Thank You God

i> Look, there's just something I kinda need to address and I should do it - I know I should do it now. Erm... t-there- ... o-over the years I've realised that, erm... some- a lot of my audiences come to my shows, er, particularly because of a... sometimes because I quite often sing about beliefs, erm... specifically in the past I've sung a lot about faith - and religion. And , er, if I'm completely honest with you, I've erm... tended to mo-mock, erm... some of the - not in general - but some of the mo- might perceive- hypocrisies. Er... but I just don't want anyone to be waiting for that because I'm not doing it... anymore. Erm...

What...? Well - I know, I know. It's har- Look, I should... you deser- you-you've earned an explanation, you're right. Erm, it's someth- something happened to me, you see. Er, when I was touring my last show in Australia, it's the begin-beginning of last year, and erm... I was doing a gig - n-not one of my gigs. It was ah, a sort of - it was actually a new material night, er, hosted by the.. Ross Noble - you know, th-the long-haired, mentally-ill Northerner. And erm... he's not, obviously. He's a genius, erm - which is a mentally-ill person with an audience. Erm - he's - he's beautiful, he's th-the ... Ro- y'know Ross, he's the best. And he does this amazing gig, and we were having a drink afterwards, and there was a really nice vibe in the bar, but I notice this dude - who, slightly uncomfortably, was hovering - sort of, on the periphery of our group. And I noticed him particularly - this tall, really handsome guy, had those nice dreadlocks that you can get for about 600 quid at the hairdresser, and he had a shirt open to about here, and was very tanned, but I noticed him particularly because he had a-a a long silver chain, and hanging at the end of the chain, a quite prominent silver cross. Y'know, the sort of cross you might wear if you're a fan of... intersections. Or-or or the lowercase letter 'T'. Or-or probably most commonly, if you're a fan of the apparatus by which first-century Romans put to death and tortured Jewish insurgents.

And, er... anyways, he was sorta standing there and, erm, eventually he- he made- he the move and came over an- this lovely polite guy, he said,
"Hi, g'day, I'm Sam." - er, his name was Sam - he says, "I'm from Dandenong." - he was er, from Dandenong, which is the suburb of Dandenong, set in the Dandenong ranges, just-just to the- just to the south of Melbourne. And, er, we got talking, but I could tell he wanted to talk to me, and eventually he managed to - kinda, y'know - isolate me from the pack. And he says, "Tim, I've always wanted to talk to you 'cos I'm - I'm a fan of your work, and I don't want you to think I'm offended or anything, but as you might have noticed, I'm a Christian." ... (a Christian)... er, and he says, "I just- I've always to ask you why - why you don't believe in God." and I said, "Well, Sam, I don't believe in God for the same reason that anyone who doesn't believe in a thing doesn't believe in it. Because I haven't yet been offered enough evidence to allay my doubts." And he said, "But you don't just go though your whole life only believing things for which you have evidence." and I said, erm... "Yep. That's pretty much how I stutter my way through my turgid existence, yeah." And he said, "What about love?" and I said, "W-what about love, Sam?" and he said, "Do you believe in love?" and I said, "Yeah, I-I believe in love, I think. I-I love, I am loved. Sure." And he said, "A-ha! You don't have any evidence for love!" A-and I said... "Hmmm...I-I think... I'm in... I think.. Yeah! I've got... evidence... Sure! Love without evidence is... stalking." And he said, "Well, Tim, if it's evidence you want, how about this?" And he told me this story, this incredible story, about his mum. You see, Sam and his mother were members of a big, evangelical church congregation in the Dandenongs. You know, one of those new glassy type ones.

And, um, in her early sixties, Sam's mum had gone to the doctor with a problem with her eye and he had diagnosed an irreversible degenerative eye disorder and he told her that if she didn't get surgery very quickly, that she would lose her eyesight. And Sam's mum was afraid, she didn't believe in modern medicine, she didn't trust doctors, she was afraid of hospitals, and the idea of surgery but Sam and his mum went to this church, this incredible church, and that sunday the entire congregation of their church — some 1700 people — prayed at the same time for Sam's mum, and the following Tuesday they went back to the doctor and there was no sign that there had ever been anything wrong with her eye, she was healed, she was ... cured. And the reason this story had an impact on me is cause I try to be intellectually honest with others and with myself and all I've ever asked for is evidence, and here I was witnessing a first-person account of what can only be described as a miracle. So I went home, and I wrote this song.

I have an apology to make
I'm afraid I've made a big mistake
I turned my face away from you, Lord

I was too blind to see the light
I was too weak to feel Your might
I closed my eyes
I couldn't see the truth, Lord

But then like Saul on the Damascus road
You sent a messenger to me, and so...

Now I've had the truth revealed to me
Please, forgive me all those things I said
I'll no longer betray you, Lord
I will pray to you instead

And I will say "Thank you, thank you, thank you God
Thank you, thank you, thank you God"

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I had no idea, but it's suddenly so clear now
I feel such a cynic, how could I have been so dumb?

Thank you for displaying how praying works
A particular prayer in a particular church
Thank you, Sam, for the chance to acknowledge this
Omnipotent ophthalmologist

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I didn't realise that it was so simple
But you've shown a great example of just how it can be done

You only need to pray in a particular spot
To a particular version of a particular god
And if you pull that off without a hitch
He will fix one eye of one middle-class white bitch

I know in the past my outlook has been limited
I couldn't see examples of where life had been definitive
But I can admit it when the evidence is clear
As clear as Sam's mum's new cornea

And that's extremely clear! Extremely clear!

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I have to admit that in the past I have been skeptical
But Sam described this miracle and I am overcome

How fitting that the sighting of a sight-based intervention
Should open my eyes to this exciting new dimension
It's like someone put an eye chart up in front of me
And the top five letters say: I C G O D

Thank you, Sam, for showing how my point of view has been so flawed
I assumed there was no God at all, but now I see that's cynical
It's simply that his interests aren't particularly broad

He's largely undiverted by the starving masses
Or the inequality between the various classes
He gives out strictly limited passes
Redeemable for surgery, or two-for-one glasses

I feel so shocking for historically mocking
Now, your interests are clearly confined to the ocular
I bet given the chance, you'd eschew the divine
And start a little business selling contacts on-line

Fuck me Sam, what are the odds
That of history's endless parade of gods
That the god you just happened to be taught to believe in
Is the actual one and he digs on healing

But not the AIDS-ridden African nations
Nor the victims of the plague, nor the flood-addled Asians
But healthy, privately-insured Australians
With common and curable lens degeneration?

This story of Sam's has but a single explanation
A surgical God, who digs on magic operations
No, it couldn't be mistaken attribution of causation
Born of a coincidental temporal correlation
Exacerbated by a general lack of education
Vis-a-vis physics in Sam's parish congregation

And it couldn't be that all these pious people are liars
It couldn't be an artifact of confirmation bias
A product of group-think, a mass delusion
An Emperor's New Clothes-style fear of exclusion

No, it's more likely to be an all-powerful magician
Than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition
Or one of many cases of spontaneous remission
Or a record-keeping glitch by the local physician

No, the only explanation for Sam's mum's seeing
They prayed to an all-knowing superbeing
To the omnipresent master of the universe
And he quite liked the sound of their muttered verse

So for a bit of a change from his usual stunt
Of being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt
He popped down to Dandenong and just like that
Used his powers to heal the cataracts
Of Sam's mum
Of Sam's mum

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I didn't realise that it was such a simple thing
I feel such a dingaling, what ignorant scum

Now I understand how prayer can work
A particular prayer in a particular church
In a particular style, with a particular stuff
And for particular problems that aren't particularly tough

And for particular people, preferably white
For particular senses, preferably sight
A particular prayer in a particular spot
To a particular version of a particular god

And if you get that right, he just might
Take a break from giving babies malaria
And pop down to your local area
To fix the cataracts of your mum