The Pagan Agenda

Behold I give unto you a playlist two millennia in the making…

In this latest bout of the literary playlist challenge, Perc and I employ our mad skills towards an inevitable act of hubris: the mixtaping of the Holy Bible. Here you shall find no hymns, nor celestial choirs, but rather the artful repurposing of the popular towards some relevant theme therein writ. Perc has so graciously offered to mix the Old Testament leaving myself the sole arbiter of the New. With no lack of irony the Pagan evokes his Christ. My original intent was to make a playlist so devastatingly profound that it would make non-believers convert, but I soon reconciled the fact that this was not to be. The final product is a mixed bag of tones and musical styles which lean somewhat precariously towards the whimsical. Go figure. Despite the shifts, there is, I think, a coherent narrative running through the lyrics… Jesus came down, fought the injustice of the world, made an impact, died and was reborn. The apocalypse is captured in the final song, and everything past, present and future comes to a close.

The playlist is streamed here:

or as individual songs below.

1. Here’s Your Future – The Thermals

2. Indefinable – Essie Jain

(The Nativity)

3. The Body’s Only Rental – Katie Dill

(Sermon on the Mount)

4. Eraser (XXXchange mix) – Thom Yorke

(Temptation of Jesus by Satan)

5. 4 Minute Warning – Radiohead

(Agony in the Garden)

6. Boogie Street – Leonard Cohen

(Judas Kiss)

7. Love your Enemies – William Burroughs

8. Gotta Work – Amerie

(The Passions)

9. Singing to the Thieves – Lazarus

(Jesus Crucified with Two Thieves)

10. Heathen (The Rays) – David Bowie

(The Ascension)

11. Sisters of Mercy – Beth Orton

(The Spreading of the Word)

12. The Past is a Grotesque Animal – Of Montreal

(The Apocalypse)