You Take My Rights Away

Album: Invincible (2000)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song explores the notion of happiness as a Christian. Skillet frontman John Cooper explained in a Listenin.org interview: "'You Take My Rights Away' was an interesting song because there's lots of different facets to the idea. One of them is that it is freeing when, I believe, you find God and all of a sudden you find purpose in life, when you've never had purpose in life - it's everything. But the revelation that I felt I had when I wrote that song was that for so many years growing up in church, I had been told over and over and over basically that God wants me to be happy, and God wants this... and all of a sudden I just kind of realized, you know what? God's ultimate agenda for my life is not that I'm happy, it's that I do what He tells me to do. And I am happy being a Christian, it's kind of like ... it's a result of being a Christian as happiness, but I think true joy comes when you know that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. So that's what 'You Take My Rights Away' is, it's a bit of a radical concept. I heard someone else talk about it, is where I got it from, so I didn't make it up, haha."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired MenSong Writing

Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.

Tom Keifer of Cinderella

Tom Keifer of CinderellaSongwriter Interviews

Tom talks about the evolution of Cinderella's songs through their first three albums, and how he writes as a solo artist.

A Monster Ate My Red Two: Sesame Street's Greatest Song Spoofs

A Monster Ate My Red Two: Sesame Street's Greatest Song SpoofsSong Writing

When singers started spoofing their own songs on Sesame Street, the results were both educational and hilarious - here are the best of them.

John Doe of X

John Doe of XSongwriter Interviews

With his X-wife Exene, John fronts the band X and writes their songs.

Fire On The Stage

Fire On The StageSong Writing

When you have a song called "Fire," it's tempting to set one - these guys did.

Song Cities

Song CitiesMusic Quiz

Nirvana, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are among those who wrote songs with cities that show up in this quiz.