Personal Jesus

So have you ever thought about making someone into your own personal Jesus?

Apparently Martin Gore of Depeche Mode fame did. The song, Personal Jesus, was inspired by the relationship between Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley as detailed in the book Elvis and Me.
In an article published in Spin Magazine Gore stated, “It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone , is it?"

I agree….it’s not a balanced view of someone, but I love the song and I like Depeche Mode.

Some of the adjectives used to describe Depeche Mode is successful, influential, and longest lived for bands that emerged from the early 80s.

The marketing campaign for the song, Personal Jesus, is pretty interesting. Advertisements were placed in the personal columns of UK regional newspapers with the words “Your own personal Jesus” and a phone number was provided. When the number was called folks heard the song.

The song has been covered by many including Marilyn Manson and Johnny Cash.

Here are the lyrics:

Reach out and touch faith

Your own person Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there.

Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer

Take a second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there

Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal Jesus

Reach out and touch faith


The official website for Depeche Mode can be found here

I Just Want to Stop

Wow, his hair.....I loved his hair.



Prior to using his own name for his recordings, Vanelli used the pseudonym Vann Elli. I’m glad he finally decided to go with his original.

Gino Vanelli's official website

Toto's Africa Performed a Different Way

The group featured in this video is Perpetuum Jazzile, a Slovenian a cappella group.

Notice there is no music being played.



The group’s website is found here

Of course, we are more used to the original version by the group Toto.

Have you ever heard the saying that we should only write about what we know?

With that idea in mind the inspiration for this song was a fictional situation where a white boy attempts to write a song about Africa, but since he had never been to Africa or didn’t have much knowledge about it at all he used what he had previously read or seen in movies or on television.

Here are the lyrics:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in twelve-thirty flight
Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say: "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"

[Chorus:]
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

[Repeat chorus]
[Instrumental break]
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
[Repeat chorus]

Steely Dan….Do It Again

Eruption.....Eddie Van Halen

One of the first albums I purchased after I got my first car was the debut album by Van Halen. In 1978 you could still purchase 8-track cassette and since that’s what my car had….that’s what I bought. I loved every song, and still do.

Initially, Eruption was not considered a song for the album. Eddie Van Halen used it as a studio warm up; however, when a producer heard it he asked that it appear as a track on the album. Years later in an interview Eddie revealed that he had made a mistake at the top end of it.

Gee, a mistake?!?

Clair De Lune.....deleted scene from Fantasia

I've always loved the Disney movie Fantasia.....this is a deleted scene featuring Clair De Lune



If you aren't familiar with Fantasia you might recognize the piece from the movie, Oceans 11.

Desert Rose

Here are the lyrics:

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire
And in the flames
Her shadows play in the shape of a man’s desire

This desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

And as she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing’s as it seems.

I dream of rain
I life my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
This rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of her love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower
This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall

I’ve always liked this song, but never paid too much attention to the lyrics until now. The Biblical references are interesting. Some state that the lyrics of Desert Rose are inspired by the Frank Herbert novel, Dune, possibly because Sting played the villainous Feyd Rautha in the 1984 film adaptation. Both film and book feature the Arabic language.

The song also features the Algerian rai singer Cheb Mami………the genre of the song is given as World.

Sting’s official website can be found here

Wordless: Another Mother Further

One of the albums I have in my collection....

Anyone else out there like/remember Mother’s Finest? If you need a memory booster I posted about them along with a video of their hit Baby Love back in December.

Happy Wednesday! Check out other bloggers posting wordless or near wordless posts here.