Spiritual Music (the gospel according to Mike)

marty1985

Wonderful blog by the wonderful Mike Scott of The Waterboys.

5th August 2010
FROM 'ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE' TO 'MY SWEET LORD'
Spiritual hit singles in the UK, 1967-71
by Mike Scott

I know it seems hard to believe, but there was a time in pop music when spirituality was sharply fashionable. The period ran roughly from the release and global TV broadcast of The Beatles' All You Need Is Love in June 1967 to the five weeks spent at number one by George Harrison's My Sweet Lord in early 1971. These two records effectively bookended an era where to spiritually enquire was a serious and crucial part of being a participant in pop and rock'n'roll music.
This was the era when the counter culture was established, when individuals explored eastern mysticism and western mysteries alike, when the holistic musical Hair broke records on Broadway, when the Beatles went to stay in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram – sparking international interest in meditation - and when the musical articulation of universal love became so all-pervading it even trickled down into even the most hack conveyor-belt areas of pop.
That many of the musicians of the time managed to make records with a potent spiritual charge shouldn't be surprising. Artists like The Beatles, Pete Townshend and Donovan were authentic seekers. And in the atmosphere their efforts wrought, ethnically spiritual records by gospel, Indian and African musicians managed to be hits too.
Those were powerful times; spiritually potent records like Oh Happy Day, Ain’t Got No/I Got Life and Instant Karma were played on national radio – which, in those pre-choice days the whole country listened to - every couple of hours. These were records that could change people, affecting not just our emotions but our consciousness. These and numerous other holistic singles seasoned the airwaves and, for a sweet season or two, sent a collection of radical ideas about compassion, unconditional love and the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life into the minds of a not-yet irredeemably cynical public. This was a wonderful thing.
There had been spiritual records on the charts before 1967 and would be again after 1971, of course. I've even made a few myself. But never did they hit in such numbers or with such a sense of being part of a prevailing mood or movement.
I mark All You Need Is Love as the start of the crucial period because it was at that moment that the interest in spirituality which had been building in the counter culture finally went mainstream - and because there were no real spiritual hits in the years immediately prior. The Beach Boys' God Only Knows came closest, a song not about spirituality but which, by virtue of its grace and perfection, touched spiritual heights, which is a very different thing. Cream's I Feel Free and The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations are essentially love songs. The Byrds' 8 Miles High and Mr Tambourine Man are about drug realisations.
I see My Sweet Lord as the end, because the spirit of the 60s, which had spilled over powerfully into 1970, the year the Woodstock movie was a worldwide hit, was on the wane from early 1971. In the first months after My Sweet Lord's tenancy at number one, a new breed of musical godlings colonised the British charts - Marc Bolan, Rod Stewart, Elton John & Slade, later Bowie & Roxy Music - and none of them carried the spiritual impulse. The wind had changed. A few authentic spiritual hits yet lingered in the early 70s’ charts – Cat Stevens’ Morning Has broken, The Who’s Let’s See Action, John Lennon’s Happy Xmas/War Is Over, but they were in lonely contrast to the prevailing mood of pop, and represented a last flickering of the spirit of the 60s.
Here's my list of records from that remarkable time, mid 1967 to early 1971, all British top 40 hits, nine of them number ones*, that qualify as authentic spiritual hits:
Spiritual hit singles in the UK, 1967-71
Songs in bold are those that sincerely, and with a discernible spiritual ‘charge’, transmit holistic principles, including:
1) spiritual knowledge
2) compassion
3) universal or unconditional love
4) the sacredness of life
5) the interconnectedness of all life
6) alignment with the sacred
7) a sense of spiritual ecstacy or rapture
8) authentic spiritual enquiry
Songs in plain font do one of the following:
a) express spiritual ideas but without specific potency or ‘charge’
b) express other ideas, often complementary to spirituality (ie optimism, wonder, protest), and were part of the overall mood of activism and consciousness-expansion.
July 1967 All You Need Is Love*
The Beatles 1, 3, 6, 7
July 1967 (If You’re Going To) San Francisco*
Scott Mackenzie 7
Aug 1967 Let’s Go To San Francisco
The Flowerpot Men (a)
Sept 1967 The Hole In My Shoe
Traffic (b)
Oct 1967 San Franciscan Night
The Animals (a)
Oct 1967 There Is A Mountain
Donovan 1, 5, 6, 8
Nov 1967 Love Loves To Love Love
Lulu (a)
Feb 1968 What A Wonderful World*
Louis Armstrong 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
June 1968 The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Donovan 7
Sept 1968 Hey Jude*
The Beatles 1, 2, 3, 5, 7
Sept 1968 The Weight
The Band 2
Oct 1968 With A Little Help From My Friends*
Joe Cocker 1, 2, 5
Nov 1968 Ain’t Got No / I Got Life
Nina Simone 1, 4, 6, 7
Dec 1968 Atlantis
Donovan (a)
Feb 1969 If I Can Dream
Elvis Presley 2, 8
May 1969 Aquarius / Let The Sun Shine In
5th Dimension 4, 5, 7
May 1969 Everyday People
Sly + Family Stone (a)
May 1969 Oh Happy Day
Edwin Hawkins Singers 6, 7
June 1969 Something In The Air
Thunderclap Newman (b)
June 1969 In The Ghetto
Elvis Presley 2, 5
June 1969 Sanctus
Troubadours Du Roi Bandouin 6, 7
July 1969 That’s The Way God Planned It
Billy Preston 1, 3, 4, 6, 7
July 1969 Give Peace A Chance
Plastic Ono Band (b)
July 1969 Babarajagal (Love Is Hot)
Donovan / Jeff Beck Group (a)
Aug 1969 Good Morning Starshine
Oliver 4
Aug 1969 Marrakesh Express
Crosby, Stills & Nash (b)
Sept 1969 Hare Krishna Mantra
Radha Krishna Temple 1, 6, 7
Oct 1969 He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
The Hollies 2, 3, 5
Oct 1969 Wonderful World, Beautiful People
Jimmy Cliff (a)
Nov 1969 Melting Pot
Blue Mink (a)
Dec 1969 With The Eyes Of A Child
Cliff Richard (a)
Dec 1969 Reflections Of My Life
Marmalade (b)
Jan 1970 Let’s Work Together
Canned Heat 5
Feb 1970 Instant Karma
Plastic Ono Band 1, 7
Feb 1970 Bridge Over Troubled Water*
Simon & Garfunkel 2, 3, 7
March 1970 Let It Be*
The Beatles 2, 3, 5
March 1970 Everybody Get Together
Dave Clark Five 3
March 1970 Spirit In The Sky
Norman Greenbaum (a)
April 1970 Govinda
Radha Krishna Temple 1, 6, 7
April 1970 The Seeker
The Who 8
May 1970 Everything Is Beautiful
Ray Stevens 1, 4
May 1970 Abraham, Martin And John
Marvin Gaye 2
May 1970 Question
The Moody Blues (a)
May 1970 What Is Truth
Johnny Cash 1, 5
July 1970 Reach Out And Touch
Diana Ross 2, 3
Aug 1970 Love Is Life
Hot Chocolate (a)
Sept 1970 Our World
Blue Mink (a)
Oct 1970 Woodstock*
Matthew’s Southern Comfort 6, 8
Oct 1970 Heaven Is Here
Julie Felix 1, 4, 6, 7
Dec 1970 Heaven Help Us All
Stevie Wonder 2, 5, 7
Dec 1970 Amazing Grace
Judy Collins 6, 7, 8
Jan 1971 My Sweet Lord*
George Harrison 6, 7, 8
Special mention: See Me Feel Me / Listening To You by The Who, one of the most spiritually-charged pieces of rock music ever, released as a UK single in Oct 1970, but inexplicably not a hit. Fulfils 1, 2, 6, 7 & 8.

marty1985

I strongly advise everyone here to take the time to listen to Mike Scott'srecent work. We all know him for Whole Of The Moon and Fisherman's Blues, but recent albums have a strong Christian content. Check out the Universal Hall album, it has beautiful songs like The Christ In You and the title track. Never a bum note. He's without doubt the real deal. And he's a smart guy too.

Splendour

One of my favourites from Mike and the boys taken from The Whole of the Moon.


What Do You Want Me To Do

I tried to do the things in my own way
I tried to do what people say
but I was going nowhere fast
And now I'm turning to you at last

What do you want me to do
What so you want me to do
What do you want me to do, Lord

I can see the lights of home
But I can't get there on my own
I can see the landing strip
But I need you to guide my ship

What do you want me to do
What so you want me to do
What do you want me to do, Lord

I've been a fool and I've been a clown
I've let the enemy turn me around
I've wasted love and I've wasted time
I've been proud and I've been blind
There's such a lot of things to change
A whole world to rearrange
And if you show me how
I'll begin right now

What do you want me to do
What so you want me to do
What do you want me to do, Lord

What do you want me to do, Lord
What do you want me to do, Lord
"Cause I'm listenin', I'm listenin'
Lord, I'm listenin', I'm listenin'

marty1985

Deuteronomy 33:22
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.


I'd like to share another one by Mike Scott, called Everlasting Arms.

Lord hold me
in your everlasting arms
Enfold me
in your everlasting arms
Let striving cease
that I may come to rest
In perfect peace
renewed and truly blessed

Lord bathe me
in your everlasting light
Lord raise me
in your everlasting light
Awake my mind
that I may understand
And come to find
the truth of who I am

Above the silvery bay
a bird rose on the breeze
Then swooped as if to say
you too may fly away
with ease

Lord lift me
in your everlasting love
Home swiftly
in your everlasting love
I'll go to where
a temple stands upon a hill
In silence there
I'll wait upon your will

Lord lift me
in your everlasting arms
in your everlasting arms