"Blessed Easter" is a 1987 musical single by
Holger Czukay
Holger Schüring (24 March 1938 – 5 September 2017), known professionally as Holger Czukay (), was a German musician best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described as "successfully bridg ngthe gap between pop and the avant-g ...
, from his album ''
Rome Remains Rome
''Rome Remains Rome'' is the fifth album by Holger Czukay, released in 1987 through Virgin Records. One single was released, '' Blessed Easter'', which samples Pope John Paul II's Easter message.
Track listing
Personnel
;Musicians
*Sheldon ...
'' (1987). The song is notable for sampling the voice of
Pope John Paul II.
Lyrics
The song features a
musical sample
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, Equalization (audio), ...
of
Pope John Paul II's sermon during the
Easter celebrations.
Parts of the speech are in
Latin,
English and
German. Czukay added a
lounge beat
[ and some odd effects.
Czukay happened to watch the broadcast on television and recorded it from his TV set. He mentioned the pope in the liner notes of his album ''Rome Remains Rome'' as ''Popestar Wojtyla and his swinging nuns''.]
Music video
The song was released with a music video which features archive footage of Pope John Paul II during public appearances. The video closes with trick footage of the pope kneeling down to pray while Czukay kneels in front of him and takes out the pope's wallet, after which he quietly walks away.
The song met with some controversy at the time.[
]
References
{{authority control
Easter songs
1987 songs
1987 singles
Songs about Pope John Paul II
Cultural depictions of Pope John Paul II
Religious controversies in music
Songs based on speech samples
Sampling controversies
Macaronic songs
Songs in German
English-language German songs
Songs in Latin