Hell Sermon

"Hell Sermon" is a parody lyric song released on July 4th of 2021 by Every Ape and His Brother. Arriving too late to appear on the already-loaded The Sent-In Clowns album, it was released as a single. It is set to the tune of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. On June 14th, it became the first song to appear in an 80s rock-themed album dubbed The Man From '84.

Backstory
"A frustrated preacher with not much to lose, shakes the congregation from apathy with a sermon set to a Journey tune. Without fast penance, the world is going to Hell. Sending itself. We're already halfway there. This is what Jonathan Edwards mixed with Steve Perry and Bill Weise might sound like."

Themes
The song begins with a similar opening to talking about drifters in life as the original song does. However, it talks about young women being lured into bad habits and dark places by the seductive promises of the 21st-century world. Drugs indeed take her on "a trip to anywhere." Yet, she goes nowhere in life. It also mentions how, after his family's implosion following his father's incarceration, one young man becomes a Doomer. The two of them are representative of those who pave the way to Hell with surrender to depression, and by coping through self-destructive behavior and attitudes.

A man who denies that Hell is real and a corrupt televangelist are mentioned next, as men who malign God's character due to finding the idea of Hell offensive, such that they make graven images of the god they'd rather believe in based only on their own lack of understanding of law and order, their pride, and their lust for money and fame. Their spiritual crimes are likened to being on par with the atrocities of an impenitent child molester, suggesting that they will stand at least equally as condemned in the end.

The song makes a bold declaration for all of the above-mentioned to abandon their wayward paths, and promises they will meet "Reptilians, lurking in the night!" Here, "Reptilians" alludes to 2-story-tall serpentine demons, even if a "reptilian" is defined in other ways in pop culture. Smoke, devils, and screaming are promised as well, along with "never-ending night."

The line "Working hard, is still ill will!" is a reference to an almost-true statement once made by Martin Luther:

“The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man is that, somehow, he can make himself good enough to deserve to live forever with an all-holy God.”

Some could argue that atheism, or worse yet, Nietzsche's "God is irrelevant" claim, are more damning. However, Luther makes a valid point regarding self-righteous delusion being dangerous.

In other works, Luther went on to say that to do good without doing it out of faith and gratitude is "to curse God in doing so," making even good-seeming actions an act of sin. Ergo, "whoever then does wrong and lacks any trace of faith, curses twice at once."

The following line about "tampon spill" reinforces this, and backs it up with a reference to Isaiah 64:6, where the more accurate translation of "filthy rags" is "menstrual rags." Next comes the line: "Where you're going then is never nice; for all your crimes!" This references Matthew 7:23: "Depart from me, all ye evildoers!"

The next several lines discuss the judged and condemned using a fatalistic and pessimistic twist on the original song's lyrics. While Journey's song had the line: "Some will win, some will lose;" there is no win condition in the new song. "Some will lose; some lose worse!" references Luke 12:45-48, about those beaten with "few blows" (died in ignorance) versus those beaten with "many blows" (those who died in knowing rebellion.) "Some are just born with a curse!" refers to those whose souls were betrayed by their elders, who acted as the proverbial crows from the Parable of the Sower and Seeds: "Some seed fell along the highway, and birds ate it up immediately."

The line "And the nightmare never ends!" is another play on the original's line about "the movie never ends." Many have compared dreams and dream states to being like watching a very bizarre movie, in which grasp of real-world logic becomes very fluid. But instead of feeling like you're a character in a movie, you'll feel trapped in a nightmare with no ending.

Cerberus is mentioned as "waiting" for new arrivals, in reference to Dante's Inferno. The line "and no chance for a promotion" refers to the partial-regeneration, torture, death, partial-regeneration cycle that the damned will suffer. Not only will they be permanently separated from God (the actual definition of the "Second Death" and "destruction" (FUBAR-ing) of the soul, not the Calvinist "your soul has been 404'd" heresy), but their torture cycles will be a perpetual Groundhog Day loop - which is also the Buddhist definition of Hell.

The line "Your cube, horrors of the night," references visions NDE sufferers have made statements about, plus to 2 Peter 2:4 regarding "gloomy dungeons and pits." In one YouTube video, an NDE sufferer claims to have seen fiery cubes. Those cast into them got to live in a horror movie, over and over again. But no matter what they did to stop living in that movie, each effort to change the course of history proved futile, as they'd suffer increasingly worse betrayals for even attempting to be smart.

The song ends with yet another jab at Journey's original. "Best start believin'!" declares that the original song is naive. It never states what the individual is believing in the first place, and assumes they already do. But what if they don't believe in much of anything at all? Then what? The song clarifies that it means the sensation of being in Hell. As in: "Hell is real. Best start taking the reality of it seriously."

Development
This song was originally going to be called "Blackpill Anthem," and it was going to be the same as the original, but with a few small changes:

"Some will lose, some lose worse, some are just born with a curse!"

"But the nightmare never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..."

"Don't start believin'!"

Over time, it was realized that the song had more potential as a hybrid of a typical parody song with a theological sermon. Thus, a more elaborate work was born. The lyrics were crafted on the 4th of July of 2021, and was completed around 8:04 PM EDT. Around that same time, it was submitted to AmIRight, under the username banner of AranJutan. The following morning, "Hell Sermon" was approved for AmIRight. On July 7th, around 10:00 PM EDT, the song was uploaded to the official Dozerfleet blog.

Trivia

 * This song is the first Every Ape parody to be written and released on the 4th of July.
 * It is also the second time that a Journey song was spoofed by Every Ape. The first was "Worlds Apart (Separate Ways)," which became "Pokédices Apart."
 * This is the second major song to directly discuss Depositalium, the literal other-plane-along-the-W-axis-of-4-spatial-dimensional-reality Hell, and have that definition of Hell and what's in it be the song's major focus. The first was "Lower!!!" back in 2003 - 2006.
 * This is not, however, the first nor even the second song (let alone Dozerfleet work) to directly reference literal demons outside of the Cherinob saga.
 * Arguably, "Why She Said 'Seven Days'" could be argued as the first entry to do so, depending on your interpretation of Samara.
 * While "Lower!!!" references devil worshipers and sinister cults of cloaked men, and mentions burning in the Lake of Fire, it doesn't mention demons directly.
 * The Bison doesn't technically count as a demon, no matter what his enemies' opinions of him are. Therefore, "The Bison's Apocalypse" doesn't make any actual demonic references.
 * In the website Kurse of the Kryptonite, it's debatable if Mr. Kryptonite Head (inspired by the song "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down) is supposed to be literally demonic or not. The context of it all is left very unclear.
 * The Horrorday Gang, the subjects of Winter Horrorland, are not literal Biroot demons. That is just how some of their enemies interpret these very dark antiheroes.
 * While not mentioning demons directly, "Gates Demi!" is recorded to sound like Gates, Soros, and others are singing it while possessed, gloating at their plans for global democide being so successful.
 * "The Cursed Reset" mentions Satan directly, arguing that George Soros has become his vessel on the planet, and has "made him some new friends" in the form of China, the World Health Organization, and other entities, to destroy western civilization.
 * "The Trumpower" implies that Big Adrenochrome is motivated by those possessed by demons for its existence, and that this racket played a role in the rigging of the 2020 US elections as a way to retaliate against Trump for undercutting their bottom line - especially with the arrest of Epstein.