Cliff Richard - Jesus

Columbia
DB8864
1972



No, really.

I found this one in Oxfam in Bradford. With that title, you've gotta give it a go. And my, how it rocketed past my expectations and into the stratosphere.

To start with, the lyric is breathtakingly brazen:

Jesus, Jesus won't you come back to earth?
Jesus, Jesus come back to earth

We apparently want him to save us from people who think 'the world is OK' (yeah, I know it's an abomination since we were cast out of the Garden, eh Cliff?), from 'the love of death' (not at all paradoxical from people who worship an image of a man dying very slowly).

But the best is yet to come. Cliff repeatedly belting out

Save us from the Devil!
Save us from Satan!
Save us from hell!

We've been gently immersed in decades of Cliff's emetic yuletide sludge, so hearing him say anything so loud and proud is a great comic shock.

However, it's the tune that does it. There is something really good about it. Really though. It's got this funky rolling drum pattern, a real groove that's something akin to Young Americans with a Ringoid looseness (albeit with a tinge of something from the Hair soundtrack). And the flanged drums, five years before White Man In Hammersmith Palais.

Then that guitar, nasally distorting like a stylophone until it finally breaks free into what you've been gagging for from the first note, its own free flying freakout solo.

It's a tremendously sticky song - I do warn you that you'll have it going round your head for fuckin ages.

I implore readers to leave suggestions in the comments for excuses to use when someone catches you singing 'Jesus, Jesus won't you come back to earth' or 'save us from hell! save us save us!'.

[MP3 deleted to make room for new ones. Sorry!]