Reach Out and Touch What?
Posted on October 30th, 2008 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
My friend Eric thinks the video/song below is proof that the end is near.
Hilary Duff - Reach Out - Official Music Video Premiere
Why? Because about 98% of the song is simply lifted from Depeche Mode’s classic, “Personal Jesus,” below.
The appropriation doesn’t bother me so much. But I do find it funny that Hillary Duff, in such a wonderfully, narcissistically modern way, changes the lyric “Reach out, touch faith,” to “reach out and touch me.” Which, in a way that’s so typical of a certain strain in tweener pop culture, completely drains the song of its meaning.
(The DM video, like a combination of an Almodovar film and a spaghetti western, is certainly more interesting.)
Of course, Personal Jesus has been covered before, and brilliantly, by Johnny Cash.
And, not entirely surprisingly, Marilyn Manson did a version.
I guess the moral of the story is that Jesus means different things to different people. To a young woman, it’s about her own sexual power. To Depeche Mode, it’s about personal choice—the faith you touch could be drugs, music, sex, Jesus himself, whatever. To Marilyn Manson, it’s about the subversion of faith; when “Jesus” can mean Satan, or Hitler, then really what is the meaning of faith? (And what is that woman doing on that horse?)
As for Johnny Cash, whose version is really quite beautiful, faith is what keeps you going at the twilight of a life.
2 Responses
10/31/2008 9:13 am
Rich, I share your appreciation for Johnny Cash’s version. He believed the Christian faith was more about a relationship with Jesus than about so-called religious attitudes. Worth pondering in today’s world. Also, worthwhile is reading, or re-reading, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. It’s refreshing to remember you don’t have to “check your brains at the door” to embrace the faith.
10/31/2008 11:30 am
Nice comment, Anon. Thanks for writing.