“Sorrow” by Bad Religion

"Sorrow" was the first single from The Process of Belief, Bad Religion's twelfth studio album, which Epitaph put out in 2002, though Los Angeles station KROQ was already spinning it in the fall of 2001. Brett Gurewitz found his starting point in the Book of Job: he said he was wrestling with how anyone can explain the world's suffering in religious terms, which is about as Bad Religion a question as there is.

The music wrong-foots you first. It opens on a skanking, Police-style beat before snapping into the band's trademark melodic hardcore, with Brian Baker, Gurewitz and Greg Hetson stacking up three electric guitars, Jay Bentley on bass and Brooks Wackerman's drums pushing the tempo. Greg Graffin's lead vocal is grave and clear-eyed, and Bentley, Gurewitz and Hetson pile in behind him on the harmonies. Graffin and Gurewitz produced it, Gurewitz mixed it, and Billy Bowers engineered.

It's a punk song about theology that somehow lands like a hymn for a crowd, and its life outlasted the album cycle: an acoustic version reached radio on June 24, 2008.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.