“Reach out and touch faith.”
--“Personal Jesus,” Johnny Cash
Recently, I stumbled on a video on YouTube of Evanescence’ “My Immortal” done as a Gregorian chant. The group Gregorian performs many secular songs, including R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven. It’s exactly the approach Pope Gregory ? used in evangelizing Europe: Take the secular and sanctify it.
In my opinion, the best gospel music of the 20th Century came from the genre called gospel blues. Some personal favorites are Blind Willie Johnson’s “John the Revelator” and Johnny Cash’s “Personal Jesus.”
Because gospel blues aren’t “happy” music, they’re not often played in church, or at least not in white churches. But this hasn’t kept such music from crossing over into secular culture.
“Personal Jesus” has been remade by both Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson. A sexualized Depeche Mode video on YouTube portrays a cowboy visiting a house of ill repute. The Marilyn Manson video ends with a group of nuns handing a swaddled baby to Manson, which he drops to the floor, where it smashes into pieces and proves to have been nothing but a china doll filled with coins. A blog called obamamessiah contributes a video which portrays Barack Obama as a cultural messiah.
YouTube has an old 78-RPM recording of a raspy-voiced Blind Willie Johnson singing “John the Revelator,” as well as an old black and white video of Son House. There’s an acoustic version of Phil Keaggy, which isn’t as good in my opinion as his amped up version. The song is also performed by the Gaither Vocal Band, Australian singer Nick Cave, as well as in “The Blues Brothers” movie. Southern jam band Guv’t Mule does a really nice New Orleans style cover.
Depeche Mode’s video for “John the Revelator” takes liberties with the lyrics and portrays George W. Bush as three of the four riders of the apocalypse; Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld as the two beasts described in the Book of Revelations.
These days, Christians talk about taking back culture. Maybe they could start by taking back their gospel music.
--“Personal Jesus,” Johnny Cash
Recently, I stumbled on a video on YouTube of Evanescence’ “My Immortal” done as a Gregorian chant. The group Gregorian performs many secular songs, including R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven. It’s exactly the approach Pope Gregory ? used in evangelizing Europe: Take the secular and sanctify it.
In my opinion, the best gospel music of the 20th Century came from the genre called gospel blues. Some personal favorites are Blind Willie Johnson’s “John the Revelator” and Johnny Cash’s “Personal Jesus.”
Because gospel blues aren’t “happy” music, they’re not often played in church, or at least not in white churches. But this hasn’t kept such music from crossing over into secular culture.
“Personal Jesus” has been remade by both Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson. A sexualized Depeche Mode video on YouTube portrays a cowboy visiting a house of ill repute. The Marilyn Manson video ends with a group of nuns handing a swaddled baby to Manson, which he drops to the floor, where it smashes into pieces and proves to have been nothing but a china doll filled with coins. A blog called obamamessiah contributes a video which portrays Barack Obama as a cultural messiah.
YouTube has an old 78-RPM recording of a raspy-voiced Blind Willie Johnson singing “John the Revelator,” as well as an old black and white video of Son House. There’s an acoustic version of Phil Keaggy, which isn’t as good in my opinion as his amped up version. The song is also performed by the Gaither Vocal Band, Australian singer Nick Cave, as well as in “The Blues Brothers” movie. Southern jam band Guv’t Mule does a really nice New Orleans style cover.
Depeche Mode’s video for “John the Revelator” takes liberties with the lyrics and portrays George W. Bush as three of the four riders of the apocalypse; Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld as the two beasts described in the Book of Revelations.
These days, Christians talk about taking back culture. Maybe they could start by taking back their gospel music.
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