Support 12tone on Patreon to help us keep making cool videos! www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) The personal-ad story in the beginning is attested in enough places that I believe it to be true, but I couldn't find an actual copy of what the ad looked like, and some accounts said it read "Your Own Personal Jesus" while others claim it just said "Personal Jesus". Also some early copies may not have included a phone number. It's hard to piece together exactly what happened which is why I kept the description a little vague, but I'm confident in the details I chose to include. 2) The quotes are all truncated, but I tried to do that in a way that preserved their meaning and tone as best I could. Especially for the Gahan's, though, I'm not entirely sure how sincere he was being: I don't have any reason to believe he was deliberately misleading or sarcastic, but it's the sort of line whose meaning can change a lot based on inflection. It was only preserved in a written interview, though, so that tone is lost and I have no idea how accurate Thomas Frank's recreation was, beyond that it's the correct words. I've also found other interviews from later on where, when asked about the song, he goes back to the Priscilla Presley story. So again, please don't take that section as implying the band viewed it as a straightforwardly positive message. They just saw a level of hope and optimism in it. 3) Also, related to the quotes, I want to clarify that, while I had Andrew from Religion For Breakfast read one because we thought it'd be a fun cameo crossover in the context of the song, he didn't, like, review the script or anything, so his presence should not be read as a cosign of anything I say about religion. If I'm wrong, or even just lacking nuance, that's entirely my fault and I don't want to get him in trouble. Hopefully I'm not wrong so it doesn't matter, but just in case. 4) Depeche Mode does have a couple earlier songs that _include_ guitar, but this is the first where it's the main driving figure. 5) This song actually has six official mixes, but I stuck with talking about the single version 'cause I think it's the most recognizable. 6) Another cool thing about that strobing synth under the riff is that each pulse starts out panned to the left and then moves to the middle as the higher tone comes in, giving it this moving, pulsating sound that amplifies the sense of danger. 7) To be clear, the historical accuracy of blues musicians actually selling their souls to the devil is, of course, nonexistent. The thing that's complicated is the relationship between modern cultural conceptions and historically contemporaneous narratives. What I was mostly trying to say is that the blues, as a musical tradition, has no historical connection to satanism or devil worship, even though it is accurate to say that it's become a go-to stylistic palette for music about the devil.
Maybe it was too obvious to be mentioned, but "reach out and touch someone" was AT&Ts slogan through the 80s. The constant focus on calling the "Jesus" on the telephone in the song really is a strike against your cult leader interpretation, IMO. It's about calling someone, which fits the positive interpretation of someone to lean on, or the more exploitative one of a manipulative partner. But not really anything about actual religion or cults.
It has got to be the singers' version of the English accent that so thoroughly mangles what I am hearing. This video is the first time I learned the lyric is "touch faith". Even knowing this, I still hear "touch me." "Hear Your Prayers" sounds like "be your friend". "Telephone" sounds like "tele fen", ???. A lot of the words have been unintelligible to me and are still unintelligible even now after having read the lyrics. Anyway.... The man who was the resident advisor for my last year in college (graduating in December puts a lot of people back in the dorms) was told growing up that he should "carry on conversations with Jesus, in his head" just as he would with "a friend" in irl. As a twenty year old, he was still doing that. He asserted he was having a conversation with an actual Jesus when he denied my point that he was making up both sides of the conversation (now-a-days I would tell him his imagined conversation was pure fan-fiction). The Jesus he had concocted was of course his personal Jesus.
Did this song at karaoke once. Even as a baritone it's actually harder to sing that low consistently with that kind of character. Damn good vocal part.
Growing up in the 80s, seeing all the televangelists on TV here in the States, this song always struck me as being about predatory religious figures. They were always calling upon viewers to pick up the phone and give them credit card numbers to help pay so they could "continue spreading the word," all while buying luxury homes, jets, and jewelry. It was sickening, and this song just seemed the perfect encapsulation of that moment in time. I'm surprised to hear members of the band claim it was supposed to be inspiring.
I think it mostly depends on which era and country you were born in. I was born into the era when modern pop songs were introduced and found depeche mode through my parents. For me it always felt a more hopeful song since i wasn't aware of predatory priests when i learned of the song
“Reach out and touch faith” is also a play on the old AT&T jingle, “Reach Out and Touch Someone,” from the 70’s and 80’s, tying in to the telephone theme.
Oh, *hell yeah,* dude! I'm so happy to see you analyzing a Depeche Mode song. I feel like Personal Jesus is about someone who's drowning in a horrible situation being offered that hand out of the water by someone they shouldn't trust. The way the song has these walls of sound that build, then ebb out again into starker sections, really reinforces that feeling for me. Last December, I was lucky enough to actually see Depeche Mode in concert, and they played Personal Jesus. The way the lights crashed over everyone really felt like that wave, and everyone shouted the chorus and reached out to the light. It was really fascinating; it felt like a reflection of the power that manipulative leaders can wield, just as I and many others feel the song is about.
When I was 13 ish I was feeling very lonely, couldn't really make friends. When I found this song on a new mp3 player I bought and listened to it, it didn't sound to me like someone was claiming to be "my own personal Jesus", it sounded like someone telling me that it'll be okay, and that I'd find a friend someday. Someone who listens, someone who cares. Now, it was the Johnny Cash version, I actually have never heard the original. Let's continue the episode now lol
@@vampdan It's cool how this one song can both be genuine, and sarcastic. I'd love to hear Ghost cover it, and equally love to hear some more religious band like POD cover it.
Violator was the first album I owned, my mom gave me the cassette for Christmas the year it came out and I was 8 years old. A few years later in 1998 I took my mom to see Depeche Mode in concert and thankfully I still have the ticket stub! They were my favorite band for a very long time and this song is one of my favorites. Thanks for covering it🙏
Coincidentally, Captain Pikant yesterday released a video covering how to sequence the percussion for 3 Depeche Mode songs, including Personal Jesus. It was so accurate ContentID tagged 2 of the songs.
Definitely need to check out enjoy the silence as well. Absolute perfection on all levels, fantastic production, lush chord progressions. the vocal line is written in the relative major which helps give the song a balance of light and darkness.
I love that (intentionally or otherwise) the cult leader vibe persists in the covers. The original is a slick, smooth-talking con man, as is the Marilyn Manson cover, the Johnny Cash cover is a backwoods preacher who might be a true believer, and the MSI cover is a cult of mania and divine(?) insanity. I’m so happy you did a video for this song, it’s maybe my favorite song of all time!
A six hour customer service shift with no break in the middle of a hurricane, and I come home to a video on my favorite band of all time. God bless you 12tone. You're my personal Jesus todag
I always heard the song as an ode to self-determination and self-sufficiency. I always thought the narrator of the song was oneself. Who else could possibly be my own personal _Jesus?_ We're all just mortals. Of course, I'm also not a believer of any faith, nothing bigger than oneself is required for my perspective of the song, which by Gahan's interpretation makes the faith unnecessary. I see the "faith" in "reach out and touch faith" as strictly metaphorical. Believe in yourself.
Maybe there's a cultural influence in interpretation too? I've no idea whether 12Tone is religious or not, but that's not the point: from the sound of it he's North American. As a Brit I'm slightly taken aback at the idea of trying to read a religious interpretation into it: whether that's a positive or negative interpretation or even if it's just one of a few possible interpretations. I think I just naturally assume a default baseline that any religious reference is obviously metaphorical, and you have to go out of your way to try and read an actual religious context into it. But religion, whether you believe in it or not, is a much more pervasive part of the American public realm than it is here. Maybe it's more natural in that environment to assume that religious references could actually refer to something religious?
@@zak3744 I'm more interested in the evangelical/devilish split in perception than the religious/secular split, personally. It's far too tempting to want to ascribe secular thought to a work of art. It's also the debate I'm not personally invested in, making it easier to observe. Johnny Cash's interpretation of the song is unsurprising, and between his and 12tone's, I'm solidly in the Johnny Cash camp. What 12tone describes as a sleazy riff sounds more to me like the salt of the earth. It sounds blue-collar, like the motif of a man who just spent ten hours working on other people's cars or something. My instinct is to say the song sounds distinctly worldly (as opposed to divine,) and that the breathing is meant to be one's own. Your aspiration, your exertion. I've been a fan of this song, this version, since I was a child, so I suppose that's why it never sounded sexual to me. The idea never even crossed my mind until this video. I can also easily imagine having been introduced to this song by the Marilyn Manson version affecting your perception of the original. All that said, I totally see where 12tone is coming from. It is a highly thematically dynamic song!
@@SaltpeterTaffy Oh yeah, I only commented because the difference seemed quite striking and quite interesting from my perspective. (And my personal impression is from the original: the Cash and Manson covers are both bundled into the "modern music" category in my brain, which is basically everything after the end of Britpop, which also just happened to be when I was coming of age. 😄)
What I love about songs like this is how open to interpretation the lyrics actually are. It can mean so many different things to so many different people, none of them wrong (it is artistic interpretation after all). That said, I agree it has a dark and sinister undertone, something like a cult leader or manipulative abuser in control of others. "Truuussst me" it seems to say. Even Cash's cover, which I love, has a sleasy energy. I can picture that one soundtracking a cult leader's rise to power on a commune in the middle of a desert where dissenters are never seen again. Or perhaps a 1920s gangster movie where a gang leader offers "protection" as a personal jesus; cut to images of them viciously murdering anyone on their bad side. That's a lot more the vibe. I've always loved the production of the original song, it's quite weird, raw, and powerful.
@@theskankingpigeon965 oh yeah, drug addiction is another good metaphor that comes to mind for sure, where the dealer or the drug/addiction itself acts as a "personal jesus."
The stomps feel less like a march, and more like a stadium. Like there is a crowd that all knows the rhythm. Like the cult is there watching a performance as a group all believing it is about them as an individual.
I agree, but may I also raise you less like a stadium and more like a megachurch auditorium. One of the ones where you can have 2000 people in the sanctuary and need screens to see the preacher in the pulpit like you're at a concert. Growing up in the south in the 90s and 00s, that very much is a scene I know all too well
@@aeronphillips8876 I was envisioning the era where 2k seat mega churches we getting considered small, but the larger structures hadnt been built yet and they were renting out concert stadiums. But yeah, you know exactly what Im talking about.
I happen to be replaying FFX at the moment, so you drawing Valefor for the word Faith made me very happy Also the timing of this coming out shortly after Captain Pikant covered just the rhythmic elements of Depeche Mode's 3 biggest hits is perfect.
Not sure when the quotes from Depeche Mode are taken from where they characterise this song as hopeful. But Genesis often now speaks of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway as a play on the Pilgrim's Progress. That's as may be. But it was always an album about heroin, regardless of how the album was structured. Bands sometimes like to reinterpret their works as they get older, to eschew the less-pleasant things they dabbled with in the past. My $.02.
It does make tons of sense as the promise of the good feels with black tar, and then the snare, hook and march to acquire more. Hmmmmm. That does seem right! As a younger person, I always thought it referred to an older man courting a teen.
@@rhoward295 Depeche Mode songs about similar "courtships" are not at all uncommon, and are often much more direct. If in doubt, it's a safe assumption that a Depeche Mode song is probably about relationships or sex.
The song (as with most of DM's output) was written by Gore, but Gahan was the one in the group with a heroin problem, so I think it's a bit less likely that the song was explicitly about heroin. Most of Gore's lyrics are about relationships and/or sex, often quite unambiguously so, so it makes the most sense to me that Personal Jesus follows squarely in that tradition rather than being a unique detour into writing about drugs. That said, heroin and romantic partnership are often nearly interchangeable as themes in a lot of rock music, so I don't think it's a crazy interpretation.
@@Reinshark I was told that it was about the experience of being a sponsor in a 12-step recovery program.... I can't remember where I heard that or who it was but they said that the song writer had started attending meetings when he wrote it. A sponsor will literally make themselves available 24/7/365 to take calls from their sponsee whenever the sponsee is craving and feeling tempted or in some kind of trouble and will give "the message" . It seemed to fit the lyrics so I took it as being true. Many, many years ago.
I've loved this song for a long time and I love your videos but I... I really didn't expect this take. To me, a queer person who grew up Catholic, it felt less like someone trying to take advantage then someone who's been taken advantage of trying to regain autonomy. I've long thought about the queer themes in the video, too. I love synth pop and I love industrial music so this was fun to watch.
So, funnily enough, both 12tones' and Johnny Cashs' interpretations can be valid here, the most evangelical song there is, is about scamming you into a cult
So much of this is down to performance/arrangement. I agree with the analysis of the original track here--it was always weirdly ominous. I always thought of this as a kind of indictment of big-money televangelists. (Genesis's "Jesus He Knows Me" is the same, but with Genesis' more wry humor on it). Things change a LOT when you get to Johnny Cash's stripped-down acoustic performance, though. The speaker THERE is not the slick televangelist/charlatan. Cash's vocals turn it into a kind of prayer. It's quite a shocking transformation.
90s (the single and the album it was later featured on were released in 1990) but yeah Maybe another dark mostly electronic band who had an album at the turn of the 90s produced by Flood, Nine Inch Nails?
Depeche Mode is that kind of band who has something for everyone like The Beatles. Though this song is not my typical style or genre i think its a perfect introduction to those who mainly listen to rock or some other heavy aggressive sounding music
this one was fascinating for me because it was the first one of your videos where i had a completely different interpretation of the song from you(the first version i heard was the Johnny Cash cover), and as a result was able to gain a new perspective on a song other than just a deepening of my own view of it. thank you!
this song is basically "cristina's world" but music. there is the potentiality of hope if you seek it out but the isolation and the unwellness of the overt details given to the audience gives it such a feeling of despair as well that it is easy to swing either way and imagine whatever you need it to be.
oh, I love the Mad Men logo for "marketing" - made me smile! There's quite a few references I don't get but the illustration at 9:43 of the march with a reference to PF's Another Brick In The Wall video is another genius move!
Such a brilliant band, Depeche Mode, grew p with their music and love them to bits. You picked a good one to tackle. I always took this song, Personal Jesus, as being not about religion but about someone exploitative in general putting themselves up as a savior figure with strong sexual undertones, specifically phone sex. This is a song about someone trying to manipulate you, the listener, into trusting them the way you WOULD a savior or religious figure, not literally about religious indoctrination being exploitative. Basically... it's about what an abusive lover would say to draw someone into their arms so they could proceed with said abuse, and it really fits the themes of the album, Violator, in general.
This video has some of my favorite drawings in it! Sleazy, sneering elephant; anticipation lips; and Step Back History, to boot!! Always love the way you choose to symbolize the different concepts 😊 Also, thank you for introducing me to this song; it fucking slaps and I'm definitely getting televangelist/cult leader vibes.
I genuinely thought it was about people calling each other and spreading gossip on the phone, he literally says “by the telephone, pick up the receiver, I’ll make you a believer - reach out and touch faith” meaning that we put faith in the acceptance of those we call on the phone to be there for us, to hear our confessions and help make us one with our personal saviors, those we lean on in times of woe when we need to call them up. Back in the day people had to use phones attached to the wall or even cordless phones that had a base but I remember how important it was to hang out on the phone for hours for validation and sympathy to talk about the latest gossip or dirt. Also this reminiscent of people consuming each other like the practice of people taking sacrament as the reference of Jesus. Made sense to me.
This was very well done again! 👏😀 I've definitely always felt this song's more dark atmosphere myself, making me feel slightly uncomfortable whenever I hear it, too. So while I do like Depêche Mode a lot, this is one of their songs I've never felt drawn towards 😅 Also, the band members stopping at a bordello in the promo video clip speaks for itself, I reckon. Also fitting in with that quick-breathing stuff. Which by the way had been inspired by Kate Bush doing a very similar thing in her song 'The Dreaming' 🙂 I think the brief slide guitar bits that enter in the 2nd verse didn't get a mention? The song also _ends_ rather unusual, with an optimistic-sounding acoustic guitar chord after the soft 🎵"Reach Out And Touch Faith"🎵 🙂
I thought it was about how if you ask two very different religious people about Jesus you get 2 vastly contrasting answers, like the typical "hippie" looking visual depiction of Jesus but at the same time Christian conservatives also approve emphasising different aspects of his personality. How it's a bit empty as a philosophy as anyone who claims to be christian gets thought of as being a christian however they live, unlike for example with daoism or socialism or many other approaches/philosophies that are much more effectively prescriptive about what it means to follow those practices.
I never felt this song to be comforting in anyway. There is a deep mistrust to be had when someone offers you happiness beyond imagination... Especially through a simple phone call.
RICHAAAARD TOUCHFACE! I love how the song feels like it's always bouncing. Jumping between the top and the bottom. Between the top of a hierarchy and the lower ends. Like a messenger. A dubious messenger. That agrees with its in-group. Also, like Mr. Brightside, it has moments of a very "stable" note progression of singing. Listening through Violator earlier this year really helped me appreciate the flow of it all. And with the contexts of Policy of Truth, Enjoy the Silence, Memphisto, and World in My Eyes, it feels extra controlling.
Yesssss you're analyzing this song. I've never been sure what to make of it. The guitar here always reminds me of a song that came out only a few months later, Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde.
I always (mis)heard the line as “reach out and touch me” which I guess still works. A yearning to touch, be touched, be in contact, proximity to a spiritual figure (whether that be the Pope, or a Beatle). Just realised from this video, it’s “faith”!
Nice analysis, thank you! I was very amused when I found out this song's message had somehow been mistaken for genuinely religious by some US evangelists and US Christians in general. It's beautifully ironic, especially since this album in general was their very late breakthrough in the US (considering they had been superstars in Europe for almost a decade back then), and this song in particular is still their biggest hit in the US. Cake's "Comfort Eagle" from their magnum opus of the same name is very much cut from the same cloth, although as far as I know the sarcasm on that one didn't fly over many people's heads. Great song as well.
I'm surprised there's no mention of telephones. The lyrics seem to be about calling someone on the phone, and "Reach out and touch faith" is surely a reference to the AT&T slogan "Reach out and touch someone" - although AT&T is American and Depeche Mode is British so that's a bit odd.
the 'meaning' that I 'grew up with' (2000s) was that it was about phone sex. and given 80s/90s (pre-internet), phone sex was probably quite a bit like a pervy confession booth for a number of people - a chance to connect an untalked part of one's mind with another
3:22 yeah I think the reason I also don't really hear it the way it was intended is because I think the first version I remember hearing of it is the Mindless Self Indulgence cover which _also_ paints it in more of an "appearances are deceiving, beware" light I feel
I've been singing "reach out and touch Dave!" for many years 😂 l saw someone in 1993 holding a banner with that legendary slogan at a Devotional Tour concert
Honestly, the fact that there are so many wildly varying interpretations of this song is just so incredibly fitting. It's your own *personal* Jesus after all, and it's up to each listener, on an individual level, to decide what that *really* means.
In the 70s and 80s, the phone company* in the US had ads that said "Reach out, reach out and touch someone" *at the time there was just the one "Bell System" before Bill Clinton broke it up, where it became many companies, eventually becoming just AT&T and Verizon.
heard this song when on holiday when a French student had become friends with lent me her copy of the Violator cassette album took me time to remember the album as had the tune going through my head so when got the CD took me back to that time so thank you to that lady for giving me this masterpiece in my life
One thing to keep in mind regarding the band's comments on the meaning of the song is that Britain still had some very strict, very serious anti-blasphemy laws and prosecutors willing to seek jail time for people who broke them. This may account for the disparity between the song itself and the statements about it.
this song is on my 'bob the builder' playlist - songs that build consistently throughout then just drop off at the end. it's also on my 'dad' playlist because its one of those songs my dad showed me when i was just starting to figure out my own music taste. for that reason i've never wanted to think about what it's about because i see it as a predator trying to sound comforting and safe. when i was younger i fell for it and took solace in the lyrics, but as i've grown older it just sounds like a guy with a really bad poker face grinning while saying 'you can't trust me'
I’d really like to see some trip hop classics analyzed some massive attack maybe portishead I think that could be really cool also lots of synth work, interesting production and beautiful vocals everywhere.
I was raised very conservative christian, but eventually left the church after finding out i was queer and feeling scared and alienated by the messaging and culture. After leaving tho, I felt like i had this hole in my heart where religion once was and I spent a lot of time trying to fill that with various unhealthy copes. so to me this song has one of two meanings. on one hand the "personal jesus" could represent an addiction to drugs or empty sex or whatever vice one could be chasing for fulfillment that ultimately takes more than it gives. on the other hand the "personal jesus" could be a genuine friend who introduces the pov character to a healthier more open view of of sex and love, that seems very scandalous to them, but also very enticing.
i don’t like the analysis that the outro is just “repeating and adding layers”. the riff dropping out and being replaced by the high echoing triplet figure as the drums switch to a four on the floor kick is one of the coolest moments in the song
Personally, my reading of the song has always been more about the ways we approach the divine through each other, and the multifaceted experience thereof. There's tenderness, forgiveness, sexuality, toxicity, and an infinite range of how we provide and receive the ministry of the human experience which builds up to something divine. Authorial intent isn't everything to me, but that's what I always heard in it, and I think that emphasis on communication between humans as the path to salvation is why Cash viewed it as such a solemn hymn- it really matches with his Christianity of compassion and justice in the human sphere. As always I love the discussions of the musical grammar, but I find your reading a little flat this time because the charlatan preacher/lover isn't even simply cynical. Sometimes time makes us unintentional charlatans. Sometimes we feel like pretenders to the faith of others only to find out we were worthy all along. Sometimes other people make charlatans out of us by placing their faith without our asking in a kind of parasocial disconnect. So yeah, the fraught nature of trust is a big part of the song, but it's much bigger than just the story of a televangelist.
The first version of this song I heard was actually an acoustic demo with just acoustic guitar and voice. I loved it and was so excited to see this new wrinkle to Depehce Mode that I was genuinely disappointed by the single and album versions, even though I not appreocaite them more. Bu tthat demo version will always be the definitive one for me, and it really showcases the blues roots of the song.
The false prophet angle of this one reminds me of Alex Harvey's excellent Faith Healer. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band did a lot of dramatic heavy rock. All dressed up and somewhere to go😉 Like glam rock, but on a different level. Just wanted to shine a light on an overlooked early seventies band. Excellent analysis, as always. I think of the guitar part as a nudge to rockabilly. Of course I watched it on Nebula. ✌✌
did you know Captain Pikant released a video on Depeche Mode today, including breaking down the beats of Personal Jesus... totally awesome, must watch. Coincidence??
I have learned to take authorial intent with a pinch of salt once I saw the Divinyl's take on "I Touch Myself". Even in the best case scenario, there's a gap between what a work is about and what an artist is "allowed" to say it's about, if you catch my meaning
I mean, as long as we're broaching synthpop, can we get one of the most prolific synthpop bands with a career spanning 40+ years, Pet Shop Boys? "It's a Sin" would be an interesting follow-up to Personal Jesus, continuing the religious theme, but there are so many great options to analyze, including West End Girls, Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money), or if you want to go much more current, "Loneliness".
The song ends on a very pretty dissonance. That in itself is a huge contradiction. They've ended the song using dissonance and leaving it unresolved except for in your imagination as your brain forces you to hear the final unison even though it never arrives. Pretty fitting for this song.
Would you ever do a video on The Naked and Famous? I'm specifically thinking of their This Machine EP, and even more specifically the 16 bar chord progression on Kill The Littleblackdots and Spies! Spies! Spies! There's something interesting about it but I don't have the background to clock what it is
The way the song builds up...if you view it as an allegory about how Televangelism exploded on the scene, got full of noise, reverbing on itself, over echoing on itself until its an endless echo chamber...and then cuts back to basics...is that a point that the empty, exploitative side will burn down...and then only the real actual voice of people trying to help will come through? Or was everyone just pulling people's leg, because screw the exploitation, you need to get the real context? Huh...this song is far more complex than I thought, heard it all the time growing up and never really thought about it. Awesome job on the breakdown...this is a LOT.
This is video #2 of me asking you to please cover Burn the Witch by Queens of the Stone Age. lol How can that song possibly be in 4/4 and also feel so... odd to play on drums? The best description I have for it is... y'know how sometimes you play 7/8 as just 8/8, but missing a beat? That song feels like playing 4/4 by playing 5/4 and missing a beat. lmfao (I could also just have bad rhythm lol)
I think you need to get into the second sound set/mix. Basically the Personal Jesus “Pump Mix”. If you listen to the Violator song, then you know the last bit of the song that uses that sound set. All of that sound set is VERY dark
Hope and Comfort are available everywhere, though not required is that Source be a benevolent one. Many of our vices, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sugary foods... are absolutely bad, but they levee Comfort. Personal Jesus (to me) is exactly this: I'll offer you Cold Comfort and you'll glady accept it (and more) but in the end you are absolutely no better off than you were at the start. It is a contradicting message and that builds the interest. The fact that Religion is usually so opposite to Mass Industry and Progess and also featured so predominantly only serve to solidify this interpretation in my mind. It is an extremely complex idea, but presented in a succinct manner, giving the listeners their own "Personal Jesus" just to solidify the whole symbolic images this song is chock full of.
10:19 in at least one of these choruses(?) can hear the “oHHHNNN” in “telephone” if you listen carefully, trying to cut beyond the reverb. It’s subtle, but it is there. It’s an A-flat
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Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) The personal-ad story in the beginning is attested in enough places that I believe it to be true, but I couldn't find an actual copy of what the ad looked like, and some accounts said it read "Your Own Personal Jesus" while others claim it just said "Personal Jesus". Also some early copies may not have included a phone number. It's hard to piece together exactly what happened which is why I kept the description a little vague, but I'm confident in the details I chose to include.
2) The quotes are all truncated, but I tried to do that in a way that preserved their meaning and tone as best I could. Especially for the Gahan's, though, I'm not entirely sure how sincere he was being: I don't have any reason to believe he was deliberately misleading or sarcastic, but it's the sort of line whose meaning can change a lot based on inflection. It was only preserved in a written interview, though, so that tone is lost and I have no idea how accurate Thomas Frank's recreation was, beyond that it's the correct words. I've also found other interviews from later on where, when asked about the song, he goes back to the Priscilla Presley story. So again, please don't take that section as implying the band viewed it as a straightforwardly positive message. They just saw a level of hope and optimism in it.
3) Also, related to the quotes, I want to clarify that, while I had Andrew from Religion For Breakfast read one because we thought it'd be a fun cameo crossover in the context of the song, he didn't, like, review the script or anything, so his presence should not be read as a cosign of anything I say about religion. If I'm wrong, or even just lacking nuance, that's entirely my fault and I don't want to get him in trouble. Hopefully I'm not wrong so it doesn't matter, but just in case.
4) Depeche Mode does have a couple earlier songs that _include_ guitar, but this is the first where it's the main driving figure.
5) This song actually has six official mixes, but I stuck with talking about the single version 'cause I think it's the most recognizable.
6) Another cool thing about that strobing synth under the riff is that each pulse starts out panned to the left and then moves to the middle as the higher tone comes in, giving it this moving, pulsating sound that amplifies the sense of danger.
7) To be clear, the historical accuracy of blues musicians actually selling their souls to the devil is, of course, nonexistent. The thing that's complicated is the relationship between modern cultural conceptions and historically contemporaneous narratives. What I was mostly trying to say is that the blues, as a musical tradition, has no historical connection to satanism or devil worship, even though it is accurate to say that it's become a go-to stylistic palette for music about the devil.
Excellent thoughts as always
Maybe it was too obvious to be mentioned, but "reach out and touch someone" was AT&Ts slogan through the 80s. The constant focus on calling the "Jesus" on the telephone in the song really is a strike against your cult leader interpretation, IMO.
It's about calling someone, which fits the positive interpretation of someone to lean on, or the more exploitative one of a manipulative partner. But not really anything about actual religion or cults.
It has got to be the singers' version of the English accent that so thoroughly mangles what I am hearing. This video is the first time I learned the lyric is "touch faith". Even knowing this, I still hear "touch me." "Hear Your Prayers" sounds like "be your friend". "Telephone" sounds like "tele fen", ???. A lot of the words have been unintelligible to me and are still unintelligible even now after having read the lyrics.
Anyway.... The man who was the resident advisor for my last year in college (graduating in December puts a lot of people back in the dorms) was told growing up that he should "carry on conversations with Jesus, in his head" just as he would with "a friend" in irl. As a twenty year old, he was still doing that. He asserted he was having a conversation with an actual Jesus when he denied my point that he was making up both sides of the conversation (now-a-days I would tell him his imagined conversation was pure fan-fiction). The Jesus he had concocted was of course his personal Jesus.
Did this song at karaoke once. Even as a baritone it's actually harder to sing that low consistently with that kind of character. Damn good vocal part.
I find this era of Daves voice easier to replicate. Since then, his voice has really evolved to the point where I can't reach.
Growing up in the 80s, seeing all the televangelists on TV here in the States, this song always struck me as being about predatory religious figures. They were always calling upon viewers to pick up the phone and give them credit card numbers to help pay so they could "continue spreading the word," all while buying luxury homes, jets, and jewelry. It was sickening, and this song just seemed the perfect encapsulation of that moment in time. I'm surprised to hear members of the band claim it was supposed to be inspiring.
This is exactly how I've always intemperated this song
I think it mostly depends on which era and country you were born in. I was born into the era when modern pop songs were introduced and found depeche mode through my parents. For me it always felt a more hopeful song since i wasn't aware of predatory priests when i learned of the song
@@VTimmoni - Same topic as Genesis' 'Jesus He Knows Me' a few years later, just way darker.
What was the quote from Queensryche's The Mission? "I want you to reach deep into your hearts, and your pocketbooks, and take His hand."
ICP's song "Hellalujah"
Alan Wilder is a musical genius. That’s a Yamaha SPX 90 on the vocals before “reach out and touch faith”
Yes he is!
What about the songwriting? Melody and chords and the riffs
Glad to see the man getting some respect in the thread. I'm glad he's able to relax these days, but man do I miss his output.
I would so love for him to a final comeback with DM for just the closure. Even though I want DM to go on forever.
“Reach out and touch faith” is also a play on the old AT&T jingle, “Reach Out and Touch Someone,” from the 70’s and 80’s, tying in to the telephone theme.
"reach out and touch Dave!"
Oh, *hell yeah,* dude! I'm so happy to see you analyzing a Depeche Mode song. I feel like Personal Jesus is about someone who's drowning in a horrible situation being offered that hand out of the water by someone they shouldn't trust. The way the song has these walls of sound that build, then ebb out again into starker sections, really reinforces that feeling for me.
Last December, I was lucky enough to actually see Depeche Mode in concert, and they played Personal Jesus. The way the lights crashed over everyone really felt like that wave, and everyone shouted the chorus and reached out to the light. It was really fascinating; it felt like a reflection of the power that manipulative leaders can wield, just as I and many others feel the song is about.
The Mahdi will lead us to paradise!
What I also loved about Depeche Mode is that their use of right/left modulation when listening while wearing headsets
The "feeling alone" lyric sounds like TV ads for phone sex services, common at the time. It's a song about a dark destructive seduction.
When I was 13 ish I was feeling very lonely, couldn't really make friends. When I found this song on a new mp3 player I bought and listened to it, it didn't sound to me like someone was claiming to be "my own personal Jesus", it sounded like someone telling me that it'll be okay, and that I'd find a friend someday. Someone who listens, someone who cares. Now, it was the Johnny Cash version, I actually have never heard the original. Let's continue the episode now lol
You know, I really didn't know a lot of English at 13, because listening back to it now? OOF and YIKES indeed!
You got the direction Cash was going in. Now you get the direction Manson took it in.
@@vampdan It's cool how this one song can both be genuine, and sarcastic. I'd love to hear Ghost cover it, and equally love to hear some more religious band like POD cover it.
Violator was the first album I owned, my mom gave me the cassette for Christmas the year it came out and I was 8 years old. A few years later in 1998 I took my mom to see Depeche Mode in concert and thankfully I still have the ticket stub! They were my favorite band for a very long time and this song is one of my favorites. Thanks for covering it🙏
Coincidentally, Captain Pikant yesterday released a video covering how to sequence the percussion for 3 Depeche Mode songs, including Personal Jesus. It was so accurate ContentID tagged 2 of the songs.
And I was very surprised how complex the Personal Jesus beat is on that video.
Was going to comment the very same thing.
Indeed!
Definitely need to check out enjoy the silence as well. Absolute perfection on all levels, fantastic production, lush chord progressions. the vocal line is written in the relative major which helps give the song a balance of light and darkness.
A great album, that.
My man, you are SO artistically intelligent, its beyond impressive. Never stop what youre doing.
I love that (intentionally or otherwise) the cult leader vibe persists in the covers. The original is a slick, smooth-talking con man, as is the Marilyn Manson cover, the Johnny Cash cover is a backwoods preacher who might be a true believer, and the MSI cover is a cult of mania and divine(?) insanity.
I’m so happy you did a video for this song, it’s maybe my favorite song of all time!
A six hour customer service shift with no break in the middle of a hurricane, and I come home to a video on my favorite band of all time. God bless you 12tone. You're my personal Jesus todag
I always heard the song as an ode to self-determination and self-sufficiency. I always thought the narrator of the song was oneself. Who else could possibly be my own personal _Jesus?_ We're all just mortals.
Of course, I'm also not a believer of any faith, nothing bigger than oneself is required for my perspective of the song, which by Gahan's interpretation makes the faith unnecessary. I see the "faith" in "reach out and touch faith" as strictly metaphorical. Believe in yourself.
Maybe there's a cultural influence in interpretation too? I've no idea whether 12Tone is religious or not, but that's not the point: from the sound of it he's North American. As a Brit I'm slightly taken aback at the idea of trying to read a religious interpretation into it: whether that's a positive or negative interpretation or even if it's just one of a few possible interpretations. I think I just naturally assume a default baseline that any religious reference is obviously metaphorical, and you have to go out of your way to try and read an actual religious context into it. But religion, whether you believe in it or not, is a much more pervasive part of the American public realm than it is here. Maybe it's more natural in that environment to assume that religious references could actually refer to something religious?
@@zak3744 I'm more interested in the evangelical/devilish split in perception than the religious/secular split, personally. It's far too tempting to want to ascribe secular thought to a work of art. It's also the debate I'm not personally invested in, making it easier to observe. Johnny Cash's interpretation of the song is unsurprising, and between his and 12tone's, I'm solidly in the Johnny Cash camp. What 12tone describes as a sleazy riff sounds more to me like the salt of the earth. It sounds blue-collar, like the motif of a man who just spent ten hours working on other people's cars or something.
My instinct is to say the song sounds distinctly worldly (as opposed to divine,) and that the breathing is meant to be one's own. Your aspiration, your exertion. I've been a fan of this song, this version, since I was a child, so I suppose that's why it never sounded sexual to me. The idea never even crossed my mind until this video. I can also easily imagine having been introduced to this song by the Marilyn Manson version affecting your perception of the original.
All that said, I totally see where 12tone is coming from. It is a highly thematically dynamic song!
@@SaltpeterTaffy Oh yeah, I only commented because the difference seemed quite striking and quite interesting from my perspective.
(And my personal impression is from the original: the Cash and Manson covers are both bundled into the "modern music" category in my brain, which is basically everything after the end of Britpop, which also just happened to be when I was coming of age. 😄)
What I love about songs like this is how open to interpretation the lyrics actually are. It can mean so many different things to so many different people, none of them wrong (it is artistic interpretation after all). That said, I agree it has a dark and sinister undertone, something like a cult leader or manipulative abuser in control of others. "Truuussst me" it seems to say. Even Cash's cover, which I love, has a sleasy energy. I can picture that one soundtracking a cult leader's rise to power on a commune in the middle of a desert where dissenters are never seen again. Or perhaps a 1920s gangster movie where a gang leader offers "protection" as a personal jesus; cut to images of them viciously murdering anyone on their bad side. That's a lot more the vibe.
I've always loved the production of the original song, it's quite weird, raw, and powerful.
Agree with the sinister cult leader energy. Or potentially drug addiction. For me the vibe reflects worshipping something or someone that is harmful.
@@theskankingpigeon965 oh yeah, drug addiction is another good metaphor that comes to mind for sure, where the dealer or the drug/addiction itself acts as a "personal jesus."
Someone who is dangerous and bad for you, drawing you in with love and protection as a personal savior. It's an exceedingly dark song.
The stomps feel less like a march, and more like a stadium. Like there is a crowd that all knows the rhythm. Like the cult is there watching a performance as a group all believing it is about them as an individual.
I agree, but may I also raise you less like a stadium and more like a megachurch auditorium. One of the ones where you can have 2000 people in the sanctuary and need screens to see the preacher in the pulpit like you're at a concert. Growing up in the south in the 90s and 00s, that very much is a scene I know all too well
@@aeronphillips8876 I was envisioning the era where 2k seat mega churches we getting considered small, but the larger structures hadnt been built yet and they were renting out concert stadiums.
But yeah, you know exactly what Im talking about.
"bashing on flight cases" with foot stomps is actually how that sound was produced, according to interviews.
I happen to be replaying FFX at the moment, so you drawing Valefor for the word Faith made me very happy
Also the timing of this coming out shortly after Captain Pikant covered just the rhythmic elements of Depeche Mode's 3 biggest hits is perfect.
Not sure when the quotes from Depeche Mode are taken from where they characterise this song as hopeful. But Genesis often now speaks of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway as a play on the Pilgrim's Progress. That's as may be. But it was always an album about heroin, regardless of how the album was structured. Bands sometimes like to reinterpret their works as they get older, to eschew the less-pleasant things they dabbled with in the past. My $.02.
It does make tons of sense as the promise of the good feels with black tar, and then the snare, hook and march to acquire more. Hmmmmm. That does seem right! As a younger person, I always thought it referred to an older man courting a teen.
@@rhoward295 me too, and the comment about Priscilla Presley seemed to confirm that for me tbh
@@rhoward295 Depeche Mode songs about similar "courtships" are not at all uncommon, and are often much more direct. If in doubt, it's a safe assumption that a Depeche Mode song is probably about relationships or sex.
The song (as with most of DM's output) was written by Gore, but Gahan was the one in the group with a heroin problem, so I think it's a bit less likely that the song was explicitly about heroin. Most of Gore's lyrics are about relationships and/or sex, often quite unambiguously so, so it makes the most sense to me that Personal Jesus follows squarely in that tradition rather than being a unique detour into writing about drugs. That said, heroin and romantic partnership are often nearly interchangeable as themes in a lot of rock music, so I don't think it's a crazy interpretation.
@@Reinshark I was told that it was about the experience of being a sponsor in a 12-step recovery program.... I can't remember where I heard that or who it was but they said that the song writer had started attending meetings when he wrote it. A sponsor will literally make themselves available 24/7/365 to take calls from their sponsee whenever the sponsee is craving and feeling tempted or in some kind of trouble and will give "the message" . It seemed to fit the lyrics so I took it as being true. Many, many years ago.
"Harmony via bassline" would be a killer synthpop album title.
I've loved this song for a long time and I love your videos but I... I really didn't expect this take. To me, a queer person who grew up Catholic, it felt less like someone trying to take advantage then someone who's been taken advantage of trying to regain autonomy. I've long thought about the queer themes in the video, too. I love synth pop and I love industrial music so this was fun to watch.
This song made me wary of televangelists. Literal interpretation, I know, but to be fair, I was 4 when this song released.
That's the thing, a personal relationship with God is part of the born-again evangelical movement's rhetoric.
So, funnily enough, both 12tones' and Johnny Cashs' interpretations can be valid here, the most evangelical song there is, is about scamming you into a cult
Also, the drums? Are simply the band kicking guitar cases and recording the result.
jiminy bro, you outdid yourself on this one. great work.
So much of this is down to performance/arrangement. I agree with the analysis of the original track here--it was always weirdly ominous. I always thought of this as a kind of indictment of big-money televangelists. (Genesis's "Jesus He Knows Me" is the same, but with Genesis' more wry humor on it).
Things change a LOT when you get to Johnny Cash's stripped-down acoustic performance, though. The speaker THERE is not the slick televangelist/charlatan. Cash's vocals turn it into a kind of prayer. It's quite a shocking transformation.
Please do more 80s electronic bangers 🤘🏻
I must admit I'd like to hear some analysis of pre-Erasure Vince Clarke. There's not this complexity, but for me, he always hit.
90s (the single and the album it was later featured on were released in 1990) but yeah
Maybe another dark mostly electronic band who had an album at the turn of the 90s produced by Flood, Nine Inch Nails?
@@iLikeTheUDK The single was August 89.
Depeche Mode is that kind of band who has something for everyone like The Beatles. Though this song is not my typical style or genre i think its a perfect introduction to those who mainly listen to rock or some other heavy aggressive sounding music
Good episode, I liked how this one was quite easy to follow for someone with less of a music theory background (me).
this one was fascinating for me because it was the first one of your videos where i had a completely different interpretation of the song from you(the first version i heard was the Johnny Cash cover), and as a result was able to gain a new perspective on a song other than just a deepening of my own view of it. thank you!
You and Captain Pikant doing the same song on the same day is a blessing
New sub. "Its all Good" is my favorite song by Depeche but you quuckly changed my mind!
Violator is an incredible album. If you like “it’s no good” (also one of my favorites) you will probably really like most of the Violator songs.
I've never heard the Marilyn Manson version and I'm pretty thankful for that
Always a great presentation...
this song is basically "cristina's world" but music. there is the potentiality of hope if you seek it out but the isolation and the unwellness of the overt details given to the audience gives it such a feeling of despair as well that it is easy to swing either way and imagine whatever you need it to be.
oh, I love the Mad Men logo for "marketing" - made me smile!
There's quite a few references I don't get but the illustration at 9:43 of the march with a reference to PF's Another Brick In The Wall video is another genius move!
Such a brilliant band, Depeche Mode, grew p with their music and love them to bits. You picked a good one to tackle.
I always took this song, Personal Jesus, as being not about religion but about someone exploitative in general putting themselves up as a savior figure with strong sexual undertones, specifically phone sex. This is a song about someone trying to manipulate you, the listener, into trusting them the way you WOULD a savior or religious figure, not literally about religious indoctrination being exploitative. Basically... it's about what an abusive lover would say to draw someone into their arms so they could proceed with said abuse, and it really fits the themes of the album, Violator, in general.
This video has some of my favorite drawings in it! Sleazy, sneering elephant; anticipation lips; and Step Back History, to boot!! Always love the way you choose to symbolize the different concepts 😊 Also, thank you for introducing me to this song; it fucking slaps and I'm definitely getting televangelist/cult leader vibes.
I genuinely thought it was about people calling each other and spreading gossip on the phone, he literally says “by the telephone, pick up the receiver, I’ll make you a believer - reach out and touch faith” meaning that we put faith in the acceptance of those we call on the phone to be there for us, to hear our confessions and help make us one with our personal saviors, those we lean on in times of woe when we need to call them up. Back in the day people had to use phones attached to the wall or even cordless phones that had a base but I remember how important it was to hang out on the phone for hours for validation and sympathy to talk about the latest gossip or dirt. Also this reminiscent of people consuming each other like the practice of people taking sacrament as the reference of Jesus. Made sense to me.
If you want more information Captain Pikant has a great video out detailing how the drum beat was made. It’s surprisingly complex.
This was very well done again!
👏😀
I've definitely always felt this song's more dark atmosphere myself, making me feel slightly uncomfortable whenever I hear it, too. So while I do like Depêche Mode a lot, this is one of their songs I've never felt drawn towards 😅
Also, the band members stopping at a bordello in the promo video clip speaks for itself, I reckon. Also fitting in with that quick-breathing stuff. Which by the way had been inspired by Kate Bush doing a very similar thing in her song 'The Dreaming' 🙂
I think the brief slide guitar bits that enter in the 2nd verse didn't get a mention? The song also _ends_ rather unusual, with an optimistic-sounding acoustic guitar chord after the soft 🎵"Reach Out And Touch Faith"🎵
🙂
I thought it was about how if you ask two very different religious people about Jesus you get 2 vastly contrasting answers, like the typical "hippie" looking visual depiction of Jesus but at the same time Christian conservatives also approve emphasising different aspects of his personality. How it's a bit empty as a philosophy as anyone who claims to be christian gets thought of as being a christian however they live, unlike for example with daoism or socialism or many other approaches/philosophies that are much more effectively prescriptive about what it means to follow those practices.
I never felt this song to be comforting in anyway. There is a deep mistrust to be had when someone offers you happiness beyond imagination... Especially through a simple phone call.
Did you just apply a Kingdom of Loathing *Knob Goblin* for "Sleazy?" Fuck yeah
Just encountered 12tone. Instant fan!
This is my second time watching this. Great video!
The references toi Gravity Falls were delightful, but more interestingly, we have a NEW elephant @7:13 . Clever.
And that's just the single version! The album version has a nice stompy outro, I think you also would've had fun to tear apart^^
Probably going to spend the rest of the day listening to DM...
RICHAAAARD TOUCHFACE!
I love how the song feels like it's always bouncing. Jumping between the top and the bottom. Between the top of a hierarchy and the lower ends. Like a messenger. A dubious messenger. That agrees with its in-group.
Also, like Mr. Brightside, it has moments of a very "stable" note progression of singing.
Listening through Violator earlier this year really helped me appreciate the flow of it all. And with the contexts of Policy of Truth, Enjoy the Silence, Memphisto, and World in My Eyes, it feels extra controlling.
Yesssss you're analyzing this song. I've never been sure what to make of it.
The guitar here always reminds me of a song that came out only a few months later, Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde.
I always (mis)heard the line as “reach out and touch me” which I guess still works. A yearning to touch, be touched, be in contact, proximity to a spiritual figure (whether that be the Pope, or a Beatle). Just realised from this video, it’s “faith”!
3:01 12tone confirmed on the square and the level
12Tone is a Ghestie confirmed
kinda hoped you were gonna continue with the album version and the electro industrial outro, it's pretty cool too
Nice analysis, thank you!
I was very amused when I found out this song's message had somehow been mistaken for genuinely religious by some US evangelists and US Christians in general. It's beautifully ironic, especially since this album in general was their very late breakthrough in the US (considering they had been superstars in Europe for almost a decade back then), and this song in particular is still their biggest hit in the US.
Cake's "Comfort Eagle" from their magnum opus of the same name is very much cut from the same cloth, although as far as I know the sarcasm on that one didn't fly over many people's heads. Great song as well.
OMG! Dude! Off The Rails Lesson.
Thank You.
Terrific analysis of a brilliant song -- thanks! (And more DM, please.)
The Depeche Mode is a major scale with a flat 3rd and 7th, right?
L M F A O
I'm surprised there's no mention of telephones. The lyrics seem to be about calling someone on the phone, and "Reach out and touch faith" is surely a reference to the AT&T slogan "Reach out and touch someone" - although AT&T is American and Depeche Mode is British so that's a bit odd.
the 'meaning' that I 'grew up with' (2000s) was that it was about phone sex. and given 80s/90s (pre-internet), phone sex was probably quite a bit like a pervy confession booth for a number of people - a chance to connect an untalked part of one's mind with another
also, 'Confide in Me' by Kylie seems like a twin or sister to 'Personal Jesus'
Touring America they would have been exposed/familiar with the tag line.
Also, AT&T was international, hence their focus on long-distance calling.
Depeche Mode use a lot of American sayings and influence in their lyrics. I agree that they worked in that tagline to the song’s intro.
3:22 yeah I think the reason I also don't really hear it the way it was intended is because I think the first version I remember hearing of it is the Mindless Self Indulgence cover which _also_ paints it in more of an "appearances are deceiving, beware" light I feel
I've been singing "reach out and touch Dave!" for many years 😂 l saw someone in 1993 holding a banner with that legendary slogan at a Devotional Tour concert
Religion for Breakfast voice in a quote? Nice
Brilliant analysis 👏
Honestly, the fact that there are so many wildly varying interpretations of this song is just so incredibly fitting. It's your own *personal* Jesus after all, and it's up to each listener, on an individual level, to decide what that *really* means.
In the 70s and 80s, the phone company* in the US had ads that said "Reach out, reach out and touch someone"
*at the time there was just the one "Bell System" before Bill Clinton broke it up, where it became many companies, eventually becoming just AT&T and Verizon.
Top ways to mishear the lyrics:
Reach out and touch space
Reach out and touch snakes
I used to think it was "reach out and touch face"
I used to think it was "Rich, out of touch phase"
heard this song when on holiday when a French student had become friends with lent me her copy of the Violator cassette album took me time to remember the album as had the tune going through my head so when got the CD took me back to that time so thank you to that lady for giving me this masterpiece in my life
You made my brain do so many things just now.
Thank you. 🙏💗🙏
One thing to keep in mind regarding the band's comments on the meaning of the song is that Britain still had some very strict, very serious anti-blasphemy laws and prosecutors willing to seek jail time for people who broke them. This may account for the disparity between the song itself and the statements about it.
this song is on my 'bob the builder' playlist - songs that build consistently throughout then just drop off at the end. it's also on my 'dad' playlist because its one of those songs my dad showed me when i was just starting to figure out my own music taste. for that reason i've never wanted to think about what it's about because i see it as a predator trying to sound comforting and safe. when i was younger i fell for it and took solace in the lyrics, but as i've grown older it just sounds like a guy with a really bad poker face grinning while saying 'you can't trust me'
I’d really like to see some trip hop classics analyzed some massive attack maybe portishead I think that could be really cool also lots of synth work, interesting production and beautiful vocals everywhere.
I was raised very conservative christian, but eventually left the church after finding out i was queer and feeling scared and alienated by the messaging and culture. After leaving tho, I felt like i had this hole in my heart where religion once was and I spent a lot of time trying to fill that with various unhealthy copes.
so to me this song has one of two meanings. on one hand the "personal jesus" could represent an addiction to drugs or empty sex or whatever vice one could be chasing for fulfillment that ultimately takes more than it gives. on the other hand the "personal jesus" could be a genuine friend who introduces the pov character to a healthier more open view of of sex and love, that seems very scandalous to them, but also very enticing.
i don’t like the analysis that the outro is just “repeating and adding layers”. the riff dropping out and being replaced by the high echoing triplet figure as the drums switch to a four on the floor kick is one of the coolest moments in the song
Personally, my reading of the song has always been more about the ways we approach the divine through each other, and the multifaceted experience thereof. There's tenderness, forgiveness, sexuality, toxicity, and an infinite range of how we provide and receive the ministry of the human experience which builds up to something divine.
Authorial intent isn't everything to me, but that's what I always heard in it, and I think that emphasis on communication between humans as the path to salvation is why Cash viewed it as such a solemn hymn- it really matches with his Christianity of compassion and justice in the human sphere.
As always I love the discussions of the musical grammar, but I find your reading a little flat this time because the charlatan preacher/lover isn't even simply cynical. Sometimes time makes us unintentional charlatans. Sometimes we feel like pretenders to the faith of others only to find out we were worthy all along. Sometimes other people make charlatans out of us by placing their faith without our asking in a kind of parasocial disconnect. So yeah, the fraught nature of trust is a big part of the song, but it's much bigger than just the story of a televangelist.
The first version of this song I heard was actually an acoustic demo with just acoustic guitar and voice. I loved it and was so excited to see this new wrinkle to Depehce Mode that I was genuinely disappointed by the single and album versions, even though I not appreocaite them more. Bu tthat demo version will always be the definitive one for me, and it really showcases the blues roots of the song.
2:05 Wait is that Father Cornello from Fullmetal Alchemist as the depiction of a charlatan? If so that's amazing!
Could you do an analysis of Kashmir by Led Zeppelin?
The false prophet angle of this one
reminds me of Alex Harvey's excellent Faith Healer.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
did a lot of dramatic heavy rock.
All dressed up and somewhere to go😉
Like glam rock, but on a different level.
Just wanted to shine a light
on an overlooked early seventies band.
Excellent analysis, as always.
I think of the guitar part as a nudge to rockabilly.
Of course I watched it on Nebula.
✌✌
did you know Captain Pikant released a video on Depeche Mode today, including breaking down the beats of Personal Jesus... totally awesome, must watch. Coincidence??
I love how they call it "one of the sleaziest riffs I've ever heard", it's one of my most favourite riffs in music
_Violator_ is still one of the best albums of its era. It sounds like it could've been recorded last year, not 35 years ago.
I'm not sure that I've ever actually heard this song, so this was a very cool discovery for me!
Cool, two DM analyses in less than 24h on yt (the other is a beat pattern analysis of Personal Jesus by Captain Pikant)
Makes reference to notes being out of Dave's range, draws Lucy with the football 😂
I have learned to take authorial intent with a pinch of salt once I saw the Divinyl's take on "I Touch Myself". Even in the best case scenario, there's a gap between what a work is about and what an artist is "allowed" to say it's about, if you catch my meaning
2:21 Valefor my beloved
Was going to say, FFX! 12tone has good taste
I mean, as long as we're broaching synthpop, can we get one of the most prolific synthpop bands with a career spanning 40+ years, Pet Shop Boys? "It's a Sin" would be an interesting follow-up to Personal Jesus, continuing the religious theme, but there are so many great options to analyze, including West End Girls, Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money), or if you want to go much more current, "Loneliness".
The song ends on a very pretty dissonance. That in itself is a huge contradiction. They've ended the song using dissonance and leaving it unresolved except for in your imagination as your brain forces you to hear the final unison even though it never arrives. Pretty fitting for this song.
Is it just me or are the stomps coming a bit before the beat when they return? Adds to the pressuring feeling.
Would you ever do a video on The Naked and Famous? I'm specifically thinking of their This Machine EP, and even more specifically the 16 bar chord progression on Kill The Littleblackdots and Spies! Spies! Spies! There's something interesting about it but I don't have the background to clock what it is
The way the song builds up...if you view it as an allegory about how Televangelism exploded on the scene, got full of noise, reverbing on itself, over echoing on itself until its an endless echo chamber...and then cuts back to basics...is that a point that the empty, exploitative side will burn down...and then only the real actual voice of people trying to help will come through? Or was everyone just pulling people's leg, because screw the exploitation, you need to get the real context? Huh...this song is far more complex than I thought, heard it all the time growing up and never really thought about it. Awesome job on the breakdown...this is a LOT.
The Birth of the banger
Thank you.
This is video #2 of me asking you to please cover Burn the Witch by Queens of the Stone Age. lol
How can that song possibly be in 4/4 and also feel so... odd to play on drums?
The best description I have for it is... y'know how sometimes you play 7/8 as just 8/8, but missing a beat?
That song feels like playing 4/4 by playing 5/4 and missing a beat. lmfao
(I could also just have bad rhythm lol)
good video
I remember getting excited for this to play on one of the radio stations in GTA San Andreas on ps2
I think you need to get into the second sound set/mix. Basically the Personal Jesus “Pump Mix”. If you listen to the Violator song, then you know the last bit of the song that uses that sound set. All of that sound set is VERY dark
Hope and Comfort are available everywhere, though not required is that Source be a benevolent one. Many of our vices, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sugary foods... are absolutely bad, but they levee Comfort. Personal Jesus (to me) is exactly this: I'll offer you Cold Comfort and you'll glady accept it (and more) but in the end you are absolutely no better off than you were at the start. It is a contradicting message and that builds the interest. The fact that Religion is usually so opposite to Mass Industry and Progess and also featured so predominantly only serve to solidify this interpretation in my mind. It is an extremely complex idea, but presented in a succinct manner, giving the listeners their own "Personal Jesus" just to solidify the whole symbolic images this song is chock full of.
One of my favorites
10:19 in at least one of these choruses(?) can hear the “oHHHNNN” in “telephone” if you listen carefully, trying to cut beyond the reverb. It’s subtle, but it is there. It’s an A-flat