The Michael Knowles Show - November 14, 2025


Michael Knowles REACTS To ＂Fear＂ By NF

Topics
preborn counseling and support
Hosted by
Michael Knowles
Mentioned
Michael Knoll Grandma Simon
Ep. 1856 - The Right-Wing SPLITS Over Trump’s H1-B Legal Immigration Plan Michael Knowles DESTROYS Woke Commercials... They Keep Getting Worse

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

146.97

Word count

1,378

Sentence count

150

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A new song from Oof featuring Chance the Rapper Oof explores the complicated relationship between fear and grace, and how to deal with it in a world where fear is everywhere and grace is not. Michael Knowles' new album Other Words For Smoke is out now, and it's out on all of your favorite streaming platforms.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's your hip-hop cultural maven wonder Michael Knowles, and I'm here with a new
00:00:05.780 song by OOF. This song is called Fear. OOF has just come out with it. Take it away.
00:00:12.920 Hello darkness, my old friend.
00:00:16.160 Hello.
00:00:18.060 Knocking at my door again.
00:00:23.340 Begging me to come outside.
00:00:26.520 I'd let you back into my life.
00:00:33.480 Now, usually I'd be strong enough to lock the doors and keep them shut.
00:00:42.000 This is like an American Mumford and Sons.
00:00:44.040 But not today, I'm desperate.
00:00:47.340 Which I like.
00:00:48.660 Desperate.
00:00:49.260 So go ahead and come on in.
00:00:52.420 So go ahead and come on in.
00:00:59.380 So go ahead and come on in.
00:01:03.480 OCD is worse than ever.
00:01:08.280 Hands are bleeding.
00:01:08.900 Maybe I should take the pill stone.
00:01:10.380 Know what's going on with me some days.
00:01:12.260 I actually think I might be schizo.
00:01:14.500 Frantic, probably not.
00:01:15.400 But even writing, this is making me begin to spiral.
00:01:18.160 Oh, God.
00:01:21.980 Made a promise to myself I wouldn't let the fear back in.
00:01:24.540 But then I did, though.
00:01:25.860 Told the world that I was sick of running.
00:01:27.540 Then went back to running.
00:01:28.480 What a joke.
00:01:29.980 Disappointed.
00:01:30.380 Yeah, me too.
00:01:30.800 I thought I'd finally have finally made a breakthrough.
00:01:33.220 Guess not.
00:01:36.520 It's the same song in there.
00:01:38.560 But you've all seen it before.
00:01:40.480 Darkness holds out its hand.
00:01:42.380 Then we walk to the floor.
00:01:44.340 Every decision made.
00:01:46.200 Is it mine anymore?
00:01:48.060 Like a puppet with strings.
00:01:49.980 I just don't have a choice.
00:01:51.860 What's the truth?
00:01:52.800 What's a lie?
00:01:53.740 Help me, God.
00:01:54.660 Help me, Lord.
00:01:55.620 Face your fears.
00:01:56.600 Dry your eyes.
00:01:57.560 Grandma died.
00:01:58.500 What's the point?
00:01:59.280 Lost the keys, lost my hope, lost my will, lost my joy.
00:02:03.260 Lost a friend, lost my hope, lost my faith, lost my voice.
00:02:10.140 Hmm.
00:02:10.580 Standing back watching my mansion burn to ash while I hold the gas.
00:02:40.480 Can't asking God if he started this fire.
00:02:49.840 Put a pause here.
00:02:50.720 Very interesting line.
00:02:52.260 So, he opens up.
00:02:53.460 You know, it's kind of a happy little folksy song.
00:02:56.580 Hello, darkness, my old friend.
00:02:57.900 Line from Simon and Garfunkel.
00:02:59.380 But done in a, I don't know, like a folky Mumford and Sons-y kind of way.
00:03:03.820 He says, you know, usually I lock the doors to keep the darkness out.
00:03:06.620 But today, I'm going to let it in.
00:03:08.220 And I'm going to look at it right in the face.
00:03:10.200 And he's tempted to go back to his drugs and his pills.
00:03:13.040 And, you know, he thought he finally had made a breakthrough.
00:03:15.860 But it's there.
00:03:16.880 You know, sin is still there crouching in the corner waiting to devour him.
00:03:20.320 And then he's in a church.
00:03:22.120 And he's washing his hands in water.
00:03:24.640 It's a symbol of baptism.
00:03:26.140 But you're getting another image, too, which is gasoline.
00:03:29.300 So, is it the water that will save him?
00:03:31.860 Or is it the gasoline that's going to burn everything down?
00:03:34.300 He's standing back watching his mansion burn to ash while I hold the gas can, 0.93
00:03:38.840 asking God if he started this fire, which at first glance seems ridiculous.
00:03:43.460 It seems as if he's pointing out, no, no, no, my problems are my own fault.
00:03:47.960 I'm doing this.
00:03:48.760 I'm the one holding the gas can. 0.90
00:03:49.960 I'm burning the mansion down.
00:03:51.260 And I'm blaming God? 0.99
00:03:52.400 Isn't that so ridiculous? 0.96
00:03:53.480 I need to take responsibility for my own actions. 0.85
00:03:55.840 But it does raise a question about causality.
00:03:58.120 The reality of the concepts of your question are just as questionable as what you're questioning.
00:04:05.340 Well, God made me.
00:04:07.340 And God made the world.
00:04:09.520 And so, why do you make me like this?
00:04:12.400 Why do you make me like this?
00:04:13.800 Why do you make the world like this?
00:04:14.740 Why do you make a world in which Adam and Eve had the free will to abuse their freedom
00:04:19.540 and to kick us out of the garden and to leave me right here?
00:04:22.420 Now, should I blame God?
00:04:23.480 And the answer is no, but when you let the darkness in a little bit and you really face
00:04:30.220 that question, it's a little more complicated.
00:04:31.900 There's a couple of mysteries in that question.
00:04:34.100 Who's to blame here?
00:04:35.080 What's the relationship between will and grace?
00:04:38.560 Not the 90s sitcom, but what's that relationship?
00:04:41.020 How much freedom do I really have?
00:04:42.480 Go to preborn.com slash Knowles.
00:04:44.500 A recent Danish study found something deeply concerning.
00:04:48.180 Just one year after an abortion, women were 50% more likely to need psychiatric treatment
00:04:51.880 and 87% more likely to experience personality or behavioral disorders.
00:04:55.660 These are not just statistics.
00:04:57.080 They represent real women facing real struggles.
00:04:59.180 That is why preborn takes a different approach.
00:05:02.020 When a woman walks through their doors uncertain and afraid, she finds something she may not have
00:05:05.760 expected.
00:05:06.780 Support.
00:05:07.620 Through an ultrasound, she meets her baby for the first time and suddenly what felt like an impossible
00:05:11.320 situation begins to look different.
00:05:13.280 But preborn doesn't stop there.
00:05:15.080 When a woman chooses life, they walk alongside her for up to two years, providing practical 0.73
00:05:19.180 help like maternity clothes, diapers, ongoing counseling, and emotional support.
00:05:24.000 It is care for the whole person, addressing her physical needs, her mental health, and her
00:05:27.780 future.
00:05:28.500 As you think about your year-end giving, consider the greatest investment you could ever make,
00:05:32.420 the gift of life.
00:05:33.580 Dial pound 250, say keyword baby, B-A-B-Y.
00:05:36.460 That is pound 250, keyword baby.
00:05:38.800 Or visit preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S. 0.90
00:05:42.500 All gifts are tax deductible.
00:05:43.840 Preborn is a five-star rated charity.
00:05:45.260 I personally donate to Preborn and I recommend you do as well.
00:05:48.220 It's a great charity.
00:05:49.260 Preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S to make a difference for generations to come. 0.98
00:05:53.340 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:01.040 Is this what you intended?
00:06:01.760 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:04.800 Make all my hopes and my dreams come to life just to lay them to grass.
00:06:12.040 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:15.800 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:17.760 Give me a false sense of peace just to show me what peace really is.
00:06:27.220 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:29.520 On the verge, on the edge.
00:06:31.340 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:33.680 Petrified, scared to death.
00:06:35.140 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:37.140 Praying to God, desperate.
00:06:38.680 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:41.400 What you wanted?
00:06:42.700 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:44.740 Hanging on by a thread.
00:06:46.500 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:48.640 Empty car, nothing left.
00:06:50.260 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:52.380 Breaking down, spiral.
00:06:53.980 Is this what you wanted?
00:06:56.240 What you wanted?
00:06:57.860 Is this what you wanted?
00:07:00.000 Standing back.
00:07:01.620 Is this what you wanted?
00:07:03.820 My head is shining.
00:07:06.380 Is this what you wanted?
00:07:11.640 Is this what you wanted?
00:07:13.880 To melt down,
00:07:30.640 is this what you wanted?
00:07:36.380 what is this wow yeah it's really quite good for a pop song it's quite good you can get that image
00:07:54.340 at the end you know the image at the beginning is am i going to start popping my pills again
00:07:58.080 and then you go on this whole journey and he's in the church and he's trying to wash his hands
00:08:01.520 in the water but then there's the the flip image of the gasoline he burns it all down and he himself
00:08:06.980 catches on fire and then he he ends up stumbling and crashes onto the rug and you think oh he's just
00:08:12.760 he just did a bunch of drugs that's it's all been a kind of a weird trip and the final question that
00:08:18.560 we have pertains to god's active will and his passive will because god creates everything he
00:08:23.740 sustains everything in a certain sense you know he he wills the bad things to happen but he doesn't
00:08:30.460 actively will the bad things to happen because he gives us free will and so we play a role in
00:08:36.220 creation and he passively wills that for that to be the case but he actively wills our good so he
00:08:42.180 doesn't create evil evil's a privation of the good and it's it's uh it's very good it's this song i
00:08:49.240 don't listen to a lot of pop music but this song is without question a kind of work of christian art
00:08:55.040 and it's much much better than like any modern christian music
00:08:59.780 it's uh it's quite good actually oh yeah good job good job okay i'm michael noel see you next time
00:09:06.800 you
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