BEGINS WITH A J:JESUS

I started thinking this post, moving on through the pantheon of female names, and it should be Jezebel, and I might yet get round to that. But, as she would, Jezebel put me in mind of Jesus. And, as a perfectly decent and common Latino name, why not? Except, they all to be about the same guy. I jest; of course they are, that being the challenge, how to pick, say, a couple of handfuls of songs about Jesus that aren't, overtly at least, about, you know, God. It isn't that I'm against a touch of religion, except, yes, actually I am, largely by virtue of the dreadful things folk do in the name of their own personal totem. Like churches and mosques, temples and synagogues, often fantastic buildings that can inspire awe in all but what people do and say inside them. But, heck, they sure done wrote a lot of good songs about the guy.

Jesus In Vegas/Chumbawamba

I like this song, as it is, in turns and at the same time,  thoroughly disreputable, arguably sacrilegious and also so fully on message, pertaining most the received wisdoms about the boy from Galilee. If there were a modern day equivalent of the money lenders in the temple, Las Vegas is surely that shrine, and, as the song suggests, what would Jesus do? OK, the song doesn't say, but one feels the business taken care of would not include a ten hour sesh on a one-armed bandit. The middle section then goes off on one, about picket lines, possibly, just possibly, comparing Ricky Tomlinson to the middle member of the holy triad. (Ricky Tomlinson? If you don't know Brookside or The Royle Family, it's complicated, but a good example of this no longer extant band in their prime. Find the studio version on WYSIWYG.

The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ/Jackie Leven

Quite a title that one. And quite a statement, implying a fair amount of thought going into the lyric. Leven was just the sort of man to trouble his mind with thinking about how Jesus may have had just the same curses and burdens of any other man, struggling, perhaps, therewith, just as do so many who dedicate their lives to him. Of course, also put together consummately, the mix of his organic and pained vocal, alongside the unstoppable drum machine track that permeate so many of his songs. To be fair, as we lambast the church for the failings of its pastors, tempted and all that, what price the decisions made to base anything on celibacy in the first place? If unfamiliar with the works of Leven, which you shouldn't be, should you come here often, go seek out his work. As the anniversaries of his death come and go, slowly, slowly have tributes and retrospectives come forth.

Tulsa Jesus Freak/Lana del Rey

Well, if you can quite work out what Ms. Del Rey is on about here, you are one up on me, but she doesn't make it easy, anyway, beyond the schtick of tortured humanity, wrestling with demons and, often as not, drowning. If her songs ate to be taken autobiographically, my feeling that they shouldn't, she has encountered every bad choice offered, this song seeming to stack the story of a booze addicted preacher present in her bed/life. To be fair, so good a song and on such a good album, who cares if she dives low to raise us up? OK, I do, I wish her well, but a song of her happier encounters might linger less long in the listener's ear. Or the charts. Get it today and you could be only 24 hours from this track.

They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus/Kinky Friedman

You are never far from a Kinky Friedman song in a Jesus thread, or should never be. Offence is oft caused by the Texas politician, author and singer-songwriter, and this is the song that causes the most. Me, I don't hear anything much more than a fairly reasonable exposé of the rampant hypocrisyy that permeates a good deal of religious bigotry, tempered with a slab of good ol' ignorance in the ear of the beholder. I am not sure I could stomach any full performance, but various snippets and songs hit a soundbite to which I fully subscribe. As neither a Jew nor a practicing Christian, a few more balls wouldn't go amiss in many the turn the other cheek expectations out there. This is a live version. All the ones on youtube are, for some reason. The studio one is better.

Jesus Was a Social Drinker/Chuck Prophet

Let's all wish Chuck, the erstwhile Green On Red man, turned profligate commentator of rootsy music, with a hefty roster of 16 solo albums since the demise of that seminal group, all our best. Earlier this year he discovered he had lymphoma, needing thus to suspend his perma-touring and recording schedule. As of recently he has been given permission to return to the road, pending further and ongoing treatment, but that smacks of cautious good news. A favourite from afar, despite regular visits to Blighty, I had always been planning to see him, if never quite managing it. Let's hope he is back on these shores soon. The song here? Well, I think it is sort of a reminder he may have been a normal guy rather than a paragon, if still a bit less than wild and wooly. I think. Good song, mind. From 2017's Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins. I am not sure if Bobby Fuller was a social drinker, but his death was mighty weird.

Jesus Christ/Brand New

Quite a challenging song, a dialogue between the "singer" and Jesus, asking somewhat leading questions, possibly/seemingly arising from a guilty conscience. The writer, Jesse Lacey, widely known to have had an orthodox Christian upbringing, has/had always used allegory in his songs, this being one of the more overt. The parent album, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me smacks of a troubled soul, struggling with faith. An album especially liked by my wife and step-daughter, not least the existential content, each went abruptly off him and the band, as it became aware he may well have taken advantage of younger female fans, such allegations having become apparent in 2017. Never proven as such, Lacey publicly apologised and admitted to an earlier sex addiction. Which sort of makes latter-day sense of the lyrics. Always tricky to remove the man from his alleged actions, his music from his character, I file under unproven and remorseful. Maybe.

Jesus Hates Faggots/John Grant

In a run of fairly deep and dense lyrics during this piece, this perhaps is the most striking. And the most damning. And, last there be doubt, Grant isn't really saying what the title suggests, merely using the phrase to relay the damning comment made to him by, presumably, his parent/s, in association with his gender preference, sexually speaking. A galling song, my own belief mechanism would suggest such a statement to be as anti-Christian in sentiment as can be, and I really feel for Grant, were that what he were brought up with. His sonorous voce and the chamber synth backing gives a gravitas that magnifies the horror. An artist I have always admired, from his days with the Czars, one can understand why he prefers to remain well away from his homeland. It comes from this album.

I Have Forgiven Jesus/Morrissey

Sort of following on from the last song, Morrissey takes it that much further, forgiving Jesus for the, no doubt, similar words put into his teachings, by those around him in his own childhood. It's good, better than the lumpen and heavy handed epithet the singer is increasingly given by his critics. I was a late adopter of the Smiths, never quite getting them until near the end, similarly put off Morrissey's solo work until recently. With the Smiths I just couldn't see the beauty in the songs, probably until others started covering them. With Morrissey I believed the hounding propaganda of the press, more interested in his difficult behaviour, cancelling shows and tours willy nilly. (Yes, I do still baulk at his possible racist tendencies, let me say.) I find these lyrics entirely believable and they endear the author all the more to me, bloody mindedness and all. It comes from You Are the Quarry, in 2004.

He Ain't Jesus/Carrie Rodriguez

Lightening the mood a little, it will prove helpful to know the next line is "I'm not Mary". Coming from the pen of Chip Taylor, erstwhile part of a performing partnership with Ms Rodriguez, and the writer of many a memorable song, from Wild Thing to Angel of the Morning. A song from her first solo release, it uses Jesus, and, later in the song, Buddha, as marks of the prejudices embraced to maintain the inequality of the sexes. I think her a terrific singer and am delighted she has made a career away from being the second string protegé to Taylor, however mutually advantageous the pairing had been and continues to be. Worry not, I am exhausting of all these Jesus songs, wherein the name is invoked merely as a reason or excuse for bad behaviour. As the next song says better.

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me/Shelagh McDonald

Spoilt, just a little, for choice, for this last selection, I decided against the Byrds and the Doobies, going instead for this oft forgotten footnote in UK folk-rock history. So, who Shelagh McDonald? This article, by Ian A. Anderson sets the scene very well, the A separating him from the other one, stating on a single leg, tootling a flute. I came across her about twenty years ago, enchanted. I recommend her work, however much I admire the other aforementioned heavyweight purveyors of the same song. If you want more, here's the link; it ain't an otherwise easy find. I'll bet, however, nobody is familiar with the original, by Art Reynolds, in 1966, as performed by his singers, which is a glorious piece of soul/gospel. And I can live with the idea. Jesus seems to have been a well meaning fella, and certainly braver than most. Son of God, though? Aren't we all?

OFFENSIVE(?) : KINKY FRIEDMAN

Uncertain if this is sorta timely, given the rash of recent trashings of Jewish businesses in the UK, and further afield too, no doubt, in the wake of the current Gaza debacle, about which I am going to deliberately stay shtoom about, believing that the problem is the argument between the state of Israel and the would-be state of Palestine, rather than which side of the kosher/halal counter you lie. This is more a reminder around the never too far away waft of anti-semitism that permeates, given half the chance. And in the same way as niggers and queers have reclaimed words they now may only use, ain't the best way to respond is by ridicule?

Richard Samet Friedman was born nearly 70 years ago and is the self-styled most famous jewish cowboy in the world, something Lorne Greene and Michael landon, joint stars of Bonanza, might take issue with, but he is certainly the one who has taken that coveted title most overtly to his 5-starred heart. I doubt his parents originally envisaged his place in the entertainment canon to turn out as it did, he being a bit of a childhood chesss prodigy, later graduating as a psychology major at the University of Texas in 1962. It was there college mates labelled him Kinky, on account of his "jewfro" hair. Before music grabbed him full time, he served time in the Peace Corps and as a teacher. In 1971 he first formed his seminal band, as Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, along with similarly ironically titled Little Jewford, Big Nig, Panama Red, Wichita Culpepper, Sky Cap Adams, Rainbow Colours, and Snakebite Jacobs, encouraged as much by the disgust of his father for this "negative, hostile, peculiar thing" he had formed. 

The early 70s were a good time for country-rockers, and it was the not unlike-minded Commander Cody, of his Lost Planet Airmen fame, who gave Kinky his first break, but it took a while before he became, by his own allegation, the first full-blooded Jew to appear at the Grand Ol' Opry. In itself this was no mean feat, his speciality being offence, or rather the lampooning of the political and received, often phobic, correctness of the day, whether it be around his race, social commentary or good old plain filth. Time for a song, and I clearly have to play his most famous song, the evocatively entitled "They ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore", for which YouTube is awash with live versions. I use that one to show off the poetry inherent within the sentiment. His next most famous song led to the National Organisation of Women calling awarding him the male Chauvinist Pig award of 1973, a prize taken with pride. I'm sure you're ready to hear Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Buns in the Bed. (Sadly, it's not very good, aging particularly badly. Casual racism remains a far better target than does serious anti-feminism, unless it's just me.) 

When his hit dried up he moved into literature, in particular that of crime fiction, featuring a wise-cracking Jewish sleuth called....... Kinky Friedman. Then, following an earlier failed bid to become Justice of the Peace for his area (as a republican), in 2004 he launched a bid to become Governor of Texas, with such convincing slogans as, "My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy" and "He ain't Kinky, he's my Governor", genuinely surprised not to be taken seriously and to being trumped into 6th place with 13% of the vote, in retrospect quite a solid achievement. Amongst policies to pay more for teachers, greater border controls and a suspension of the death penalty, the full legalisation of marijuana was perhaps a step to far for the moral majority of the Lonestar state. As late as last year he was threatening to once more enter the fray, but it is also evident that he has simultaneously kick-started his musical career and persona. In my research(!?) for this piece I came across this fascinating interview, which encapsulates the man and his myriad mythologies very neatly. I have to say I'm not entirely sure how offensive he comes over as in 2014, probably little, but I well recall the sharp intakes of breath as I described the man and his songs at a dinner party some years ago, failing to appreciate that both the host and the main body of his guests were the cream of local west midlands Jewry. Hey ho. I wasn't invited back.  

The song! 

A book!

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