Kingsway Youth Opera Company, 1971

Today--for the first time during this experiment--I caught myself thinking, "Gosh, I've listened to Jesus Christ Superstar a lot."
I guess it's taken three weeks for the novelty to wear off. Now it's taking on more of the flavor of a Lenten discipline.
"This one I think you are going to find very interesting," Greg said of today's installment, and if you know Greg, you will understand why I got nervous. "Interesting" can be taken any number of ways. But it was true--maybe he just knows my tastes. I like this one because it has a lot of rock'n'roll to it; in fact, something about the orchestration (horn-heavy) reminded me of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or perhaps the Moody Blues, a band that's been on my mind because the weather has gotten lovely. The loveliness of the weather, by the by, is another reason I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of spending time sitting and listening to a recording instead of going to bask in the sunshine. Could I have done both at once? Basked and Superstarred? No, I don't own one of those newfangled electronic devices by which one can bring one's music along.
But back to the Moody Blues. (Does anyone else have bands they associate with particular times of the year?) The grandiose orchestral arrangements with rock swagger, coupled with the British accents of the cast--yeah, even the fact this was a vinyl recording with the wobbliness that comes to vinyl with age--all conjured the Moodies in my mind. And then I found out that this LP was released by Deram Records--the same label that released Days of Future Passed and the next five Moody Blues albums. The interconnectivity of all things.
I never was conscious of it before, but now that I think about it the albums playing in my house while I was growing up often had orchestration married to rock sensibilities--JCS, the Moodies' early work, ELO--not to mention the classical pieces I heard tended to have more raucous energy--pieces by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov.
It all makes sense now! (Or should I say, "My mind is clearer now"?)

Jesucristo Superestrella, 2001

So the Jesus Christ Superstar du jour is another Mexican cast recording, this one from 2001. This one came with a libretto, so I could, employing my scanty Spanish knowledge and handy-dandy Google Translate, see some of the translation choices--in Judas' first song, for instance, it is Eden, not heaven, that is on their minds. And "What's the buzz/tell me what's happening?" is rendered "¿Dime que significa esta rumor?" or (roughly) "Tell me, what is this rumor?"
(Ooh! I should use Google Translate on the other phrases I was curious about. Let's see..."Allting är okej nu" is indeed Swedish for "Everything is okay now," and the same song title in Czech turns into "Everything is as it should be" when it's re-Englished. While "Proc ten shon?," the Czech title for "What's the Buzz?" becomes "Why the rush?" Huh.)
Today's experiment in JCS-suitable activities was studying for an exam. It worked out well, I think. In fact I was at first planning to just kinda sit around doing nothin' while listening, and something made me decide to get online and look up practice tests, so it was quite the positive motivator. Time to draft the research paper: "JCS and Behavior Modification."
(And how was this version? Good. No complaints, but no surprises either. Greg promises the really far-out versions are coming in the second half of Lent. Speaking of, happy day before Laetare Sunday, everyone.)
[Update: Oops, I counted wrong. We don't reach the halfway point of Lent until next week!]

The Soul of Jesus Christ Superstar, 1972

Okay, I gotta share the Amazon link for this one. This is just what it sounds like it would be: JCS as soul music, all funkified. It was a big change today--even though I've been listening to renditions in Swedish, French, Spanish and Japanese, essentially the songs have remained the same. Sure, there are minor variations. Sometimes Caiaphas and Annas are buffoons and sometimes they are genuinely frightening characters. Sometimes Pilate comes across as vicious throughout and sometimes he has more depth. But essentially everyone has been working from the same template.
The template gets chopped into itty bitty bits on The Soul of Jesus Christ Superstar. We start out with an overture which has little to do with the original overture, is mostly gospel piano, and which includes the Soultown Singers testifying "Jesus Christ is a superstar!"--in case we wonder where these performers are going to be coming from theologically.
We follow this up with "Superstar," because running order is one of those elements that is nonessential to JCS's soul. Also not important: the full complement of lyrics for a given song. Take "The Last Supper"--the only part that's included is the part the steadily-getting-drunker apostles sing. Oh, and "Gethsemane"? Jesus' big number? Sammy Turner, Soul's Jesus, sings up to:
Let them hit me hurt me nail me to their tree
...before retreating back to the lines
Then I was inspired, now I'm sad and tired
After all, I've tried for three years, seems like thirty
Could you ask as much from any other man?
...which is where the song ends.
Why? Are they trying to tell a different story than the one JCS tells? Is it because they want to keep things in a particular groove, and there are too many musical shifts in the middle of songs in the original version?
I have to give them credit for taking the source material and bringing it into new territory. I almost feel though that I'm getting the day off from Lent; have I really listened to JCS today?

Is Allting Allright (Ja!) or Okej?

Tonight's pressing question: does Jesus Christ Superstar make good house-cleaning music? More precisely, does Jesus Christ Superstar, the 2009 Swedish cast, make good house-cleaning music? It's worth noting that I have found a Romanian CD, Epoca de Aur, does the best job at keeping me on task when it comes to the performance of domestic duties. It has just the right mix of upbeat material and incomprehensible lyrics. I thought the Swedes could do right by me at least in terms of incomprehensibility, but of course I'm way too familiar with these songs to not know what's going on at any given time, and if I know what's going on, I start thinking about what's going on instead of paying attention to my labors. Also, I find myself slowing down during the slower numbers. On the other hand, one is less likely to whine about how hard it is to clean house when one is listening to Jesus confronting the prospect of being hated, hit, hurt and nailed to a tree.
And how does this version compare to last night's? Good news--sometime between 1972 and 2009, the Swedes fired the saxophonist. Also, I had the sense last night that the cast was putting in a lot of effort, and that's a bad thing--a rock opera should never sound like work. Maybe the singers have a bit more training in this version or something--I don't get that sense of constant struggle, of wrestling with the (admittedly) demanding score, and that makes for a much more pleasant listening experience. I have to mention in particular the great falsetto employed by the 2009 Jesus, something he seems to be able to just launch up there at will.
This cast employs a different translation, I think, because instead of "Everything's Alright" being rendered "Allting är allright" as it was yesterday, it's "Allting är okej nu." Help me out, linguists: does that mean "All things are okay now"? If so, what are the theological implications of things being "okay," not "alright"? It's not quite "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well," is it?

How Jesus Christ Superstar is affecting my life.

As we are now two weeks from Ash Wednesday, this is a good time for some reflection on what Lent has been like so far. In fact I just has someone ask, "Are you tired of Jesus Christ Superstar yet?" No, not quite; in fact, when I couldn't get to sleep last night, I got out the Prague recording and listened to it while I was falling asleep. So yes, in one evening I ended up hearing "Vse Je Tak, Jak Ma Byt" four times.
Is it putting a crimp in my social life? A little; I did beg off hanging out late with friends tonight in order to finish listening to the 1972 Swedish cast recording. (What I enjoyed most about the Swedish contribution: the oh-so-close-to-English song titles: "Allting är allright," "Dömd för alltid." What I enjoyed least: the curious over-reliance on the saxophone. I mean, seriously, it just shows up in the middle of a scene with a part that is only vaguely related to what all the other instruments are doing. The net result is that you're envisioning the Last Supper, and there's Jesus and Judas arguing, but then whoops, in walks a wandering saxophonist. He's oblivious.)
How's Greg doing, since he's listening to all of these recordings too? In a recent email he confessed, "These songs officially will not get out of my head at this point. I think I actually had a dream I met a Galilean."

Czech JCS--Original Prague Cast

Oh, my gosh. This one's so wonderful. I've listened to "Vse Je Tak, Jak Ma Byt" ("Everything's All Right") three times now, that's how wonderful this is. And I nearly started crying during "Gethsemane"--which is all the more impressive when this is the tenth--or maybe eleventh, or twelfth--time I've heard this song in the last two weeks.
Maybe one of the reasons I like this recording so much is because my family on my mom's side is (mostly) Bohemian, so I feel a cultural affinity here. I'm certainly glad that my Czech repertoire of phrases might be expanded by this experience. Before this recording, I only knew "Bez práce nejsou koláce", which means "No work, no tasty fruit- or cream-cheese-filled pastries." I'm almost tempted now to travel to Prague and ask of random passersby, "Proc ten shon?" I say "almost" because I'm worried that I really would be saying the Czech equivalent of "What's the buzz?"--that is, the most dated bit of 70s slang imaginable.
Maybe it's because it seems to take three times as many syllables to deliver these lines in Czech, or maybe it's, again, the subtext of hard rock being sung in a communist milieu. Whatever it is, I get the strangest sense, listening to these songs that I think I know so well, that far more is being said than I've ever heard before.

Kiwi JCS

...Yes, the 1994 New Zealand cast recording. I don't recognize any names in the cast. Overall impression? They sound so young. Strong voices and some unique elements to the arrangements--I particularly liked the extended a cappella outro in "The Last Supper," when the apostles are well and truly in their cups.
But no, this version doesn't measure up to the Japanese.
Ooh! But Judas goes intriguingly off script! In his big showstopping "Superstar" number (here only followed by the instrumental "John 19:41" because this is a highlights recording and I guess "The Crucifixion" isn't a highlight), when the angelic soul-girl choir is singing
"Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,
Who are you, what have you sacrificed?"
and
"Jesus Christ Superstar,
Do you think you're what they say you are?"
At the very, very end, when Judas usually just ad-libs on the theme of "I only want to know," there's a musical break, and Judas' last words are:
"I am a sinner who's lost his way
Down on my knees, I am here and praying.
Jesus...I think I know..."