Edition #2, Gospel Boogaloo
some thoughts on Jesus is Born, the recent album release by Kanye West and the Sunday Service Choir
(If you're only here for my Jesus Is Born analysis, just press 'Ctrl-F' or 'Command-F' and type the word, "Alright!" to skip the preamble and jump to the album review)
Happy New Year, everybody!
Welcome back to the fastest growing (and only) mailing list for people under 25, and a special welcome to the 58 (!) new folks who’ve subscribed since I sent out the introductory email on Saturday (or Sunday, for the dozen or so of you in Australia).
I'm thrilled to offer some respite as you nurse your post-NYE hangover. This iteration is weighing in at a meaty 4,700 words. So put the kettle on, start a load of laundry, and strap in!
This second edition will provide some background on my unique perspective, and offer a deep-dive into the choir arrangements, messages, and takeaways from Jesus Is Born, the recent Christmas Day release by Kanye West and the Sunday Service Choir.
Because an album so deeply rooted in Christianity, Religion, and Faith is an admittedly audacious subject matter to discuss straight away - especially when you’re a non-Christian who’s trying to grow an audience... I want to articulate my perspective on these themes very clearly before delving into the music:
So you better understand the point of view from which these thoughts come, and
So I don’t accidentally offend anyone, and go the way of Australian comedian Josh Ladgrove, when he did his controversial show, “Come Heckle Christ”, at the Adelaide Fringe a few years back.
Rabbit Hole opportunity - Josh is hilarious as his character Neal Portenza, who you can comfortably kill an hour with some other time, HERE
(Again, if you're only here for the Jesus Is Born analysis, just 'Ctrl-F' or 'Command-F' the word "Alright!" to jump down to the actual album review. I just think it's worthwhile to properly articulate my perspective beforehand)
First of all, I'm not a traditionally religious person.
Sure, I was “raised Jewish”... by which I mean I grew up in a predominantly Jewish suburb and have screamed “Mazel Tov!” during “I Gotta Feeling” at more than my fair share of Bar Mitzvahs, but the actual, core beliefs of the religion were never really instilled in me.
In retrospect, this is likely because the belief system was always taught in a foreign language, often on very small text, and at a variety of different locations because my older brother famously got us expelled from not one, but three different hebrew schools (a digression for some other time), but also:
Judaism (nor any religion)- aside from celebrating the High Holidays and participating in the occasional “Hugging Game” in middle school - was not a massively important part of my upbringing.
My guess on why that is, is - aside from growing up with a visual impairment - I’m a fairly privileged person. In fact, having albinism might literally make me the whitest guy from my hometown...
Brother Ali, a rapper with albinism, was once quoted as saying,
"The best definition of privilege I've heard is ‘anything you don't have to wrestle with, [or] that you don't have to think about’.".
Other than not having depth perception, hoping my classes would be taught in ways that ensured I could keep up with my fully-sighted peers, and never being able to drive (instead of a Driver's License, I have a fancy "State ID" that says "Type: DISABLED" on it written big enough that even I can see it), I didn’t have all that much to wrestle with.
Growing up with albinism, I gravitated towards creative pursuits. Subconsciously, this was likely because those were the only areas I noticed other people with albinism or severe visual impairments achieving self-sufficiency and financial stability.
Being exposed at a young age to charismatic, multi-talented musicians like Edgar Winter, Stevie Wonder, and Brother Ali seemed like inarguable evidence that a career as a charming performer who could write compelling lyrics and play many instruments was my professional destiny.
But as I nourished the artistic side of myself - at times out of what felt like a necessity, because I didn’t foresee working in a traditional office job as a genuine possibility, mainly due to the lack of available accommodations I knew I would require - I only recently noticed that many of the comedians and musicians I gravitated towards didn’t appear to subscribe to any particular belief system.
Only since attending the Jesus is King listening party in September, and especially since college - when being on dating apps made me keenly aware of the massive amount of women my age who routinely check their horoscopes - did I start to consider that maybe not everyone else identifies as an agnostic-atheist with albinism whose cynical views on faith and religion are largely shaped by the creative, musically-inclined comedians they look up to and aspire to emulate, like Tim Minchin, Bo | Burnham, and Trey | Parker | and | Matt | Stone.
I think a lot of what was happening, without me even realizing it until recently, was that something inside of me was saying, “Hey David, these artists appear to be living proof that there exists a way to do what you presently think is the only way you could make enough money to be financially independent. They’re hilarious, successful, and all pretty vehemently atheist. In fact, here’s each one of them singing about their exact stance on religion, complete with interesting chord structures, clever wordplay, and standing ovations”. Also - they’re all white guys.
Not to mention that there already exists another white Jewish guy in Comedy called David Zucker, who made a movie I’ve seen at least a dozen times called BASEketball, which starred Trey Parker and Matt Stone...
I encourage you to think about the type of belief system being embedded onto any impressionable teenager who expresses most of their sense of self by the posters in their bedroom and the music/media they repeatedly listen to/consume. If you grew up how I did, and this was the type of art you were exposed to, and this career path was the only one you saw as a realistic option given your visual limitations, you'd probably become an agnostic-atheist, too.
Now that I’m a bit older, I'm starting to understand the variety of meanings "God" can take for those who believe in one of some capacity. I also recognize that any criticism of those who do believe in God is not only a sign of my privilege, but also a little hypocritical.
You see, rolling my eyes at anyone else’s expression of their faith is completely unfair to that person, especially when my faith in artists to validate my human experience is at times the only way I can make sense of the world.
Maybe what I get out of engaging with the work of artists like Bo Burnham and Kanye West (and especially the overwhelming emotion I experience when those two intersect) is what many people get out of prayer, or confession, or church.
Even as a non-Christian, it’s certainly what I get out of Jesus is Born.
So with ALL of that in mind, (and also keeping in mind that I am MUCH more likely to enjoy an album by a gospel choir than most non-religious Kanye fans because of my own brief flirtations with conducting choirs, my disproportionately musically-oriented high school curriculum, and my proclivity for music and art that deliberately tries to rock you to your core), let's dissect.
Alright! It's time to bust out your nicest headphones or speakers (please don't rob yourself of this album's gorgeous sonic landscape by playing it from some crappy earbuds), and press play.
Track One: Count Your Blessings
While you listen to this first track, I encourage you to consider what "God" might mean to you, as Count Your Blessings repeatedly invites you to "take a look around and see what God has done" for you.
If you're like me, there's an initial, reflexive reaction to resist this type of music once they even mention "God" or "Jesus".
But "God" doesn't have to only conjure up images of some supreme being in the sky who determines whether or not you get into Heaven. If that's all the word means to you, then I can understand why this lyric would not elicit much of an emotional response from you.
For me, whenever I hear the word "God" in this song's lyrics, I try and imagine the physical manifestations of faith, love, and gratitude. I think about how I'm grateful for my mom and dad, my older brother, my teachers, my manager at work, and even people like YOU for still reading this novel of an email because it's hopefully providing some sort of value to you.
So no, I can't "take a look around and see" what some bearded old man with a vendetta for cheeseburgers did for me, but I can definitely take a moment to be grateful for the hundreds of people who have gone out of their way to assist me in some capacity, throughout the course of my life.
Now that you understand the thought process behind why I enjoy this song so much, I encourage you to listen to it again. But this time, consider what YOU might be of faith to. Maybe, like me, it's to a few overarching emotions like love and gratitude. Maybe it's to your family, or a significant other. Maybe it's a small group of artists whose perspectives you value, or maybe yours is a pre-defined God from an existing religion.
Whatever that G-word has to mean to you for it to mean something to you, I invite you to suspend your disbelief about whether or not a God "exists" for 3 minutes and 28 seconds, substitute that meaning here, and see what happens.
^^ If this exercise was able to elicit a new reaction that you didn't initially have from listening to this song, I'd love to hear about it. Just send a reply to this email with what it made you think about, I'm eager to know!
Track Two: Excellent
My high school chorus teacher would frequently remind us that the hallmark of a truly great chorus was not how well they sounded when they sang loudly, but how well they could sing quietly. This is exemplified within the first 30 seconds of this song.
Listen for how gently the choir stresses the first syllable of “excellent”, the first two times it appears. They occur about 20 seconds in. For me, these two "ek"s feel like an eager dog approaching you with a tennis ball in its mouth, or a father gently waking up his newborn from a pleasant nap.
I don't want to belabour my analysis of the subtext behind praising God and Jesus, as I already covered that in a prior recap, but I am compelled to once again bring up the visual engraved in my head from the Sunday Service documentary, as I now realize Excellent is the song I was describing back in September. For a mini-refresher:
We see a choir director, shot in black and white… The room echoes as his off-screen choir bellows and belts. He is giving his full body to the song, to the spirit, as if the energy of this chorus is being sent through [a] hole in the sky to God himself. Trying to awaken him or generate his curiosity, so that in hearing their beautiful praises, he might be nice enough to answer their prayers.
Or maybe God is entering through the hole and manifesting himself through the choir director’s body, and into the music. But probably a little bit of both. It’s hard to deny this isn’t actually happening. The scene, even at 10 decibels too loud, is that divine.
This is still how I feel about the purpose of this song, and what it's trying to accomplish.
Those first two "ek"s are that first attempt to garner God's interest. As if to say, "Psst! God, over here! I know you're probably super busy and all, and I didn't want anything, but I just wanted to say thanks for everything you've done!".
Can you hear it? The choir then senses they've gotten their God's attention, and build and build their praises, until the sound is so overwhelmingly unified and divine, that their God is surely so bowled over by all of their praises, that God just might, as Tim Minchin would say, "take a break from giving babies malaria / and drop down to [their] local area".
Now, when they say "Jesus" in this song, I again urge you to resist that temptation to withdraw from the music's evocative nature, because you don't think all that much about Jesus. Instead, try replacing 'Jesus' with whatever the messenger is for your interpretation of God.
For me, with my previously established "God"s of faith, love, and gratitude, the "messenger"s of those emotions are my loved ones, my close friends, my great teachers, and the artists I look up to. And you know what? Those people are pretty Excellent. So I'm cool with giving them a little praise every now and then.
For you, it might be something similar. For Kanye, it's probably Kanye.
But with that spirit, and by visualizing the steady build of the choir's praises as the upward trajectory of a rocket ship, I think you'll be able to better engage with this song's undeniable power.
Track Three: Revelations 19:1
Many of you might recognize the 3:08 onward section as the middle part from Selah, a song from Jesus is King.
My suspicion is that this type of repetition in gospel music is incredibly intentional. Repetition begets anticipation, and anticipation allows for quicker participation. This is why most people can generally remember the chorus of a new pop song after only one listen. It's also why when I first heard Selah at the listening party in September, the entire audience was able to sing along to this segment when Kanye ran it back. Because it was so simple, they were able to join him, even if the vast majority of the audience had never even heard the song before.
Track Four: Rain
Love all the "hey"s in the background as a way to both engage the chorus members not currently singing, as well as help keep the time of the beat, in case the extra energy accidentally causes the choir to speed up.
3:36 onward sounds like a real life chop of a Kanye sample. I mean can’t you just hear him rapping over this?
Track Five: Balm in Gilead
If you’re anything like me, you spent the first 15 seconds of listening to this song by doing this:
After a few minutes of fruitless Googling, I'm just going to interpret this lyric to mean that there exists some sort of cure for your current issues, but that the cure can only be accessed upon being granted access to a place whose admission process likely has to do with achieving some sort of spiritual deference to God.
Or, in other words, Georgetown.
0:48 is when this song's arrangement picks up, and best exemplifies my mental image for what I think of when I think of gospel music.
LOVE that guitar riff of a female vocal part at 1:24 . My only criticism of this song is that it ends too abruptly, as I honestly could have listened to another seven key changes, a la the end of Love on Top by Beyoncé.
Track Six: Father Stretch
My hunch is this or Ultralight Beam was the first track that many people who weren't planning on listening to the whole album jumped to, because they recognized the title as a variation of a two-part track called "Father Stretch My Hands" from Kanye's 2016 album, The Life of Pablo.
I don't have that many thoughts on this particular arrangement of this song, so I’m going to take this moment to quickly recommend you listen to Norwegian producer Lido’s remix of this song. It appears at the 0:35 mark his in his 2016 remix of TLOP called (The) Life of Peder.
The FSMH bit occurs from 0:35 to 2:14. Other songs referenced in this 8 minute masterpiece include: FML, Ultralight Beam (more on that later), I Love Kanye, and Wolves. He also released a mashup of Kids See Ghosts and Ye last year called kidsloveghosts.
Lido is a gifted producer and songwriter whose hip-hop producer credits that you might recognize include: Heaven Only Knows, Angels, and Smoke Break by Chance the Rapper. Lido rules.
Track Seven: Follow Me - Fade
Avid listeners of TLOP should recognize the change that starts at 1:58.
Again, love all the "hey"s in the background. I was definitely this guy in every chorus I was in, hooting and hollering during every open section in the songs we sang, the energy is just so contagious!
Track Eight: Ultralight Beam
There's not much commentary I can really add to this song. I almost feel like trying to articulate why it works would ruin some of its magic. Hopefully it's arrangement evokes the same emotions out of you that it does for me.
Again, I'm a bit more predisposed to enjoy this arrangement because the original version is one of my absolute favorite songs.
One musical trick I'll always be a sucker for - anytime all the instrumentation cuts out of a track, and all we hear is the pure, stripped-down music that comes from a unified chorus, like at the 2:56 mark of this song. This was a motif frequently used at my camp for our Color War sings (shoutout A.H. if you're out there, I know you'll love this part too). Something about it is just so overwhelming.
This trick is frequently incorporated in show | stopping | musical | theater | numbers, and it gets me every time.
I'll never forget where I was when I received a bootleg recording of Ultralight Beam from a friend of mine who also loves Kanye, back in early 2016. It was the only track out from TLOP at the time, so I was pretty thrilled that I might be getting a full album of this kind of music from Kanye.
After playing it 5 times in a row, I immediately sprinted over to my fraternity house, and vividly recall knocking on everyone's bedroom doors to insist they stop what they were doing, and listen to this song.
In a way, I guess I'm still doing that right now.
Track Nine: Lift Up Your Voices
The arrangement is largely borrowed (see: stolen) from a song called "Elastic Heart" by Sia, which is more commonly known as "that weird-ass Shia LeBeouf music video from a few years ago".
I honestly haven't thought about that song in years. But it does make me wonder how Kanye decided which songs he would one day later replace with Christian lyrics.
Does he have a note on his iPhone of, "songs that would sound a whole lot better if they just talked a little bit more about God"? lol.
Also - friendly reminder to go move your laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Track Ten: More Than Anything
Again, if the Jesus lyrics put you off, I invite you to replace "Jesus" with your God's messenger as you try to extrapolate some meaning from this one.
The female vocalist introduced at 2:12, and who carries us through the rest of the song, is perfect. I wish I knew her name so I could go on a rabbit hole of my own to listen to more of her work!
This is a great example of the delicate relationship between a soloist and the rest of their accompaniment. She's listening sooo carefully to the band and chorus, and focusing with amazing specificity to - ironically - not make her solo "about her", and all the cool vocal runs she's capable of doing.
Don't get me wrong. I come away from this track fully impressed by her singing ability, as she absolutely crushes this performance.
But I'm mainly impressed because her solo is pure soul, and not simply an accurate sight-read of a predetermined melody. This solo feels completely in the moment, as she's allowing The Great Creator to flow out of her, and fill the open space of the track as she sees fit. Bravo.
Track Eleven: Weak
Not much to add, very pleasant melody.
Track Twelve: That's How the Good Lord Works
I think an important part of why I love this song so much is because it's in the key of E flat minor (or Ebm).
For non-musicians, all you need to know is that this scale is really easy for someone like me to play along with. My guess on why that is? Look at where the notes of that scale fall on the piano:
Notice something about these notes? They're all of the black keys on a piano!
In other words, you can generally plunk any of the notes on the black keys, and it will usually sound pretty pleasant. For example, watch a few seconds of this guy on YouTube fiddling around in the Eb minor pentatonic scale.
And do you want to know another visually-impaired person who is a big fan of songs in E flat? Stevie Wonder.
Kirk Hamilton, creator of the Strong Songs Podcast, dissected Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" on his podcast last year in 2019, and astutely noted that three of Stevie's most well-known songs are in this same key: "I Wish", "Superstition", and "Higher Ground".
I only listened to this episode (which I arrogantly recommend you listen to, as well as ALL of Kirk's episodes, HERE) a few days ago, and felt compelled to reach out to him and give my opinion on the matter the other day.
Because he's an awesome guy, he actually responded to my theory the other day. Here's what he said:
As for your take on Stevie and Eb, that certainly makes sense to me. I can't remember whether I explicitly tied his preference for the black keys to his lack of eyesight on the show - I kind of remember leaving it unsaid because I wasn't 100% comfortable making that assumption on air, clear as it may seem. But yeah, it certainly makes sense to me, and that's helpful to hear your perspective on it.
To me, that kind of confirms my personal suspicion about the key and its appeal, but I can understand why he would want to leave that part "unsaid".
Track Thirteen: Sunshine
Honestly just skip to 1:00 and be swept away by another epic female vocalist. Again, I wish I knew these people's names to give them credit! Sunshine is also largely a cover of a song by the Clark Sisters. If I didn't have resources like Genius, I wonder how few of these interpolations and references I would have caught.
Pay special attention to the section that occurs from 1:41 onward.
The director asks each vocal section of the choir if they're witnesses. This starts at 2:23 with the Sopranos, then the Altos, and finally the Tenors, before they all join together to create a wall of sound greater than the sum of its parts at 3:16.
By isolating the vocals, we can observe that these three vocal parts are not massively interesting on their own. But when combined, so much power occurs from their eventual consolidation.
Track Fourteen: Back to Life
Again, another cover. One part of this song that has Kanye written all over it starts about 1 minute in. I can easily hear Kanye rapping Ye-era lyrics over it.
Track Fifteen: Souls Anchored
So it only dawned on me about half-way through listening to this song that it's actually just a gospel, re-lyricized version of So Anxious by Ginuwine.
...So now I have to go quickly re-listen to every other song and make sure I'm not incorrectly crediting these arrangements to these songs, in the event they've been borrowed or interpolated from an existing song.
...Brb.
Track Sixteen: Sweet Grace
Definitely the most cuttable and least necessary song on the album, but still nice. That's mainly a testament to every other song's quality, rather than a knock on this one.
Track Seventeen: Paradise
Again, another cover. This time, of the incredibly simple but lovely song Paradise, by Jeremih. (Not to be confused with Somewhere in Paradise, which also features Jeremih).
Jeremih's voice routinely brings a smile to my face, because something about him, even when he's talking about being so "f-ing wasted" is incredibly soothing.
This version doesn't quite have Jeremih's gentle tone, and I miss the innocent plucking of the guitar from the original. but I still enjoy this version - and its repurposed lyrics - a great deal.
Track Eighteen: Satan, We're Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down
After a few listens, this might be my favorite song on the album.
I definitely feel these "darker" gospel songs more fully in my bones, and love any arrangement with a lead vocalist shepherding a choir behind them through some sort of journey.
All this track is missing is a live band that joins in halfway through, and Jack Black swooping in to dethrone Satan with a heavy metal guitar solo.
Track Nineteen: Total Praise
The first half of this song feels like the musical equivalent of *house lights gently fading* on this album, allowing the listener to have a brief moment for self-reflection.
Of all of these songs, I think it was the right choice as a finale.
So yeah. Who could have predicted that you'd be starting 2020 by reading a live-look at a guy publicly being gaslit by Kanye West to become a Christian?
As far as my criticism of this project:
I kind of cringed at the attempt to make those Shia LaBeouf and Ginuwine songs more "family-friendly". But again, that's a bit hypocritical coming from the guy trying to champion accessibility…
After all, Kanye is basically implying that those original arrangements are great enough on their own that their initial, hyper-sexualized lyrics shouldn't take away from the beautiful music behind them.
... and isn't that just the Bizarro-version of what I'm trying to convey with this piece?
Of course, a guy like me thinking thoughts like these was exactly Kanye's intention with this project. I got my hands on a bible in English with large text over the holiday season, and am keen to officially see what all the fuss is about. I also recently picked up a book called, "God Without Religion", which I'm excited to read as well.
Side-note: A part of me feels like "An Atheist Reads the Bible" is a compelling podcast premise. I know most of you are here for music and comedy reviews, so that might be a separate venture down the road.
But still. Because a guy like me would probably never be thinking this much about Jesus, love, faith, and God if it weren't for Kanye West, this project can really only be evaluated as a success.
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As always, thanks for reading.
The fact that I'm already at 200+ readers when I only created this platform six days ago is frankly astonishing.
Since I think spamming my own social media - though surprisingly effective so far - is a bit of a dead horse at this point, if YOU, brave reader who somehow read this entire novel (and is probably my Dad), know anyone else who might similarly enjoy… whatever this is, I’d greatly appreciate you inviting them to subscribe:
I'm simply trying to evoke the same feeling I used to get when I saw a new 5,000 word column from Bill Simmons on Grantland back in the day. You might not have agreed with his specific opinions, but those reads - and the rationale behind them - were guaranteed to be entertaining, well-researched, and written in a fun way that had previously never felt so personal as an audience member.
But who knows? Maybe you hated this, thought it was completely self-absorbed, and that I fully "zagged" with this piece when I should have "zigged". Either way - let me know!
Between you and me, I’m secretly praying that somebody important at a major publication will read this and recognize how this piece exemplifies the benefits of making all content just a little bit more accessible for folks like me.
I also hope to serve as evidence that any "disabled" person who is given reasonable accommodations throughout their academic, social and professional circles is just as capable of contributing meaningful work for public consumption - and even able to strike a chord with a complete stranger - as is a person without any type of “disability”.
Or, as Kanye might say, albinism ain't no disability...I'm a SUPERHERO!!!
Hope you enjoyed this piece, let's make 2020 a good one.