It could hardly be more rock n’roll – the frontman dies, and the group disbands with one member going off on a crazed visionary tangent. St. John, beloved disciple – the only one, according to the gospel, to stay awake in Gethsemane while Jesus swept blood – according to tradition ended his days on the Greek Island of Patmos, holed up in a cave writing what would become the New Testament’s White Album, the book of revelations.
In all its blood-soaked ambiguity, John the revelator’s testament has captured artists through the ages, with its symbolism shrugging on and off interpretations as epochs change. His famous beast has been seen as Nero, Napoleon, and – according to my mate Clinton, down the pub – Simon Cowell. It’s apocalyptic numerology and epic sweep seeled its success.
Let’s skip from early-Christian Greece to 1930’s America, and the bluesey recording of a traditional spiritual, John the Revelator, by Blind Willie Johnson. There’s something almost comical about the opening verse, with it’s ‘who’s that writing – john the revelator’ call and response culminating with ‘writing the book of the seven seals’, translating a venerable figure into one sitting casually in the corner, writing freaky shit. Almost, though, as nothing could be less comical than Blind Willie Johnson’s gravel-loaded, melodious but tortured vocals.
His voice is agony and ecstasy in equal measure – not surprisingly, for the man who sought solace in Jesus and the blues after apparently being blinded in his youth during a domestic incident between his Mother and Stepfather (she, it seems, threw some caustic soda at her violent partner during a fierce row, but caught her hapless son instead, blinding him). Vision, loss, and the seeing of things beyond the veil – these are all of revelations, so little wonder that of all the artists who have sung this spiritual (including Son Ra and Taj Mahal) Blind Willie Johnson seems to be the one to have made it his own (that his is the earliest widely-known recording helps).
There’s an urgency and certainty to the song, precisely because of that haunting call-and-response technique so favoured by teachers and preachers everywhere – throw out a question to which you have the answer, and all the world seems to be certain. The guitar, the voices, the tempo all make it mesmerising and fearful. Listen to it and, just for a moment, you may get a glimpse into what those rapturous headbangers worldwide feel when contemplating the supposedly imminent second coming.
Skip from the depression through to the terror-laden 2000’s and a slick electro packaging of the age-old theme. Depeche Mode’s John the Revelator is like a younger brother to Johnson’s blues – it shares some family traits, like the call and response, and some melody lines, but it’s got a voice of its own. If Johnson’s song was a soulful support, Dave Gahan’s is a nihilistic charge down on the revelator. Johnson’s blues is a submission, while Martin Gore’s lyrics are a denunciation: “Well who’s that shouting? John the Revelator! All he ever gives us is pain”.
httpv://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_veQRT7bus
httpv://it.youtube.com/watch?v=VaB1psXTjS4