Let's build two playlists this weekend. The first one, let's call it "The Sacred," will be for gospel music. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Has your Inner Frenchman found Our Lord Jesus Christ?" No, I haven't, although I've grilled a lot of cheese sandwiches looking for him.
While I'm not a fan of gospel music in general, especially that white bread, saccharine, Pat-Boone-derivative crap that's played in every megachurch across the country, there is a strain of gospel that i love. It's the kind you'll find in black churches, the kind with a kick ass choir, a cranked B-3 organ, and a can't-stay-sitting-down bass line. If you have to worship a sky fairy, you might as well do with great music.
I'll start it a song I love, one that sneaks a little politics into the preaching, Mavis Staple's 99 and 1/2.
I'm calling the second playlist: "And the Profane." There probably should be a genre named anti-gospel for this kind of music. While some might call these songs "blasphemous," I prefer to think of them as being very pointed cultural satire, much like what I do here.
We'll start out with Holly Near's I Ain't Afraid, go to a PshycoBillyKadillak's version of Plastic Jesus (I really wanted the Tom Waits cut but couldn't find it), and end up with Jello Biafra's Will the Fetus be Aborted.
Once again, I'm asking you to contribute your favorites. Just be sure to put them in the right playlist.
You can add or search for songs here.
username: jcchristian
password: ourmusic
The Sacred
And The Profane
Hope you dig Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum!
ReplyDelete::mwah::
I'm a huge Waits fan but I've never heard him cover Plastic Jesus. I reckon you were thinking of Chocolate Jesus, which I've added :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd for balance I would have added Waits doing "Jesus Gonna Be Here" and "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet" but I can't find them online - so I went with "Come On Up To The House", which always struck me as sacred, in an inclusive unorthodox non-organizational kind of way.
Added some Byrds just to show that pasty faced white guys can sing gospel, too.
ReplyDeleteAll I get is an error when I try to log in. I was going to search for U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, the version with the gospel choir in the background. I think any song is improved by a gospel choir.
ReplyDeleteI get an error when i try to log in at that site, so here are three choices from YouTube:
ReplyDeleteKirk Franklin (this gives me chills)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdYnFY_bZ0
Blue Highway singing Wondrous Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKbH6Dga3zo
UB40 singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU091YLgC9Q
Best wishes and you are welome for the new JG Blog theme song.
ReplyDeleteFront 242 - Welcome to Paradise