Rich here. In the early days of the Jesus Rock scene (later referred to as "Contemporary Christian Music"), there really were only a handful of good bands (egs.,Love Song, Phil Keaggy, Overland Stage, Randy Stonehill). Beyond those bands and a few others, the majority just really didn't write good songs, many weren't very good musicians in the first place, and/or their messages were fairly limited to a theologically shallow advertisement that "You should be pals with Jesus."
But one Christian rocker stood heads & shoulders above all but a few -- Larry Norman, who was the first true Christian Rock Star. In the late '60s, before turning his attentions to being a spokesman for the nascent Jesus Movement, he'd already experienced mainstream chart success with his Bay Area band People!, who'd recorded a fabulous cover version of "I Love You" by The Zombies.
However, even more than his previous history in a chart-hitting band, what made Larry Norman stand out from the majority of other Jesus Rockers of the early '70s was that he was articulate and intelligent and charismatic and wrote songs that transcended the thematic limitations of most Jesus Rock. Instead, Norman's songs employed the kind of poetic language used by Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. His songs were full of metaphor and complex rhymes and including references to literature and cinema and history and the news to express the feelings of someone who felt he was a foreigner in this world.
In fact, the title of Norman's major label debut album was "Only Visiting This Planet" (Verve, 1973).
And before Larry Norman unfortunately turned into a Moral Majority-type Christian right-winger in the '80s, he wrote some of the most poignant songs of the early Jesus Movement, including describing Jesus as an outlaw, critiquing U.S. foreign policy that bombed villages in other lands while American children went hungry, and expressing feelings of alienation from a woman who'd seduced him. And, also, this powerful song told from the cynical viewpoint of a photographer who takes pictures of death and destruction for the Six O'Clock News. Powerful stuff.
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