With Holy Week and all being this week, I turn to one of my favorite songs, "Everything's All Right," from one of my favorite musicals of all time - Jesus Christ Superstar. It would be an understatement for me to say that I loved this musical to shreds, considering I can sing the entire soundtrack of JC Superstar from beginning to end, which is astounding when you consider that I've seen the full version only once, as opposed to the edited for TV version, which I watched almost daily every summer from when I was 9 to about 14. Yes, I knew where "Then We Are Decided" and "Could We Start Again, Please?" actually belong in the sequence of songs even if I've only seen that version once.
Jesus Christ Superstar features one of the only two actors who performed Jesus Christ in major releases without going nuts afterwards (Jim Caviezel of "The Passion Of The Christ" being the other exception.). I especially liked the way the whole play or film was laid out, and the (it's my interpretation and I'm sticking by it) obviously subversive use of a black man as Judas Iscariot, whose singing voice was rivaled only by Jesus Christ himself.
I like "Everything's All Right" because it's a great song to sing to someone to go to sleep. It's a very quiet, uplifting lullaby, so long as you tune out when Judas comes into the song to make it just a bit louder. I can assure you that listening to a music-only track can really calm you, though.
This Holy Week, I don't really want to pontificate or evangelize or anything of the sort. It really isn't my place to. I'm just a bit amused though at certain attempts to make the (physical) church more accessible than it already is (as opposed to Her actual personnel) downright seems to open themselves up to the ridiculous Jesus in banal situations memes people are poking fun at Christians with. After all, nothing says "I love God above all else" quite like making out with your girlfriend while taking a leisurely stroll around the stations of the cross display in Bonifacio High Street before you take her home to bang her with that little glow-in-the-dark Sto. Nino eerily leering over you from your bedside table.
And you wonder why atheists laugh at us.
Oh, yeah. The song. Well, regardless of your religious beliefs, I'd have to say that JC Superstar is one of the better musicals out there, and this song is one of my favorites, not least because sans Judas, it wouldn't feel terribly out of place in any other musical not involving Jesus Christ. It has a universal feel to it, enhanced by the fact that it's a genuinely catchy song, to begin with.
So for this Holy Week, if you have those few precious days to think upon things and reflect, whether you are a believer or not, those few precious days are the best times to try not to get worried, try not to turn onto, problems that upset you. All of us could really use the tranquility.
No comments:
Post a Comment