that was the big question after that point. But that's how it broke down for me.

Pt 1: The Book of Mormon: The Last nail in its coffin

John Dehlin [01:03:11] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org. thank you very much.

Pt 2: Mormon Stories: Why I Left the Church

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 825

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking the donate button on the top right side of the page. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support. What was it like to literally have the church be a part of rescuing you from drug addiction and to have the Book of Mormon be so incredibly meaningful to you, and even apologetics to have been an important part of your, you know, journey? How was it to write parodies about these things that in some senses were really sacred to you at one point, and in other senses maybe even were parts of saving your life? Was that. Was that at all conflicting for you emotionally, or was it just all fun and games? The process of songwriting parodies about things so sensitive to your core.

Eric Herman [00:01:27] And I know it's sacred to a lot of people and people I care about, who care about me, and I do feel very conflicted about that. But a couple things. First of all, like I said, it's what I do. It's kind of, you know, music is my. It's my meditation. It's my source of inspiration and expression. And I really didn't talk much about the reasons why I left the church. When I did a year ago, I said, I'm not going to talk about it, but it was there, you know, it was there. I think it had to come out in some ways, you know, It began more, like I said, as a lark. I still think of it kind of as a lark. You know, it's satirical thing, you know, but, yeah, in a sense, musically, I'm trying to express this is why. This is why I left the church. And here it is in song, hopefully with some humor and, you know, some feeling that's not gonna make you, you know, depressed or whatever it is.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] Right? All right, well, with that, let's. We're talking to Weird Alma his. His album Straight Outta Kimora. We're now gonna listen to the fifth track called Ivory and Ivory. Now, I grew up in the 80s, so I knew exactly where you were going with this, but there's a lot of millennials and younger folk who have no idea what they're about to hear. So tell us what the bass, the original song is and kind of what the idea of the song is. Right.

Pt 2: Ebony and Ivory

Eric Herman [00:03:18] And you know, it occurs to me that without that context, I'm not sure it quite works, because in the original song Ebony and Ivory, right, you had Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney singing together, and it's. Ebony and Ivory live together in perfect harmony side by side on my piano keyboard. Oh, Lord, why can't we. A beautiful, you know, sentiment about getting along with each other, putting racism aside. So it occurred to me afterwards, you

John Dehlin [00:03:49] know, why don't I play. Why don't I play. Why don't I play a brief clip of Ebony and Ivory?

Eric Herman [00:03:54] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:03:55] Just to give people a sense. Is that okay? Mm. All right, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Actually, Google has an. YouTube has an ad that it wants to play first. So this is literally me stalling while I'm waiting for the ad to play out. And then what I'm gonna do is play Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney singing Ebony and Ivory, which is sort of this racial reconciliation song using piano keys as a metaphor for how black people and white people can sort of live in harmony together. Is that all right? So here's what. Here's Ebony and Ivory, and I'll just play it as it, you know, into the song a bit.

Eric Herman [00:04:49] Side by side on my piano keyboard. Oh, Lord, why don't we. We all know that people are the same Wherever you go There is good and bad.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] All right. I think that gives people an idea, right? Yes. It's Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder singing about racial reconciliation with black and white keys on the keyboard. Ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony. Anything else you want me to say before we play the song? Anything you want to say?

Eric Herman [00:05:34] No.

Pt 2: Ivory and I

John Dehlin [00:05:35] All right, so now here is your version called Ivory and Ivory. This is where I'm straight out of Kimora.

Eric Herman [00:05:53] I'm not hearing. I'm not hearing it.

John Dehlin [00:06:01] You're not hearing it?

Eric Herman [00:06:02] No, it's okay. Oh, wait, it's okay. If everyone else is. That's fine. I don't. I've heard it.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] Are listeners hearing it? Okay, listeners aren't hearing it. Let me stop it, and I'll start it again. I'm sorry. Sorry to listeners for that. So let me. You were able to hear the previous one, right?

Eric Herman [00:06:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] Okay, so let me try it again. This is take two of Ivory, Ivory and Ivory by Weird Alma from straight out of Cumorah. I'm hoping it works this time. So here we go.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [00:07:11] Ivory and Ivory live together in the Mormon hierarchy Side by side, they're examples of glacial racial diversity. We've all seen that people are the same Same in the top 15. They're all old and white, wealthy businessmen, and they do not speak for the poor and meek around the world who represent every ethnicity. Ivory and I, we live together in Mormon history side by side. Orson Hyde and Brigham Young made this racist legacy. It's too late when 40 years have passed since 78 to declare your church isn't racist. If did not replace apostles with a race that wasn't always white as the snow. 19 times in a row. Ivory and Ivory live together in Mormon

Video Clip 3 [00:09:04] theology

Video Clip 3 [00:09:06] side by side there in Alma and Nephi. O oh, my, can't you see.

John Dehlin [00:09:32] Ivory, Ivory. I love it. All right, so that's obviously a commentary on race. And it is kind of mind blowing that like a hundred apostles in a row are white.

Eric Herman [00:09:55] Well, that's the point. You know, the second verse there, the last 19. Since 1978, 19 have been called all of them white. You know, that's just.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] It just hasn't occurred to God to call a non white yet.

Eric Herman [00:10:16] Well, yeah, and I think that the point I'm making there is, you know, I think. Was it Elder Ballard, somebody recently talked about, you know, in a very good way, denouncing racism in all shapes and forms. Right. In a talk, maybe a month ago. I don't have that reference. But, you know, here we have. You've had 40 years. 40 years and 19 in a row. So I don't know, it's the idea of speaking one thing and doing another. But racism, the racism was a huge thing for me for many, many years. I never liked it, never accepted it. I remember posting about it on Facebook and stuff, certain things. And boy, the funny thing is that any criticism just gets you kind of the worst pushback from some people. And I'm just like, there never was a revelation about it. We don't need, as a faithful Mormon, we don't need to hold on to this. We can denounce it and move on. But the essay did that a little bit, right. But never goes as far as really denouncing the origin of it.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] But the essay actually upset a lot of people because they're like, hey, I believe this stuff. Apostles and prophets taught it. I taught it. You can't just change it now and call yourself prophet seers and revelators. If the prophets see, revelators were wrong back then then, they're wrong now. And there needs to be some sort of reconciliation for all that.

Eric Herman [00:12:05] Yeah, well, that's another reason. Another reason it breaks down for me is that, you know, you can look at all the past profits and how the terrible things they said, you know, Markey Peterson. Oh, my gosh. How did that. Okay, here's the thing. I can see imperfect people, very super flawed people, being called to be an apostle of Jesus when Jesus was walking around in Palestine and, hey, fisherman, come here. Hey, tax collector, come here. I don't care who you were. Fine. But now that they're speaking under the influence of almighty God and they're really very racist, that's where I have a problem, you know?

John Dehlin [00:12:58] Absolutely. So let's tune in with our listeners. Sean writes so funny. Stephanie writes, when I heard the first line of this track, Ivory and Ivory last night, I nearly spit milk through my nose. Hilarious. Chelsea likes the line, glacial, racial. Haley says, nailed it. Roger likes the line, living in perfect bigotry. David says, ivory and Ivory is a jewel. It's a pearl of great price. Bruce writes ideological lip service at its finest. And Jared writes, best Church album ever. So you're striking a chord, Weird Alma. Nice work.

Eric Herman [00:13:43] Well, I appreciate it.

Pt 2: Wonders of Alma

John Dehlin [00:13:45] All right, let's talk about. You'll be back. What is that about? Now, this is one of my favorites because I'm a huge Hamilton fan.

Eric Herman [00:13:52] Me, too. Well, I guess chronologically, this would be the very first Weird Alma thing, because I wrote the first verse of it back when Elder Ballard gave that. Where will you go talk. The thing is, I was traveling at the time and I couldn't really record it or anything. I thought, well, maybe I'll send it to the infants and they can put it on their conference episode. But I didn't have the means to record it. By the time I got home, as a couple weeks later, kind of the moment had passed a little bit and I forgot about it. But then recently I dragged it back out again. I had some trouble with this one, but, you know, making some of the words work. I'm wondering if. Well, I shouldn't say anything. I shouldn't say you liked it. There's some things maybe I would rewrite a little. But that's for me, I shouldn't say.

Pt 2: Hamilton Song "King George"

John Dehlin [00:14:50] Okay, so explain the Hamilton version of this song. Or do you want me to?

Eric Herman [00:14:56] Yeah, go ahead, King George.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] I wonder if there's actually a YouTube version of this song. There's gotta be, right? From Hamilton.

Eric Herman [00:15:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:09] So basically, in the musical Hamilton, it's primarily set in the United States where, you know, Alexander Hamilton, along with other revolutionaries, are, you know, fighting the British and overthrowing them and starting a new country. And some of the funniest parts of the musical Hamilton are where King George actually will make an appearance and sing the same song three different times with the same melody. And the idea, he's almost singing to America, like America is a lover. And so it's sort of like a love song, but it's also kind of vicious. And it's definitely many people's favorite parts. So I'm gonna go ahead and play a little bit of the King George version first, if that's okay. And then we'll go ahead and play the Weird Alma parodies. Is that okay?

Eric Herman [00:16:17] Sounds good.

Pt 2: You'll Be Back (Hamilton)

John Dehlin [00:16:17] All right, here we go. This is the actual Hamilton version of. Of.

Eric Herman [00:16:25] You'll Be Back.

John Dehlin [00:16:26] You'll be back. Yeah, Here we go.

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [00:16:30] You say the price of my love. Is not a price that you're willing to pay. You cry in your tea. Which you hurl in the sea. When you see me go by.

Video Clip 4 [00:16:46] Why so sad?

Video Clip 4 [00:16:49] Remember we made an arrangement when you went away. Now you're making me mad.

Video Clip 4 [00:16:56] It's hard not to sing, isn't it?

Video Clip 4 [00:16:57] Remember, despite our estrangement, I'm your man. You'll be back soon, you'll see. You remember you belong to me. You'll be back. Time will tell.

Video Clip 4 [00:17:28] And when push comes to shove, I

Video Clip 4 [00:17:33] will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] All right, so that gives us a sense of. For the original version of youf'll Be Back as sung on the album or the musical Broadway musical Hamilton. Now let's listen to the Weird Alma version. You'll Be back. As sung by Elder Ballard. And this is, I think, referencing kind of this stay in the boat idea within Mormonism. So here is yous'll Be Back by Weird Alma.

Pt 2: You'll Be Back

▶ Video Clip 5

Video Clip 5 [00:18:17] You say the church isn't true and you're planning on leaving today. You'll cry in your tea and your coffee. While we watch you wither away. You'll be sad with hours and hours every Sunday and nothing to do. It will drive you mad.

Video Clip 5 [00:18:42] I love the accent.

Video Clip 5 [00:18:44] 10% more of your income burdening you. You'll be back. Wait and see. You will miss the pure misogyny. You'll be back. One of these days, days. And you'll help us keep on bashing gays. Temples rise, the growth rate falls. But we'll keep on building swanky malls. And if you just won't return. We will keep on bringing cookies to your house. Until your bosom feels the burn. You say our doctrine's hateful and you can't afford. But you should just be grateful. Gods on our side.

Video Clip 5 [00:19:53] This is my favorite part.

Video Clip 5 [00:19:55] We can't change the doctrine. Cause it's eternal doctrine. But when we change the doctrine, we'll say that it's the doctrine forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. You'll be be back. It'll be great. And you'll help us buy more real estate. You'll be back just the same with an asterisk beside your name. You'll have doubts and you'll have fears. We don't care as long as your check clears. And if you can't speak a jo, we will tell your friends and family to avoid you till you come back to the fort.

Video Clip 5 [00:21:10] Everybody.

Video Clip 5 [00:21:11] Everybody. I mean, really, where will you go? So good.

John Dehlin [00:21:39] Okay. Some of the responses from our listeners include, he stole the show. This is so funny. Nailed it. Keep on bringing cookies to your house. David wrote scathing. Chelsea wrote so true. Judy writes love this one. Judy also writes great voice, and I thought it was great, the British accent. And Bonnie wrote preach. And even Sandra Tanner weighed in. So that's pretty good endorsement.

Eric Herman [00:22:09] Ah, yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] I think that's one of people's favorites. What do you think?

Eric Herman [00:22:14] Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks. If you want that speech, the Ballard speech inspired another song. I give a little Piece of Mormon Stories exclusive here.

John Dehlin [00:22:26] Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:22:27] And I don't know, this maybe could be maybe an Eric Herman song, kind of about imagination, but it was. It directly came from that talk again. Where will you go? Right. And I'm thinking, oh, wait, are you

John Dehlin [00:22:40] about to play a song for us?

Eric Herman [00:22:41] Yeah, maybe.

John Dehlin [00:22:42] Oh, I love it.

Eric Herman [00:22:44] I got like 12 guitars here. I could fire something.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] Let's hear it.

Eric Herman [00:22:49] Let's see here. I gotta remember the words. It's not finished, but it's something I'm working on.

John Dehlin [00:22:53] Hey, we'll take it. We'll take it.

Eric Herman [00:22:55] And it really came from that whole thing. When the room I'm in seems small to me There's a world beyond what I can be I'll explore the greatest of mysteries and fly across the galaxies I can always go anywhere in my mind Whoa. Go anywhere I want to go Whoa. I go anywhere I want to go.

John Dehlin [00:23:46] I love it. It's kind of just saying, hey, I'll go wherever I want to go. Right? Yeah.

Pt 2: We Need a Music Video for Weird Alma

Eric Herman [00:23:52] It's a little bit of a middle finger there, but not too overly, I think.

John Dehlin [00:23:57] I love it. I love the Mormon stories exclusive. Lisa writes it's like a prayer answered. She's saying, your album is like a prayer answered. Judy's asking if this album is available for download. I just shared the link on the Facebook page. You can definitely download this. Why is it free? Why Aren't you charging us for this treasure?

Eric Herman [00:24:21] Because I don't want to. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:24:24] It's just.

Eric Herman [00:24:25] Yeah, but this is quality art.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] I just have to say. This is high quality art.

Eric Herman [00:24:31] Well, thank you. If I could use whatever this might. The forum of your vast audience. I mean that seriously. I'm looking to do a couple videos for some of these things. I have limited video skills. You know, I can put something together, but I would love it if somebody out there, you know, who's more on the video maker side of things, would, you know, want to connect and help me do. I have ideas for what type of video skills.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] Do you mean animation? What do you mean?

Eric Herman [00:25:02] Well, graphics, you know, I picture, you know, using certain quotes or imagery and stuff for certain things, you know, depending on the song. But like a fully animated version of Taperback Rider with a. You know, that would be awesome.

John Dehlin [00:25:18] All right.

Eric Herman [00:25:19] That's maybe beyond what I'm looking for.

John Dehlin [00:25:22] So we're crowd with Weird Alma. We're crowdsourcing some digital video animation skills.

Eric Herman [00:25:29] Animator, illustrator.

John Dehlin [00:25:32] Make some music videos of this beautiful stuff. All right, the next song we're gonna play hits me in my 80s. Hits me square in the 80s. For those of you. I'm not gonna play the Police singing Don't Stand so Close to Me. Maybe I'll play it in the background. No, I won't play it. But basically, Sting and the Police back in the 80s had a song called Don't Stand so Close to Me, which was about a teacher that falls in love with his high school student and they flirt with having an inappropriate relationship. Is that right?

Pt 2: Hit Me in My 80s: Don't Stand So Close To

Eric Herman [00:26:08] Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:26:09] Now, this song, this in particular really works best if it's. If you know the context. I'll give a shout out to Jonathan Streeter, thinker of thoughts, who is listening.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] He's listening right now.

Eric Herman [00:26:24] Hey, how you doing, Jonathan? Well, he pulled some video footage of a recent Bednar talk at a church meeting, and he noted how his wife started to stand up at the end.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] Bednar's wife?

Eric Herman [00:26:43] Yeah, Bednar's wife. Not Jonathan. Sorry. And she realized that Elder Bednar had not stood up yet. And she, almost in a panic, sits back down. And, you know, the way he highlights that is just. It's not funny, actually. It's, you know, But I. This is one I'm getting a little snarky on here. But. But Bednar, he's, you know, kind of rubs me a certain way. So I'm using. Using this forum as a little criticism of him, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] And I want to invite anyone who can find the first person to post Thinker of Thoughts video wins ice cream or lunch with me or something. Let's go ahead and post that link from Jonathan street or from Thinker of Thoughts here on the Facebook feed so that those who are checking it out through video can actually see the video that was provided to us. Is that all right? All right, so we'll see who responds first. But the song is Don't Stand Up Before Me sung by, you know, Weird Alma, who is doing his best impersonation of David Bednar the apostle sung to the tune of Don't Stand so Close to Me by the police. It's called Don't Stand up before Me. Are we ready to go?

Pt 2: The Song of Don't Stand Up Before Me

Eric Herman [00:28:22] Do it. Do it.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] All right, here we go.

Eric Herman [00:28:31] Young apostle. The subject Dave Bedna is his name speaks at a church meeting, outranks all those who came. It's over. They're waiting to leave at and shake some hands. His wife has the gall to get up before he stands don't stand, don't stand up don't stand up before me

John Dehlin [00:29:05] I love the falsetto.

Eric Herman [00:29:06] Don't stand, don't stand up don't stand up before me he can get so zealous, you know, like Packer was. He'll bless a congregation then take it back just cause if he gets mad he might make someone's head roll by Just like that young man in that book of first Levi. Don't stand, don't stand up don't stand up before me don't stand, don't stand up no careful before me he must have you honor his power and priesthood. He cares for rules and status, you know, like Jesus would.

John Dehlin [00:30:10] Ouch.

Eric Herman [00:30:11] He claimed no gay Mormons. Of course, you know, there are someday he might be Prophet Henry. Shout Heil. Bad nar. Oh, don't stand, don't stand up don't stand up before me don't stand, don't stand up before me don't stand up don't stand up before me don't stand, don't stand up don't stand up before me.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] I love it. All right, so that is again Weird Alma from the album straight out of Kimora singing Don't Stand Up Before Me. Now, I just spent that full song trying to find the video on Jonathan Streeter's page and I couldn't find it.

Pt 2: Kimora singing Don't Stand Up Before Me

Eric Herman [00:31:11] You know what the link right is in? The link is right in the text of the lyrics. Towards the top.

John Dehlin [00:31:18] Oh, brilliant. I'm not seeing it though.

Eric Herman [00:31:22] Up towards the top after the title. See Here for some context.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] Oh, there it is. There it is. Okay, got it. So we're going to paste that in the Facebook group so that people can watch that. There it is. All right. Thank you for sharing that. Nobody wins the ice cream or lunch or maybe no one wants an ice cream or lunch with me, so I'll just have to lick my wounds about that. All right, so we're coming.

Pt 2: Eric Clapton on First Visions

Eric Herman [00:31:50] Speaking of that, you owe me a steak dinner from like four years ago. You did some one of your like epic five hour podcast. the end you're like, if anybody listens to this whole thing, I owe you Biosak dinner.

John Dehlin [00:32:03] Where do you live? Where do you live, Eric?

Eric Herman [00:32:05] Washington state.

John Dehlin [00:32:07] Oh, when are you gonna come to Salt Lake so I can take you up on that offer?

Eric Herman [00:32:10] Yeah, well, I get there usually once or twice a year, so next summer sometime.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] Do you perform?

Eric Herman [00:32:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] All right, man, listen, a couple things. Let's have you come and maybe perform to the post mo or progressive mo audience.

Eric Herman [00:32:25] Maybe.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] I think Sunstone is dumb if they don't have you perform at Sunstone.

Eric Herman [00:32:32] Yeah, I'd love to. The one problem, depending when it is like summer is my busiest time traveling and doing stuff. So it really depends on the dates.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] Well, when you come out here, please let me know ahead of time and we'll have an event for you to perform some of this to an audience. How would that sound?

Eric Herman [00:32:47] Great. I'll have some new ones by then too.

John Dehlin [00:32:51] Yeah. So do you plan on putting out more of these?

Eric Herman [00:32:54] Well, there's no plan. This is really just among the side projects I get into. This is yet another one. But I do have a few more ideas. I'm not gonna spoil anything just yet, but I'm working on a. I'm working on a First Visions song that I think will be a clever way to represent the many different ones. And I'm not sure if I can work it out the way I imagined it, but we'll see. A song about the 116 pages. A pet interest of mine, actually, but. And a couple other things.

John Dehlin [00:33:32] All right, so there's some things coming, coming up.

Eric Herman [00:33:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:33:39] Are you influenced by Brother Jake at all? Some people are trying to kind of drawing some parallels or similarities, talk about what Brother Jake's work has meant to you.

Eric Herman [00:33:48] Yeah, well, I first came across it a couple years ago. I was still an active member, but it was one of those things that was hugely jarring. And on the one hand I loved it from the sense of the satire of it and the approach of it and the style of it, it's brilliant. But on the other hand, it was like, oh, man, what do I do with this? Because I know. Knew everything in there, speaking the truth, you know.

Eric Herman [00:34:20] And

Eric Herman [00:34:23] the thing is, the infants told me, I talked to them recently and that he had a similar question about, do I put this stuff out? How are people going to react? And yet, if they. If they react badly to me but not the material, you know, what does that mean? You know, that's what kept him doing it. Because the material being true and authentic, you know, at least to his point of view, is what kept him doing that. And I really grew to respect that. I am able to just love his work outwardly and completely. Now his was my girls. I have two daughters. They're 15 and 12 now. And when I. When I lost my belief, I was. It took me a little while to figure out what do I. How do I. You know, what do I say to them or. And one of the things is I actually turned my older daughter on to brother Jake because I knew, like, she's really into, you know, funny YouTube stuff and I knew she would get a kick out of that. So she played some things and loved it, as I thought. And we talked a little bit about what some of that meant, you know, which eventually led to, you know, what I just told him, I just don't believe anymore.

John Dehlin [00:35:52] Nice. So any other influences you want to make shout outs to that, you know, have been important to you just for fun, I guess. Jonathan Streeter's work, you've appreciated?

Pt 2: The November 15th Handbook Policy Parody

Eric Herman [00:36:07] Oh, yeah. Oh. In fact, one of the things about that Jonathan did maybe a year ago, I was thinking of this back with the Ivory and Ivory Song is he did this amazing video where it was right after the November 15 policy that you helped shine a light on, right?

John Dehlin [00:36:30] Yep, A little bit.

Eric Herman [00:36:32] A little bit. And he had this video here.

John Dehlin [00:36:37] Other.

Eric Herman [00:36:37] And I'm remembering it best I can here. But here are the. All of the reasons, all of the defenses for the November 15th handbook policy. Right. So at first you. You start listening to this and he. The things he is saying are. Actually seem to be defending that. And you're like, what the heck? I mean, it doesn't make sense. Like, it doesn't seem good. But like. And then finally. I hate to spoil it here, though. You should. People should go watch that because there is a twist involved in that. Can I say it? Is Jonathan there? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:37:16] Jonathan is listening. And we're gonna ask Jonathan to post a link to the video you're talking about in the comments?

Eric Herman [00:37:22] Yeah. Let's just say at the end, you realize that everything that he was saying supposedly about that policy had to do with an earlier aspect of church history and actual things that leaders and people said about it. And to me, the juxtaposition of that was brilliant to see that, you know, a lot of things just don't change. We change the. We change what we're complaining about or what. We change what the devil is, but we don't. We don't change the same words that we use to try to chase them out, I guess, whether it's racism or LGBT rights.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] Is there a song. Do you have a song specifically about the November policy yet?

Eric Herman [00:38:15] I don't. You know, I was going to work on a couple things. I had something I was working on about Elder Oaks Talk in a recent conference, and it was one of those things that just didn't go away. You know, you write songs or parody songs, whatever it is. A lot of times you have. You have a hundred ideas and maybe 20 of them actually, you know, go

John Dehlin [00:38:38] somewhere if somebody wants to. Is it even useful if people want to share ideas with you, or is that not useful?

Eric Herman [00:38:45] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:38:46] Sure. How do people get a hold of you if they want to share ideas for songs with you?

Eric Herman [00:38:50] I would say if you go to weirdelma.com where the, you know, the songs are, there's a contact button on there, I believe. But what I was. What I was also gonna say is the infants, their conference show, they. They had a string of parodies related to that subject. So that's another reason I said, okay, you know, it's kind of been covered.

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Now.

Eric Herman [00:39:14] I do want to do my own take on it at some point, but the idea I had didn't turn out. It had like a verse and it just. It wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:39:24] Yeah. Infants on Thrones and Brother Jake are brilliant. Just simply brilliant. I just have to kind of record and say that.

Eric Herman [00:39:36] You've never said that before.

John Dehlin [00:39:37] I probably have, but I'm going on record again if I haven't. Plus one.

Eric Herman [00:39:42] Plus one.

John Dehlin [00:39:44] So any. So I think it'd be fun to kind of go out with your last song and just have it be the way we end the episode. Anything you want to say in your interview before we set up the final song?

Pt 2: One More Song For The Mormons

Eric Herman [00:40:00] Just a shout out that, you know, to all the people that have helped me both in and out of the church. Many wonderful, loving people. I love you. I have issues with the church specifically and the doctrines and the teachings. I think it's all false and, you know, it is what it is. But I hope that, you know, if anybody finds out about this and is offended, well, you know, so be it. But there's also a hundred worse things out there, you know, all kinds of memes and everything. Not. Not to excuse anything or whatever, but I feel like I'm justifying it. But it is a concern of mine. I. You know, I don't know how you or other people feel sometimes. Like you kind of walking on some eggshells. I guess that's how it's been. I'm still adjusting to this, you know, a year later, what it means, in one sense, I am trying to move past it, and I think in many ways, I am. Most days, I don't think about the church much, you know, but I'm still connected in different ways, connected through the people at this point, the ex Mormon community, You know, I made some friends there, and I think connection is important no matter what. That's one of the things that the church does a great job of providing. You know,

Eric Herman [00:41:29] I don't know.

Eric Herman [00:41:30] I just. At a certain point, I had to. I have to say, I. I do not believe this anymore. And I got. I can't. I tried to keep going for a couple months, and just. That felt really, really weird at that point, and it didn't feel right. So just to be honest myself, I'm a songwriter. I'm gonna write about stuff that I'm thinking about that's part of my life, and hopefully again, I'll do the plug. If somebody out there is good at, you know, making videos or illustration stuff, want to connect with me, that would be really awesome, and I appreciate all the work you've done. John, can I quote something from you? I rarely do this, but sometimes when I'm listening to podcasts and stuff, I'll hear something and I'll frantically write it down in my file on my phone. And you said something a few weeks ago in your new name Noah interview that I thought was really profound, and I wrote it, and I want to say here because I think it's awesome. There is something fundamentally immoral to presenting a narrative that people build their entire lives upon. They decide what to do with their education, how much money to give, who to marry, when to marry, how many kids to have, what professions to pursue. There's this massive amount of decisions that you make, you know, in a finite life. And to base that life on a narrative when not only the narrative isn't what it claims to be, but when leaders know that the narrative isn't what it claims to be. And intentionally, for as long as they could, withheld the information that would allow people to make an informed decision about how they spend their finite time and resources. That's profoundly immoral. Now, I would have sworn. Did you write that all out ahead of time?

Pt 2: Weird Alma

John Dehlin [00:43:19] Man, Whoever said that was super was super wise. Whoever said that? No, that was just the spirit. That was the spirit moving me during my. My interview with Mike Norton. So that was, that was all off the cuff.

Eric Herman [00:43:32] But, man, and that's exactly how I feel and a big, big reason why I left. You know, this is your whole life. You know, I just have no desire in pulling people out of the church. That doesn't work anyways. Right. There's the backfire effect and all that. But I just, I would like people to be more aware of these issues like you are. You're dedicating your whole life to this, you know, absolutely everything. Your money, your time, all of this. Do you really know all of these things? You should. And if at that point, you know, somebody said to me, after I left my sister in law, she looked at the CAS letter and the rebuttal by Farreh and the rebuttal to the rebuttal, and she came back and she said, you know what? It's really, really messy. But I choose to believe at that point I had to say, okay, yeah, fine, great, you know, but man, it means so much. It's your whole life. And, you know, I think that's all. If I can possibly do any little sliver of a thing with these silly songs, just here's some of the issues, you know, and I think more of it is really for the ex mos. Don't you think that, you know, we're kind of.

John Dehlin [00:44:54] We certainly love it.

Eric Herman [00:44:56] Yeah, you know, we're just, we're having a little laugh at some of these. These issues and things and expressing, you know, why. Why they are issues, I think.

John Dehlin [00:45:08] Well, I jumped on this because I think it's brilliant. It's brilliant writing, brilliant thinking, brilliant music. It's artistic, but it's hilarious and it's powerful. So thank you. So, Eric, thank you so much for this gift. I hope you don't stop with this. And I'm really just proud to call you a fellow Mormon. Post Mormon. I'm proud that you're one of us in the tribe. Patty just wrote, thank you for reading that quote from the recent podcast. It touched me too, and I thought it was spot on. I'm sure that a lot of our listeners are Going to be thanking you as we conclude this podcast. So if any listeners want to give some final thoughts or thank yous to Eric, please add them now as comments and I'll read them after. After we play this last song. Lisa just wrote healing. So anyway, Eric, you're a gift to Mormonism. Weird Alma, thank you. The album is straight out of comp. The artist is Weird Alma, and the final song that we're going to play today is a parody of I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. And so that's what we'll be going out on. I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. The final.

Eric Herman [00:46:33] Very much like, including some of the more controversial aspects.

John Dehlin [00:46:38] So this is what Jesus was literally like, right?

Eric Herman [00:46:42] Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:46:43] Well, in some ways.

John Dehlin [00:46:44] All right, here we go. I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus by Weird Alma. Thanks so much. And here we go. Hope you enjoy it.

Eric Herman [00:46:56] I'm trying to be like Jesus. I'll follow in every way. I'll wear a long robe and sat and start growing a beard Today I'll tell people to hate their families and I'll tell my church leaders, they're all Pharisees saying, love one another as Jesus implores. Have dinners with sinners and hang out with whores. You can burn people, drown people and call it divine like he did in third Me finite. I'm trying to love my neighbors. I know that I can do more. I'll save what I need for tithing then give it all to the poor. I'll tell everybody I'm God's only son and I'll go to the temple and whip everyone saying love one another, kill trees without figs, throw people off cliffs like he did with those pigs. Tell those wealthy apostles to sell all they've got for these are the things Jesus taught.

Pt 2: Mormon Stories: The White Album

John Dehlin [00:48:26] All right, so final comments coming in. Marion writes, thanks, Eric. Vicki writes, do you think you ever heal? Joyce writes, fantastic artistry. Lolli writes, thank you for bringing humor to something that is often painful. It helps validate my feelings. You're awesome. Chelsea writes, like he did with those pigs and lots of smiley faces with tears. Chad writes, priceless. And so on and so on. All right, Eric, Weird Alma, thank you so much for sharing your gifts with us. Please join us again on Mormon stories soon. Jonathan writes, don't stop with one album.

Eric Herman [00:49:11] Well, I had an idea. Maybe I should have called it straight outta Outta Darkness. I don't know. But now that could be the sequel. That could be the next album.

John Dehlin [00:49:20] No, we need like a Beatles white album if it's not The White Album. What is it? The White. The White and Whiter Album. The really White Album.

Eric Herman [00:49:27] The White Shirt. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:49:30] How about the really White album?

Eric Herman [00:49:35] Oh, man.

Pt 2: Eric Weirdama on Mormon Stories

John Dehlin [00:49:36] All right. All right. Eric Weirdama, thank you for joining us today. Thanks to all the listeners. It's been awesome to have you guys plug or two. Yeah, plug. Plug away.

Eric Herman [00:49:46] Okay. Kids music. Just look up Eric Herman on Google or YouTube and his videos and stuff.

John Dehlin [00:49:53] Eric Herman. E R I C H E R M A N Right.

Eric Herman [00:49:58] That's it. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:49:59] All right.

Eric Herman [00:50:00] Also ericendras.com that's my actual last name, E N D R E S I put out an album absolutely free, that one earlier this year. Not kids music. It's an album I did about all the addiction recovery stuff that I went through 20 years ago, so.

John Dehlin [00:50:18] Oh, wow, that's.

Eric Herman [00:50:19] I don't want to plug that. It's different, you know, but more kind of alt rock kind of sound to that, but. And then weirdalm.com. yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:29] All right. Hey, post some of those links in the. In the comments of the Facebook live feed and I'll make sure that my producer Cody includes them in the blog post when we release this on Mormon Stories.

Eric Herman [00:50:45] Okay, great.

John Dehlin [00:50:46] All right. Yeah.

Eric Herman [00:50:47] Thanks, man.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] We're@alma.com Eric. Thank you so much. Thanks to all the listeners. Please support us at Mormon Stories. If you value this content, your monthly contribution, 10, 20, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford, is what keeps us going. Thanks to everyone who supports the Open Stories Foundation. Join us again soon for another edition of Mormon Stories. Take care, everybody. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org. thank you very much.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.