The Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. 3.

 

George sent me this post as a birthday present!

He writes;

Good news, I’ve been invited back. This week, and I think the picture might have given it away, it’s Jesus Christ Superstar. And I have the film soundtrack, bought from Chalmers and Joy record shop at the top of Gellatly Street in Dundee, probably in 1977. And I still like the music. Unsurprisingly there were some objections to the stage and film versions, but it seems that a Pope quite liked it. And not some person called Pope but a genuine supreme pontiff Pope. And for those of you scoffing at the Pope’s, and mine’s taste in rock opera, you should know it was made by the same bloke who made In The Heat Of The Night.

Words such as rock opera and musical usually strike fear into the heart of many of us, but sometimes there is no accounting for taste. Maybe the 14 or 15 year old me thought it a radical film, possibly an educational one (not having been inducted into any church as an infant), or maybe it is a simple case of  liking the music. Anyway,  one of the many fine songs is Everything's Alright:

But this is the one you really want. The grumpy Judas intervention is a bit derogatory to Ms Magdalene, and critical of the main man (the Judas is not the One Night In Bangkok bloke, he was Judas on the original concept album), but of course well worth a listen

Judas also sings the song that became the well-known  1970s football song “Charlie George, superstar, walks like a woman and he wears a bra”, namely Superstar

And here it is, a great video and splendid soul/gospel song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcIvK7f77o

I’ve been watching several of the songs on You Tube, and there’s some memorable lines “you have set them all on fire, they think they’ve found the new messiah” sang Judas. Or “a trick or two with lepers and the whole town’s on its feet” (a pharisee, I think). 

And that’s it. Jesus Christ Superstar, probably my favourite rock opera.

Thanks to Mr CC for posting, and thanks to you for reading.

CC writes:

What can I say? I'm lost for words!