Jesus & Jones

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Rickie Lee Jones had a new release [I also chastised her for not having some sample songs on the web, but that turned out not to be true, thus marking the first time I have ever been wrong]. Since then I've gotten a copy of the album, The Sermon on Exposition Blvd., and it sounds really good. It's quieter than her past stuff but there's still enough nuance there to keep your attention and Rickie Lee's powerful voice is still available when required.

And then there are the lyrics.

To be honest, I've been listening to the disc on my work computer - not the best place to ponder over song meanings. But the liner notes explain that the inspiration for the album came from a book called The Words, which takes Jesus' words from the Bible and sorts them by theme, sans annotation (the book doesn't seem like it's still in print, but it is available for free at the author's website). But I wouldn't call Sermon a "religious" album. Even at the times where Jones is speaking more than singing (sounding a bit like a female Van Morrison when he does the same), there's no "grand message" being propagated. That's not to say that Jones' lyrics lack any depth, they just allow each listener to interpret their meaning differently - which isn't exactly the norm for religious music.

Now, if you're still so interested in this that you've made it down to the third paragraph, you may want to check out an interview Jones did for Urge, a music service dreamed up by MTV and Microsoft (sort of like iTunes, except that no one's ever heard of Urge).

 [Oddly, it's not an audio interview - you read it on your Windows MediaPlayer.]

In the interview you get Jones' take on Christianity, from the perspective of a liberal. Liberals, as you know, hate Jesus and all he stands for:

All that matters to me is the profound kindness of the words that he had to say; pretty wonderful, very simple. If you wanted to try to live by them, you wouldn't be a worse person for it. But as far as going around and hitting people on the head that they have to believe what you're saying, I think this is a terrible sin, and its kind of the antithesis of what it seems like Christ was.

She goes on in the interview a little more about this subject, but she also talks pretty frankly about her never quite reaching the popularity she had with her debut album and its hit single:

It was as if, for that small period, whatever I did seemed to be met with disapproval. And I think it's because everything I was doing was measured against the phenomenon of "Chuck E.'s In Love," as if nothing I could do, everything I would create, would never be enough.

It's an interesting read, and Urge has a lot more interviews with other artists that don't normally get much press. Urge is a free download, but it's also bit of a pain to install (you must first install Urge and then the latest version of MediaPlayer) On the other hand, there's a lot of exclusive content that might make installing it worth your while. [That said, if you're having trouble installing Urge - or just don't want to install it - but still want to read the interview let me know and I'll email it to you.]

Boy, if you've made it all the way down to paragraph then I should also tell you that Rickie Lee Jones is the guest on this weekend's episode of PBS's Soundstage. It first airs Friday night here in the Philadelphia area, but you might want to check your local listings. I've always wanted to say that.

Comments

[howard]

"Liberals, as you know, hate Jesus and all he stands for..."

Maybe so, but Conservatives seem to love him for all the wrong reasons. To them, he's more like that gorgeous girl who makes you feel all special inside as long as you don't have to listen to anything she says.

Or something like that. My brevity is suffering tonight, as is my wit.