Tuesday, April 22, 2008

• Try not to get worried

  Currently Watching Jesus Christ Superstar (Special Edition) By Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson (II), Yvonne Elliman, Barry Dennen, Bob Bingham see related

  You know alot.  I'm amazed at how much you know.  That's just one of the many reasons I'm so impressed by you.  But (you had to know that was coming), you don't know Jesus Christ Superstar as well as I know it.  I'm not bragging, it is just an observation.  There's no way you could have listened to that album as much as I did.

  I have always liked music of all kinds, but that was the first music I fell absolutely in love with.  I obsessively listened to that album over & over for 2, maybe 3 years.  Crazy.  I can still quote and sing you most of the songs - verse, chorus, bridge, recitive - anything, everything.

  I don't know how familiar you are with it.  You may have just assumed, like I did, that the opera was one of the natural consequences of the Jesus Movement back in the early 70's.  That's really not what it's about at all.  The opera starts and ends with songs from Judas.  The whole opera is just the last few weeks of Christ's life told from Judas' point of view.

  In the very first song, Judas is warning Jesus that Jesus is taking the Messiah talk too seriously.  Even the big finale, Superstar, that Judas sings is not praise at all - it just very superficially sounds like it.  Judas is singing, "Jesus Christ, Superstar, do you think you're what they say you are?" Singing "superstar" ironically, I guess.  He still doesn't believe that Jesus is the Messiah and wonders if He still believes He was.

  Herod's Song (which I've always loved) is sung from the same point of view. "Prove to me that Your no fool, walk across my swimming pool.  If you do that for me, then I'll let you go free!  Come on! King of the Jews."

  The whole opera gives personality and understanding to the villains in the Gospel - Judas, Herod and Pilate.  For some reason it leaves Caiaphas and Annas as the pure villains they were.  But it portrays the other villains more sympathetically than a passion play would.  More human anyway.

  And that's really what this opera does best of any Passion play I've seen.  It celebrates the humanity of all the participants.  My favorite moments are when Mary Magdalene sings I Don't Know How To Love Him and, especially, Everything's Alright.  I truly don't know anything at all about Tim Rice (lyricist) or Andrew Lloyd Webber personally.  But I think from his lyrics anyway, Rice identifies the most with the people who did not believe that Jesus was Messiah.  In spite of that, I think he beautifully 'channels' Mary Magdelene's feelings in these songs.

  Everything's Alright is one of the most spectacular portrayals of Mary Magdelene's beautiful act of worship that I have ever witnessed.  It makes me weep just remembering it.  Jesus is weary. Weary. And Mary anoints Him and soothes Him and sings to Him with her astonishingly expensive gift.  They don't get all "Dan Brown" with the relationship either.  What I love about it is that I have always focused on Mary and her gift when I've thought about this story, but the opera shows also how much Jesus Himself enjoys/needs the adoration.  If you believe like I do that Jesus was also human, this scene shows one aspect of his humanity beautifully.  It's no wonder at all that Mary was the first to speak to the Resurrected Jesus.  She loved Him so much, and He knew and honored her love.  Beautiful. *wipes tear*

  
  Don't worry!  I'm not getting any deeper.  This entry is really about American Idol.  Tonight is Andrew Lloyd Webber night and I'm wondering if any of the idols will sing a JCS song.  I read some suggestion that one of them should do Damned For All Time....Ridiculous because, while the song rocketh without doubt, it is not a stand alone song at all.  It only makes sense in context of the opera.  But sure enough, I youtubed it and some punk/grunge/whatever band does a screaming take on this song.  Bizarre.  Of the possible stand alone songs one of them could do, I Don't Know How To Love Him is the likeliest I suppose, but I would like to see one of them do this one:

  What's your favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber song?

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