A whole post about one song. Because it won't leave me alone. But first a story. I first heard this song on a Kieron Gillen spotify playlist curated for his comic series "Wicked + The Divine." A series which is fascinating on its own and had thoughts to say about Divinity, Mythology, and Popular Music. Gillen is a creator who is very taken by music and inspired by it, and I like him and am truly grateful for his varied tastes of influences which I might never have encountered before.
But I was doing a foolish thing of running laps for an extended period and this particular playlist is very long, as Gillen had kept adding to it while writing the series. It is a real grab bag of elements: Punk, Bowie, British indie, electro pop, the Mountain goats, funk. But I come across this song, "Jesus Was A Cross Maker." Coming from a religious background, I am sensitive and analytical whenever Jesus is brought up in a song. Is it to praise or mock religion, is it in the wheelhouse of music for the saints preaching to the choir, or of the chorus of sinners on the outside looking in on quaintness?
But as I listened to it, "Jesus Was A Cross Maker" takes neither easy path of categorization. I can't draw a bead on what it is. It starts with a piano and Sill's vocals on almost a hymn start, with the vocals occasionally being doubled for harmony. It describes a rogue who is troubling the singer of the song and comes to the hook, "He's a bandit and a heartbreaker, but Jesus was a Cross Maker"
I am running with headphones. I have never encountered this song, let alone this artist before. I am busy and did not know that this song would mention Christ. As mentioned above, I am intrigued and paying attention now to see if I can guess where this is going. And I keep being surprised by the song. A drum gets added, and the piano gets saucy with itself, adding notes around the chorus, Sill's harmonies soar and dip, then start at a base again for the next verse. I now have learned that the song can pick up and play with me a little, not just be a ballad or hymn. The second verse further describes the rogue troubling the narrator, waging war with the devil, with further religious imagery. But it continues to not be directly about Christ. He is there in the song, but is not the direct issue at hand. Christ may be a source of salvation and hope for the narrator in this song, including for the rogue being sung about.
But the song just doesn't fit in an easy box for me to dismiss. It is from a different era by its recording quality and ticks, but its arrangement is inventive with sparseness, and eventually adds strings, which I was not expecting, but fit so well. This is a song that fits an era, but also is so deliberately arranged that it has a personal touch to why and how it was crafted. It fits the artist and would force an imitator to pay attention to its construction in order to cover it properly. And the lyrics about a troubled relationship are poetic and specifically delivered. There is an element of regret and recognition in the tone, but delivered with honesty and beauty. And I mentally file the track away to search for later for further study. I am running and am too busy to stop and learn more about it in the moment.
But I come back to it later and still don't understand it when giving it my full attention. How does it fit together the way it does? What is it trying to communicate? Why did someone create this song specifically and why does it appeal to my curiosity?
I listen to it more and really grow to admire and appreciate it for the reasons above. But I have never heard of this artist. Who is Judee Sill and why am I just learning about her now? I look into her life and that helps frame how her life experiences could inspire and create the specificity of the song's lyrics and performance. I look through Spotify for more covers of the song to see if other artists were interested in the song and saw fit to cover it. I listen to their covers and each does not appeal as much for different reasons.
Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas fame was also featured on Gillen's playlist for the track "Make Your Own Kind of Music", which I enjoyed. But Elliot did a cover of Sill's "Cross Maker" and the recording just felt off to me - it was as if the accompanying band and Elliot were on different pages. Sill's version has odd timing choices, and yet the instruments moved with Sill. In Elliot's cover, she will hold a note for emphasis, then seem to have to rush to catch up with the band who didn't account for that diversion in the schedule.
The Hollies do a cover of the song. I like this band for "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)", which I heard first in Remember The Titans for its perfect use in a montage in the film. Their cover of "Cross Maker" understands that harmony is an important part of the song, but it is Beach Boys or Weezer sounding, without the pathos of the original. It is like a nice garment on a mannikin, in that you can see the design and see the skill in execution, but the expression on the face can only be made to look so sad without the lived experience communicated through the human element of the song.
A third cover is by Warren Zevon. I think he gets the closest to the spirit of the original. He takes his time over the lines of the song, considering what is being sung about, he has a gentleness and patience in the care he uses, with some sympathy for the rogue in the song. There has to be rueful love for the subject of the song. I think this is a good cover of the song, in that it understands the material and how an artist can take it and make it fit what they can do best to honor it in their own voice.
There is a recent 2020 cover by Chessa Rich, who was unfamiliar to me as an artist. I think this is a good cover too, but it shifts some lyrics to be about trees and has soft holiday elements as it is on a winter mixtape album. My mother likes this version. Rich thinks about the words as she sings them and yet I don't believe she knows them the way that Sill and Zevon give the narrator's verisimilitude of having lived and survived a rough situation needing that longing for salvation. That the rogue was not good for them, they can't save the relationship, they can't save the person, but they love them and hope someone can give both parties the salvation they cannot offer each other. You can't give what you don't have, in relationships, and in performances. You can go through the motions, but the true salvation is known through nails and scars that leave marks.
I don't know music
Understanding through mere effect
So I just reflect.
