Thursday, March 20, 2008

What rhymes with crucifixion?

Jurisdiction? Drug addiction? juice and friction?

Been trying to think of a few appropriate Easter songs for the radio show on Saturday and I'm coming up with very little. Is Easter the only major celebration that we don't have popular songs about? Obviously there's no shortage of Christmas songs and Hallowe'en and Valentine's Day are well covered. The Americans have lots of songs aobut July 4th and Thanksgiving (although it occurs to me now that we don't have anything for St. Patrick's Day) and while there aren't any songs about Mother's or Father's Day, there's plenty of songs about mums and dads to fill the gap..

And yet Easter has been left alone. After much searching all I've come up with Irving Berlin's Easter Parade, which is fine but not really what I'm looking for. Elvis Perkins has 2 lovely songs - Ash Wednesday & Good Friday on his album but they're more about death and sprituality than Easter Egg hunts and fluffy bunnies so they don't really count. To say nothing of the fact that, well, you can't exactly tap your feet to them..

That's the problem, isn't it? Easter hasn't really been hijacked by the consumer industry and wrapped up for a willing audience. Not the way Christmas or Valentine's Day has and so songwriters have shied away from singing about it. There's just no rock and roll fun in crucifixion and rebirth..

That doesn't help me much though. Still not to worry - we all have our crosses to bear, right? I'll think of something..

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suggest:

I am the Resurrection - Stone Roses

Egg Shaped Fred - Mansun

Always Look on The Bright Side of Life - Monty Python

Er... Jive Bunny?

Anonymous said...

The Rising

Anonymous said...

Marillion did one called 'Easter'. One of their first songs they after Fish 'Fish' Fish left. As you know, I don't actually listen to song lyrics, but I believe it to be about the Easter rising or something Irish. It's a right dreary affair come to think of it.