Vibrato in the Desert

I hereby ramble in honour of tonight’s screening of Jesus Christ Superstar on Bravo.

The first time I ever saw this film I was dearly in need of a lift. Sarah and I were living in a mouldy, dark basement suite with a lilac toilet and mushrooms (inedible, non-hallucinogenic) growing in the bathtub. She didn’t have a window in her room; I had one but it opened onto the sidewalk and set as it was in the brick wall, it felt more like the opening where a prison guard might insert my food than like a window.

Man, if someone had put food in our window that would have been amazing.

Our catt got pregnant in that basement suite. I had a terrible job and a last correspondence course in “The Contemporary British Novel” (most recent publication date on the course list was 1965) to complete before I could graduate. Sarah had school and a series of terrible jobs. And one evening, since we had cable, we encountered Jesus Christ Superstar. I can’t speak for her, but my life definitely changed that night. A little extra spring in my step, call it, a little extra zing in my zap.

Sidenote 1: I took a film class in my second year of university and one of the most interesting conversations I remember from my entire university career took place in that class between a man who firmly believed that JCS was the best movie ever made, EVER, better than anything by Fellini, Scorcese or Spielberg, and another guy who had the predictable reaction to such an assertion, where the coffee spurts out of your nose and then you get indignant plus your nose hurts and you argue for half an hour. Good times!

Sidenote 2. This was before I knew anything about the movie except that it was responsible for the song, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” and the playground jingle, “Jesus Christ Superstar; who the hell do you think you are?” which was very naughty because of the word “hell.”

Sidenote 3: I still know almost all the words to “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and I have never known why. When I was feeling nervous about working with a Very Important Person earlier this year, my brain magically handed me this song to mull over and it worked, the way picturing people in their underwear sometimes works. I walked around the office humming, my mind singing quietly,

…He’s a man. He’s just a man.
And I’ve had so many men before,
In very many ways,
He’s just one more.
Should I bring him down?
Should I scream and shout?
Should I speak of love,
Let my feelings out?
I never thought I’d come to this.
What’s it all about?

It helped.

Sidenote 4. Saint Aardvark just pointed out that the lead in the film, Ted Neeley, sounds a lot like the guy from the band (Blood, Sweat & Tears) that sings the song that goes, “What goes up/ must come down/spinning wheel/got to go ’round.” I quite agree. JCS has less cowbell though. MORE COWBELL!

Here! is an oft-forgotten ditty, sung by the attendees at the Last Supper:

Look at all my trials and tribulations
sinking in a gentle pool of wine
don’t disturb me now, I can see the answers
till this evening is this morning, life is fine.

Always hoped that I’d be an apostle
knew that I would make it if I tried
then when we retire we can write the gospel
so they’ll still talk about us when we die.

But the crowning glory, the song that brings tears of joy to my eyes every single flipping time:

Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho, sanna hey, sanna ho-sanna!
Hey JC, JC won’t you smile at me? Sanna ho sanna hey superstar!
Hosanna, hey-sanna, sanna sanna ho, sanna hey, sanna ho-sanna!
Hey JC, JC you’re all right by me! Sanna ho sanna hey superstar!

This film, I mean, I think buddy from film class really had a point. Look, there’s slow motion dancing, a perpetually furrowed-brow’d Judas played by Carl Anderson, a man who can really sing, a truly zealotous Simon (I think I saw this guy on the street the other day) bad guys with puffy black hats who are straight out of Monty Python – one sings super high and one is wayyyy dowwwwwn lowwwwww – and the most amazing votive-candle Jesus. He’s got the little beard, the shempy hair, the soulful brown eyes, just like in vacation bible school. And he shrieks a lot and could safely sit in for any ’80s hair band lead singer if said lead singer was, say, indisposed for a tour. He makes the best noodly rockstar faces at the sky. It is impossible not to sing along. I dare, no, DEFY you to watch this movie and not screw up your face and go, “Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii donnnnnnnnnnn’t knooohhhhhhhhhhhhhw!” when he does.

I do think it’s appropriate, though, for Jesus to point to the sky, at God and shriek his brains out, asking why, why should I die? If my father told me I had to be crucified, there would be some shrieking. I would make all my best rockstar faces too. I would do a lot of noisy, embarrassing things to not be crucified.

God. Thy will is hard.
But you hold every card.
I will drink your cup of poison.
Nail me to your cross and break me;
bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now,
before I change my mind.

Why couldn’t they remake Jesus Christ Superstar instead of making a musical version of Lord of the Rings? Just a question. With the guy from The Darkness as Jesus and Snoop Dogg as Judas and Fiona Apple as Mary Magdalene.

The movies are great in my head.