Monday 5 April 2010

Week 27 - You'd better rise up Janet Weiss. Sorry, I mean Jesus Christ...

So this is Easter, and what have you done? Another fiscal year over and a new one just begun.

I think I may have just realised why festive songs mainly stick to Christmas. Easter songs just haven't taken off, have they? In spite of that, I'm going to write about three songs pertaining to this time of year - or at least have a bloody good go at it.

The first one is a 1974 glam rock hit from the British act Mott the Hoople. It's from their album entitled The Hoople, a follow up to, yep you've guessed it, Mott. Most people associate Ian Hunter's crew with the smash hit version of Bowie's All the Young Dudes, but they did do some other quality tracks, namely All the Way from Memphis and this one, Roll Away the Stone. You see, it does have something to do with Easter, as Jesus had to do what Mott say to escape from the cave.

Before I go on to the next one, some of the others I could have chosen for this would have been Mumford and Sons' The Cave, but apart from its title, it has very little to do with the Easter story of Christ. Likewise Belly's Judas Mon Coeur and Easy Star All Star's version of Radiohead's Airbag. The latter, I was going to use for the line 'I am back to save the universe', but I usually think they sing 'I am back to save the Univac', so I decided against that.

But anyway, onwards. I wouldn't say I'm particularly a fan of John Lydon. I don't mind the Sex Pistols, but they weren't a patch on the Clash or other contemporaries. I don't even like Public Image Ltd much either. Their This Is Not a Love Song grates on me. However, I do like the one I've chosen here.

What happened at Easter? Well, as far as I remember, Christ was locked in a cave, rolled away a stone and rose again - the resurrection.

So, we've had the rolling away of the stone and naturally this Public Image song comes next. It's called Rise and is pretty good, all the previous stuff considered.

No prizes for guessing the final song, especially if you've read the paragraph in which I recount the story of Easter. Also no prizes as it'd be really hard to dish them out.

This is a monster of a song. I've written about the album this comes from in the first part of my 10 top albums of the past 30 years. It's a song that separated the Stone Roses from their contemporaries. Full of self belief and that typical Manchester swagger, it comes in at over 8 minutes. There are radio edits out there, but the full version is true quality. Of course, it's I Am the Resurrection.

Enjoy and hope you had a joyeux paques.

No comments:

Post a Comment