Depeche Mode are available on iTunes.

by Walter Price

Back in the year of 1990, you were having a great time sonically. You had cassettes of Sonic Youth, The Pixies, Jane’s Addiction, The Replacements, and Afghan Whigs sliding around the floorboard of your crappy used car. But it was one album and one single that had you questioning your faith. The band was one of your high school faves, Depeche Mode, and their brand new album was Violator and the provocative song was “Personal Jesus”.

What the hell was this song about? Was Mode suggesting they were your Jesus? Was it a song about pop culture indulgence? So many questions swirling around you at the time as that bluesy riff warped your senses.

Hey, relax, the song’s writer, Martin Gore, solved the long-lasting mystery when he explained the track’s Elvis and Priscilla Presley connection, “It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships, how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?”

Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there
Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer
Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess

Wait a fast second, Elvis and Priscilla?! Okay, I get and so do you…now. But we’re not the only ones who may have interpreted the classic Gore masterpiece differently. No, no, I’ve collected three unique takes on this dawn of the nineties mainstay.

DEPECHE MODE

website / youtube

Johnny Cash

Marilyn Manson

Guitarozzi (Simone Vaccaro Silvia Nerozzi)

DM

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