


Ironically, Swaggart's own bloodline pulsed with the Devil's music: free-wheeling cousin Jerry Lee Lewis was a rock 'n roll pioneer, while cousin Mickey Gilley was a Country music star.
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This time around, he declared, "the Lord told me it's flat none of your business."īob Daisley, who co-wrote "Miracle Man" with Ozzy and Zakk Wylde, was going to call Swaggart out by name in the lyrics, but ultimately wanted it to be about "anybody being hypocritical and getting caught with their pants down." A few years later, an Ozzy-less Black Sabbath released their own televangelist takedown with the song "TV Crimes" ("Slow and steady, he's got time, to commit another TV crime, TV crime"). After being suspended, and eventually defrocked, Swaggart found comfort with yet another prostitute. Gordon, in turn, dug up evidence of Swaggart's motel liaisons with hookers and broadcast them to the world, leading to Swaggart's infamous "I have sinned against you" apology on his TV program in 1988. As a side hobby, the preacher was hunting down his fellow ministers (or, more appropriately, his competition) like Jim Bakker and Marvin Gorman for their own illicit misconduct. Swaggart was too preoccupied with his own battle to notice the one forming against him. He used the incident to fan the flames that were continuing to build against the genre. Swaggart had turned his ire on Ozzy when a teenage boy committed suicide while listening to " Suicide Solution" in 1984. Ozzy relished the downfall of powerhouse televangelist Jimmy Swaggart ("Jimmy Sinner"), who publicly blamed rock stars for the corruption of America's youth while he privately indulged in his own lustful cravings with prostitutes.

It was an obvious jab against his detractors, but paled in comparison to " Miracle Man" three years later. In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne made an ironic cameo appearance as a money-hungry TV preacher in the horror-comedy flick Trick or Treat, where he called rock stars "demonic beasts" and asked, "Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned love song?" Some bands used them as examples to criticize organized religion others attacked them for playing God and teaching an unbiblical "prosperity gospel." Either way, televangelist songs became a rite of passage in rock and heavy metal. After the sexual and financial scandals of big name evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker broke wide open, many musicians, including Christians, took them to task. Unfortunately, when you deal with that much fire, you're bound to get burned.

Like reality TV stars, many televangelists of the '80s were especially brazen and achieved a high level of celebrity and scandal, not to mention wealth.Īt the time, a lot of fire and brimstone was being hurled at rock music from watchdog groups like the Parents Music Resource Center and thunderous televangelists who viewed stars like Ozzy Osbourne as little more than guitar-wielding demons singing verses from Satan's personal diary. When Bono transformed into the slick Mirrorball Man - a cowboy-hat wearing Texan with a taste for fast cash and flashy suits - for U2's 1991 Zoo TV stadium tour, he was spoofing a particularly American phenomenon: the rise (and fall) of the TV preacher, also known as the televangelist.
