Drawing 35 - Groovy Palm Sunday

It was a tradition in the household in which I lived during most of my time in Canada that we'd come home from church and put on some loud choral music we could sing along with while we made brunch. Sometimes it was Carmina Burana, sometimes Mozart's Requiem, but during Lent, especially towards Holy Week, more often than not it was Jesus Christ Superstar. I realized last week how much I missed that, so on my way home from church I stopped in the CD store and found a copy – it wasn't the original cast, in fact I couldn't find a mention of the production or cast on it anywhere, but I got it anyway because it was the only complete recording they had, and might as well expand my horizons a little. ( Differences ...  )

Has anyone else noticed that an inordinate number of Webber's musicals are about the ramifications of fame?

Anyway, it's been a long time since I listened to it, and it got me thinking again about how controversial it is in some circles. I'm not surprised, because I know people will get offended at anything, but ... see, my mom spent all of maybe five minutes explaining the premise to me when I was a child, and even though I've never seen a performance and I don't recall ever hearing the whole musical before college, just that explanation had a profound effect on my perception of the Passion. Even now it's still my favourite dramatic interpretation of it, and the focus on the power of the fickle mob probably predisposed me to René Girard's mind-bending theories. I started to write a point-by-point list guessing at what people might find offensive and then explaining why they're full of crap, but it started to get really long so I stopped ... might post it someday if anyone's interested but I don't have the time right now to finish it or to join the conversation it might start. Instead I decided to offend more people by illustrating a mondegreen! ( Left-Handed Blasphemy )