The Eric Metaxas Show - Joseph Arthur

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Musician Joseph Arthur introduces some new songs and shares his story of being shunned for voicing his opinion on vaccines. More at josepharthur.com.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least to make it a double or triple line. But now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas.

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the show. It's the Eric Metaxus show. I play the role of Eric Metaxis traditionally, and I have guests on. And I love it when I can get guests in the studio. For example, today, I have the singer-songwriter, Joseph Arthur. He's right here, Joseph Arthur, my new friend.

Welcome. Thanks for having me, Eric. Listen, you and I, we're friends. Like, it didn't take long. We have a lot in common. and a lot of stuff to talk about. In fact, I want in the next segment, because I want to tease this,

I want to talk about how I came, how it became aware of you, because it's a crazy story, ladies and gentlemen, and I want you to hear this. But you, I mean, you grew up in Ohio, you've been a musician your whole life. You've played with many, many of the greats. You've done a ton of your own material.

So I always want to know people, people's origin stories, right? Yeah. Like, here's the first question. Right. How did you become a Christian? When did that happen for you? Well, it's, I feel like it's an everyday process in a way.

Agreed. You know, it's like, so it's like even to say, like, you know, I'm becoming a Christian. Every day, like, I feel like, you know, my day is increasingly centered around seeking the father, right? like the first thing. And that's relatively new, I would say, in terms of just like really framing my day that way. So like even like a couple of years? Oh, yeah.

Even in the last couple months, the practice of seeking the father has increased a lot and sort of holding captive every thought and understand, you know, and sort of, you know, your instinct or our instinct in this society is reach for our phone or engage the mind. Right? Engage the part of us that's sort of in this realm, the ego or whatever, the sort of noise of the world. So it's similar to meditation, I guess, in meditation some Christians might think is a dirty word, but I think of that as like a sort of listening for God's revelation.

Well, it depends how you meditate. We're not talking about transcendental meditation. We're not talking about the Maharishi Maharasia, Maharihi Maharashi Maheshiyogi Gizhenheit. Okay, let me ask you a simpler question. When you, you shared this with me yesterday because we had the privilege of dinner together, but you shared that when you were 10 years old, I mean, when I hear stories like this, it blows my mind that your family was and remains not at all interested in God, but somehow as a kid, I mean. Yeah, I spoke to God a lot. I would pray to God.

Where did you even hear that he existed? I don't know. I mean, well, and I'm wearing these John Lennon sunglasses, but like John Lennon has this line, God is a concept by which we measure our pain. And I don't really know what that means. Neither did John. And for the love of Pete, don't ask Yoko.

She has no idea. But our suffering does bring us to God. And so I would say in childhood, I probably needed that kind of comfort. There's this guy, the pastor Charles Stanley, I think I was talking to you about him. He's a hero. And I listened to a lot of his sermons, and he was talking about how our suffering is what provokes intimacy with God. It's sort of, and so I love that concept, the fact that, like, when you think maybe God isn't answering your prayers or God is hanging you out to dry, he's not, he's inviting you into new levels of intimacy within him.

So I think when I was 10, even though I wouldn't have been able to sort of frame it. that way, obviously. I think that's essentially what I was doing, and it really hasn't changed. I mean, I'm still doing that. But when you said to me yesterday that you started going to church as a 10-year-old by yourself, not your family taking you? No, I went with... How the heck did that happen? I asked my grandma to take me. You asked her. Yeah, yeah. She didn't say, come with me. They were not church people. They're not Jesus people. You know, they're not. So you actually asked your grandmother at age 10, would you?

Well, because we lived in Akron, Ohio, right up the road from Farallon School and Fairlawn Church. And so I knew what the school was. And I'm like, well, what's that building? And what's that weird building? And it's like, oh, it's the church. And like, when do we ever go there? And it's like, no. And I'm like, well, I want to go there.

Like, and then, well, you go there on Sunday. Well, okay, well, you know. and then I asked my grandma and she took me. And then that was really strange because then like when you're a 10-year-old and you have no background of any of this and you see Jesus on the cross, you're like, what is going on?

This is fascinating, you know? Well, it's fascinating to me that you were the one that initiated this at age 10. I got another question for you. How long have you been wearing sunglasses indoors? Well, it's just because we're on TV. Or are we on TV? TV? It's just the radio.

What? I could take them off. Holy cow. If it makes you feel more comfortable. But I felt like, I felt like, you know, I just cut my hair off. I need to have some rock and roll credibility. Well, all you need to do... And the sunglasses say I'm a rock and roller, so I'm trying to, you know...

All you need to do to get a rock and roll vibe is sit next to me because I do not have a rock and roll vibe. I'm not dressed... You are very rock and roll, sir. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. You know, sometimes in, in, like, 80s, they would, Thomas Dolby would wear, like, a suit. Yeah.

It would be like, you're a certain kind of... kind of rock and roller, or Robert Palmer. I'm just going to say, that's cheating, because those guys were going, like, they were cutting back, you know, against the, whatever, the grain. But, no, all I'm saying is that you definitely have the rock and roll vibe. Like, your guitar, I want to get into all of this. And by the way, in the second segment,

I'm going to tell my audience how I came to discover you, which is itself, I know it was the Holy Spirit thing. Like, you'll see. It's crazy. It's actually. It's kind of amazing. But you are not just a singer-songwriter, but you're an artist,

and your guitar is, like, you obviously, if anybody knows your art, knows that you are the one that defaced that perfectly nice guitar. I know, it was beautiful before I got to it. Yeah. Actually, Gibson lent me this, and then I painted it. Are you serious?

Yeah, but I mean... What do you mean Gibson let me this? Well, they would give you guitars back in the day. They would just, it was like a real free for all back then. If you had some notoriety as a musician, you could go to their warehouses and pick out guitars. They would let you take them on tour. And they were very loose about getting them back. And it was all very blurry.

So you put your art all over the guitar. I think I might have ended up having to pay for this one. But who knows? When did you, okay, I try to ask you when you came to faith. I mean, when you came to believe, like, Jesus was the son of God, rose from the dead. Like, was there a moment? Because it doesn't need to be a moment, but I'm just asking. I'm wondering if there was a moment or, you know.

But you weren't paying attention, so you didn't notice it. I had my sunglasses on, so I might have missed it. No, my faith was always, I was one of those guys that was spiritual, you know. I was into, like, all kinds of different things. I would, you know, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of them, I was investigating all of them. I would go to the Eastern bookstores and stuff. And I would write songs about Jesus, and I believed in Jesus as well, but I didn't know him to be the way. And that has evolved.

And it's an evolution that continues, you know? Right. So it's an interesting one. I mean, what's your take on? You think Jesus is the only way and that there's no other way. And if somebody doesn't accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior. Well, that gets very complicated. You don't want to go there?

No, no, no. When I say it gets complicated, I mean, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. Period. Done. That's in the Bible. It's the Word of God. Now, then the question is exactly what does that mean?

What does that mean? Because some people will have a very, what I would call, religious interpretation of that. Unless you pray this prayer, but, blah, blah, you're going to hell. I would say, I don't think so. I don't think it's quite that simple. Jesus is the only way to the Father, but the idea that everybody is going to have the same. I guess people kind of try to make a formula, which always offends me because that's not, if you really know the Scripture and you know the Lord of the Scripture, it's not formulaic.

So we have to be careful that, you know, you can say something like that, but then exactly what does that mean. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how I discovered Joseph Arthur. We'll be right back. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I'm proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding

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clicks, visit LegacyPMinvestments.com. To get started, you're going to love this free new tool that they've added. Please go check it out today. That's LegacyPMinvestments.com. Two, three. One, two, three. Welcome back. Folks, I'm talking to Joseph Arthur. Hello. Who lets me call him Joe. Yes. Okay, Joe, the way I stumbled across you, I find it's so fascinating to me. Now, people, my audience knows that I work out, right? I'm a runner. A couple times a week, I work out with weights.

And as I've said many times, I'm almost always listening to like 70s tunage. I'm like listening to, you know, you name it, Super Tramp, E-L-O. Bad company. A little bad company. What about Striper for Christian Rock? No, no. No striper. I rebuke you for even bringing that up.

We're going to edit that out. in post. Edit that out. No, I've never been like a heavy metal guy and definitely not a stripper. But no, but my point is that for me, music, anybody who listens to this as a radio program, right, knows that my bumper music, all the bumper music on this program, not all, but most of it is like 70s, poppy, rock, you know, it's all over the map. literally like Partridge family from when I was seven, like really poppy, you know, all the way through to, I don't know, Joe Walsh and anything, just all this melange of stuff. So I was working out with weights and on Apple Music, you know, if you've got a song list, when it gets to the end of the song list, the algorithm kicks in and it'll be like suggesting songs that other people who like the songs you like, right? Right. So that's been really fascinating for me because I have discovered songs by, you know, bands or groups that I love that I'd never heard before. Like, you know, Fleetwood Mac in 2000, they put out an album and there's like two amazing songs I listen to like all the time now, right?

So it kind of introduces you to stuff. So some stuff pops up and, you know, most of it I'm not interested or whatever. So this thing pops up, folks, are you listening? This thing pops up. It says, Fistful of Mercy 2010. I'm like, 2010. I don't listen to music really from 2010. What the heck is this? Right. Like, I was just kind of like, why did this pop up in my feed? Like, what is it about the music that I listen to that pops up? You know? And so I had to look it up. So I look up Fisful of Mercy and I say, oh, it's a band that put out one album. That's right. And it has three members. And one of them is George Harrison's son, Donnie, Danny, D-H-A-N-I. And I go, oh, that's how this. it up in my feed. Right. Because I had, I went through, actually, it's more George Harrison than Beatles because I listen to more wings than Beatles. And I, and I went through a season.

All things must pass. Like in the last, yeah, in the last like six months where I was listening to a lot of George Harrison stuff, right? So it pops up that there's this band called Fisful of Mercy, put out one album. So it's Danny or Donnie Harrison. So that's what white's in my feed. And then it's these two other people whose names I don't know. Ben Harper.

Ben Harper and Joseph Arthur. Yeah, no, I know, but I didn't recognize them because I'm out of it, you know, like I'm a 70s dude. So, but the title, Fistful of Mercy, I just, something in me goes like, wait, wait, fistful of mercy. That sounds Christian. Like, non-Christians don't, like, that title comes from somebody, it sounded to me, like, who's probably a Christian, because just the concept of mercy is such a Christian thing. Right. But it's not like I have Christian music on my playlist so that this is a Christian group. This is all 70s pop, rock, whatever, you know, Elton John, whatever.

So I thought, I wonder if somebody in this fistful of mercy thing is a Christian. Like, this is just too weird. So I look up your name first, and the Wikipedia page comes up and say, boom, he's a Christian. Got it. And I thought, that's really wild. What's funny, though, is because I did name the. band and and and I wasn't Christian or I wouldn't have identified as a as a real Christian at that point so even though it does have Christian connotations the inspiration for the band name there was this

band you know this band called Blur Damon Alburn had this side project called the good the bad and the queen with you know the good the bad and the ugly the Kleeneas wood movie right and so like I liked that changing of just that yeah good the bad and the queen I always thought that was a really good band name yeah So I thought, I wanted, like, fistful of dollars. And then I thought, what if I change another cliniswit. So I said, fistful of mercy. It was like that.

Wow. That's where it came from. Wow. And there's other Cliniques with connections. We're not going to get into. We're not going to go down this rabbit. But wait. Is he Christian?

So, no, I don't think. I don't know. But here's the thing. Here's, but a friend of his, I mean, a friend of mine who worked with him is definitely a Christian. But here's, here's what I wanted to say. So I'm reading down the Wikipedia page. This is where my heart stopped. So I say Joseph Arthur,

fistful, and literacy is, okay, I think he's a Christian. I look it up. It says on the Wikipedia page, oh, yeah, he's a Christian. Then it says, Arthur, Joseph Arthur, received media attention and controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic due to his belief that the COVID-19 vaccination is a danger to humanity. and it basically goes on to explain that you were canceled,

dropped by your label, by your management, by your boo-bo, boo-bo, boo-bo, and I was like, whoa, this guy is a hero. He actually dared, you know, from within the liberal world of, you know, cool musicians to dare to say, I'm not going to get this COVID thing and I think it's a danger, whatever. And you even wrote a song called Stop the Shot. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. You remember?

Yeah? I just listened to it on the way home yesterday. I've heard it before. I love it. There's several things I love about it. But when I read that, I said, this is a really interesting guy, and I did something that I never, ever, ever do. I went to your website. It said, contact, and I emailed you.

It took me a while because I've been going through a hard season, and you emailed me back. You've been going through a hard season? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Oh, man, a lot of stuff. Insane travel and whatever. So it took me a while, but I emailed you. You emailed me right back.

that day and said, hey, you want to be my radio show tonight? And I just was kind of blown away that this Apple algorithm, God can use anything, can use Balaam's ass, he can use whatever, he can even use Apple, even use Apple algorithm to, you know, to bring people together. And I just thought, how else would I have ever stumbled into you? It's an unlikely friendship. I guess it's not that unlikely, though. I feel a certain inspiration from you as well, just in how focused you are with your work. And, you know, I have aspirations to write books as well, but even aspirations to finish an album. Also, leaning more towards a lot of this faith-based music I've been writing, too. So I feel like God put you in my life to sort of guide me in a certain way. I'm not calling you a

mentor Eric or anything like that, but I'm just saying. Please say guru, Eric. You are an inspirational guy. No, but I got to tell you, though, it was just so fun to discover you this way. And by the way, I haven't mentioned it, to listen to your music, some of which I just love so much that I've listened to it over and over and over. That album, Fistful of Mercy, the title track, Fisful of Mercy, and then the song, In Vain or True, I've listened to that over and over and over

And the There But for the grace of God go I Which is a recent song That's recent, yeah That is so I could play that one Beautiful Well I can't play it

So I guess that would mean that Do you want me to play? Yeah Oh I just Right now? How about now? Okay What about now?

Yeah, yeah I know that's like so Look at life In the vacant sky The days we've lived And the healing cry To see the wounded Live and die There before the grace

God go I You can sing along There before the grace Of God go I Gave the bird's wings to fly Gave us the will to get by For those that can't even try Here we go

There before the grace of God go I There before the grace of God go I We love our defenses and open up our heart And we're going to make it out tonight to give a little love and hold. We're going to wrap this one up. We'll do the rest later. You don't need to wrap it up. See, people who are too media savvy.

Too media savvy. They're all worried about that. Listen, that is so beautiful. There's so much. I'm choked up. You know what? I thought I heard the background vocals coming in there strong air. That's it.

Listen. You got some lyrics that should get me choked up. We'll be right back talking to Joseph Arthur. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question. Well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal.

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800-978-83057. Use promo code Eric or Mypillow.com. I picture you in the sun, wandering what will I'm falling down on. Welcome back. I'm talking to Joseph Arthur. And I guess I'm singing with Joseph Arthur. Joseph, thank you for playing that beautiful, beautiful song and letting me home in the background because that is just your lyrics.

I mean, I want to say this. I'm not here to blow smoke. Some of your lyrics are really very beautiful. As a writer who values writing, some of them are just really beautiful. And that's not always the case. A lot of people who write music. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that.

Yeah. I mean, as a writer, do you think, like, God is speaking to you through sort of like the process of writing is almost like revelatory in its nature? It can be. I mean, it depends on the kind of writing. I guess. It depends on the right. I mean, it does it come more. your mind or from like this sort of external voice, the voice of God, revelation.

It depends on what you're writing, right? In other words, I think, I mean, I would say that, you know, when you accept Jesus into your heart and you say, Lord, lead me, guide me, he's leading you in all kinds of ways. Even for me, just what am I going to write about? When I wrote the Bonhofer book, there is zero doubt in my mind that God not only led me to write that book. but he created me in my mother's womb to write that book. Like that's so obvious to me in retrospect. But in terms of, you know, how much freedom do you have creatively? When you're writing a biography, you don't have a ton of freedom.

You know, you're telling this story, it's somebody else's story, whatever. But there are other things like the letter to the American Church and the new book that I have coming out that I just sent to the publisher. Like, I definitely felt more a little bit of what you're talking about. But it really does depend on, on the nature of the thing. And I think when you're writing music, that's particularly the case that, I mean, but look,

let's be honest, all of your gifts, even the ability to write anything or to write music or whatever, that's clearly a gift from God. Now, whether you're open to him using it for him, for his purposes, to speak truth, you and I were talking yesterday and on the phone about how people like to divide things

into sacred and secular. And it's like, is either Christian or it's not Christian. And I kind of think, like, what are you talking about? Like, is that a Christian apple? Like, Jesus invented the universe, created the universe, and every atom in that apple, you know, the electrons are being moved around the nucleus by Jesus. But I don't say it's a Christian apple.

Like, it's kind of a weird thing. And people do that with music all the time. Yeah. So that when I hear a line in a quote unquote secular song that's beautiful and true, I know that that's Jesus, even if the person who wrote the song doesn't know Jesus.

Yeah, but, you know, a lot of Christians seem to be very sensitive about the sort of the way things that aren't sort of strictly Christian could influence you. I mean, the one I struggle with the most is yoga and we've talked about it.

But like, you know, in terms of an exercise technology, if you want to call it, something like that, It's like really profoundly good. Now, is it invoking, like, demonic spirits or, like, spiritual forces that are against Jesus or something? Yeah. For me personally, no, but a lot of Christians think that it's demonic in nature. I would caution people against yoga, but you're going...

And you yourself caution it, so it's like... Yeah. So extrapolate that out with rock and roll. Well, no, that's different. I don't think... Well, to you, it's different, but to a lot of people, that wouldn't be different. Okay, but... The point is that I have worshipped God in churches singing praise music.

Right. That's like rocky or rock and roll. You know what I mean? So like there's this continuum. And I think there are some people that they're, they're all too comfortable with creating these strict rules. And like it's got to have this kind of a beat or it's, you know, of the devil. I think that's preposterous.

I think it's nuts too. You have to be careful. I think that that's. But then again, I'm not afraid to do a sun salutation. And then talk to, you know. Jesus while I'm doing it. Do you know what I would love to do? Whenever I hear, we mention George Harrison.

Right. His song, My Sweet Lord, right? Right. Obviously, in that part of the song where he's blurring, you know, Hei Krishna, Harrah Rama, I'm like, eh, buzzer, not interested, because to me that is dark stuff, to me. But up to that point. Yeah.

And then the music, it is so beautiful. and I thought, I would just want to hear that song as a worship song. And I'll rewrite the lyrics at the end or just keep saying, you know, my sweet Lord, because I think you can sing it in a worshipful way. Now, I've never heard anybody do that exactly. But I think that that's, listen, Martin Luther, about whom I wrote, you know, a 450-page biography, he would take, like, German drinking songs and put Christian lyrics to them to sing, because he said, I want popular people.

to sing about God. Yeah. So I think typically this is like people get religious and weird and create these categories. I like your message about the sort of courage it takes to be a Christian rather than being religious. Or like the title of your new book, have you revealed that yet? I don't know.

Have I? Yeah, I probably should since I sent to the publisher. Well, I mean, the whole theme of that is really interesting. It's a Bonhofer phrase. Yeah. It's religiously. Christianity. But we were talking about this, and this is...

And I bring that up because I feel like the sort of, like, you know, sort of fight against maybe secular music, that's more on the religion side of things. Rather than the religion lists Christianity that you're speaking of, that's more open-ended to the world as it is, and how do you be like a Christian within this world where you're not sort of a shrinking violet or? away from, oh, no, I can't take rock and roll music or I can't do this stretch or whatever. It always depends, right? Because there are people, I mean, this is why there is no substitute for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and asking him to lead you by the Holy Spirit.

Because sometimes there's no exact answer, and you have to have wisdom directly from God. Hey, I'm talking to Joseph Arthur, and we'll be right back. is true and deep as the sea. Lord, can you really love if I don't love myself. Welcome back. I'm talking to Joseph Arthur, singer, songwriter, artist. You do a lot of art, a lot of, you do a lot of different stuff. You've got a cool, cool stuff you do on Instagram.

But I wanted to talk to you about... The helium guru. What? The helium guru. Yeah, we don't have time to get into that. All right. Although I will say my favorite Woody Allen film is Broadway Danny Rose, which features a helium segment. That's funny.

Oh, yeah. I went and saw that Martin Scorsese movie last night. You're kidding. We went at 930. It was up till 1 in the morning or something. It was a crazy movie, but anyway. Yeah. I have mixed feelings about Scorsese.

Yeah. I do. Totally mixed feelings. Well, he loves dark. Yeah. And that's why I want to smack him like, hey, Marty, uh-uh. No, stop. He made a children's film maybe 10 years ago.

a film for children, like for families. It was so beautiful, and I thought that's the kind of work he could be doing instead of whatever really dark thing. He and De Niro and DeCaprio decided they wanted to wallow in the darkness. It's dark. And it's a lot of people getting shot in the head. Yeah, and you know what that is? It's like, what is that?

What's that fascination with like tons of death and murder? I'll tell you. You could do like a skit, like a siren, Live skit on Martin Scorsese where it's like, hey Bill, how you doing? And everybody just blows each other's brains out every five minutes. Like, because that's basically what it is. No, it's sick. Well, that's why I would say avoid him.

Listen, I wrote a piece. If people go to my website where I have my writing, my essays, I wrote a piece titled The Apotheosis of Martin Scorsese where I deal with this whole issue of how he glorify violence. But I don't want to talk about that. I know, but like it's an interesting take on human nature because I'm like watching this and going like, is this human nature where just there is no moral compass at all? And it's interesting when you frame it with Christianity because it's like, you know,

this does give us a moral framework. That's part of what Christianity's meant to do. And without that, where's the limitation of evil? And we're living in this time where we're seeing evil run amok. Okay, this is why I want to go. you. First of all, the scripture says, whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble, whatever they think on these things. God is telling us, like, yeah, there's evil, but focus on the beautiful and the good and the true. Doesn't mean you don't

ever see the evil, whatever, but God calls us to be careful what we take in. But I want to talk, when you talk about evil, okay, what happened with the pandemic, a lot of people woke up and said, what is going on? I feel this authoritarian thing, this pressure. It feels like evil. They're telling me, I got to get this vaccine. It's not even a vaccine. It's made with aborted babies. I got it. And everybody's telling me, including my pastor and Christian leaders, I got to get this, whatever. So it was a real difficult moment for a lot of people. And I want to talk about this, because what really got to me, when I discovered you and I'm like, you know, looking you up, and I, and when it says that you pretty quickly saw the COVID-19 vaccine as a bad thing.

And I, and I, that took real courage at that time. Because as soon as I started saying stuff about it, I got blowback from people that I thought were friends. They were like, stop spreading disinformation. I got a, my fan base was primarily on the left as it turns out. And the attack was relentless because also, and this isn't to brag, but I was very early on speaking out. That's right.

Like Joe Rogan was still like a year from speaking out basically, even like hinting that Ivermectin might be a good idea. But I mean, to me, you know, it was a ticker tape parade of red flags. They were demonizing things like Ivermectin. They were even demonizing things like vitamin C. So it just became obvious that there was something like you would have to have turned your brain off to not notice that there was something funny going on. and then once they wanted kids to get it,

and you know it's an experiment with no long-term safety test in place, that just makes no sense on the face of it. And that is when I first started speaking out. And I said, wait, kids shouldn't get this. And I thought, oh, most people are going to agree with that. That's reasonable. And it was the opposite of that. It was like a full-scale meltdown.

How dare you? You want to kill people. What are you? Who are you? I thought you were something else. Yeah. Yeah, I got a bunch of that for other stuff. And it's hard to process because you're thinking, wait a second, we live in America.

It's a free country. I'm expressing what I think is true. And you're telling me, shut up, you can't say that. And that's where you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, what do you mean I can't say that? Yeah, well, I had people write me privately, like, you know, mentors, people that I've known and worked with for a long time, wrote me in private. private too and would say you need to stop speaking out. And it's weird. On some level, they might have just been concerned for me to be able to maintain a career. Yeah. So I don't hate them,

but the more pushback I got, and I don't know if this was ego or Jesus, but the more pushback I got, the more I wanted to speak out. It did not make me want to like hide. It It provoked the opposite reaction. I went a little ham at that point. Ham? Like I went nuts. I started real. I don't know. I'm not familiar with that term.

I don't even know. It means you go wacky with it. You start speaking out more. I was posting more and more and more and more. And at that point, too, there was no informed consent. So I was actually trying to alert people because I had been doing lots of research. You know, so I knew certain things that, you know, that I didn't think the public knew. So I was concerned with that.

Like, you actually cared about people. I did. And now, like, and now there's people that still speak out a lot, and I'm a little bit less inspired to because I feel like the information is out there. Right. And people don't want to have their minds changed if they think a certain way, I think, a lot of times. Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, the more information.

that comes out. This is just one controversial topic, but it's a, it's a huge one. But honestly, it's the way people basically said, shut up, don't say that, you can't say that. You know, you thought, what world am I living in? It was weird. And who are you to dare even tell me what I can and cannot say? Patriots have died so we can speak truth in America. We have free speech. And it just so happens what we're saying is helpful. Freedom of speech became controversial. Yeah. Just like now, even singing a song like Give Peace a Chance seems to be a controversial thing to do. Well, you wrote a controversial song called Stop the Shot about the vaccine jab. When we come back, maybe we'll, I don't know, maybe we'll hear a little bit about that.

We'll be right back. We're talking to Joseph Arthur. It's the Eric Mataxis show. Stick around. Keep swinging no matter where you go. This one goes out to the contenders. Still running into Receive the message

Plead your song Talking to Joseph Arthur So you wrote a great son Very recently About putting on the armor of God And I want to I want you to play that Before we're done

But we were just talking about Stop to song You wrote it You had the guts to write a song About the COVID-19 vaccine called Stop the Shot And is that the song that got you canceled That were your management and everybody freaked out?

No, no, no, no. It wasn't a song. It was me posting online and just talking. But then you decided to double down and write a song. I did, yeah. You want me to play a little bit of it? I would... I mean, absolutely. We will overcome...

Stop this shot. It might be hot. We lost the plot. We'll find another way. Stop the shot. That's what your part is. Stop to shot. To speak your mind any time without the thought police attacking what you say.

Stop the shot, baby. Stop the shot. To devastate the broken fate of the viral state that threatens where we stay. Stop the shot. Come on. Stop the shot. Stop this shot. It might be hot.

We lost the plot. another way Stop to shop Stop to shop Because Ivermectin You can trust It's as dependable as A New York City

Buzz That's hilarious So take me uptown Baby, I don't want to make a fuss. And keep your graphene oxide out of me. Baby, I don't want to rust. You know what's funny about that? I want to do Stop the Shot, like, with BG's harmonies.

Yeah. Stop this shot. It might be hot. We lost the blood. We'll find another way. Stop the shot. Yeah, we got to figure that out. Later.

You know what's funny, though, about that, like, the whole, like, Ivermectin you can trust. It's obviously I'm being somewhat comedic, and then, like, that was part of the smear, too. And he says there's graphene oxide. Like, I also, obviously I don't know what's in the shot. Nobody does. But, like, I also don't think it's going to make me rust. I'm being humorous. And I'm singing it, like, Bowie on acid, you know?

But that is exactly what, just so you understand. And you must understand this. Right. That's how those people smear us. Like I said stuff. Right. Precisely. I have said many things tongue and cheek or humorous.

Right. They then take it and say, you said this. Full serious. And you think, okay, it's like, bro. That's really dumb. Like it's dependable as a New York City bus. You think I'm being like super serious? That's called a joke.

No, but they have no humor. Look, the devil has no humor. Let's be honest. That's funny. isn't it? That's true. Yeah, of course it's true. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Luther said that. Sense of humor is God power right there. So that's why it's no point in watching PBS or CNN. Okay, so we're done with this, we're done with this segment, but in, and you have a radio show. Let's, I want to plug that. Yeah, TNT Radio, yes, please. TNT Radio. Joseph Arthur's Technicolor Dreamcast.

It's on every Saturday night starting at 9 p.m. Eastern. Joseph Arthur's Technicolor Dreamcast. TNT Radio. Yeah, it's a news talk radio. Great, like, free speech platform. There's tons of great, yeah, broadcasters on that station. Okay, that's the end of this hour. We're going to continue with Joseph.

Arthur, don't go away.