The Stories Behind the Songs on Single #6
Thu., Apr. 14. 2022 4:10pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our sixth single of 2022:
GALILEE (THE LAND OF THE RISEN MAN)
I got the idea for this parody in late December 2021 while driving to see my in-laws. I often work on lyrics during long car trips, but at the time I was just listening to The Monkees for pure enjoyment. Their last big single, "Valleri" (a #3 hit in 1968), came on, and the "Galilee" idea popped into my head. I wasn't looking for another Monkees song to do, since we'd just done a spoof of "Daydream Believer" in March, and it hadn't appeared on a CD yet.
Then I remembered how our keyboardist, Rich Mannion, had recently suggested we spoof Steve Winwood's similarly titled but totally different song "Valerie" (a #9 hit in 1987). I love that song, though I'd never considered it for ApX, but I realized "Galilee" would work as a parody for it as well.
Soon I had a rough idea for each "Galilee" option, with Winwood's being about Pentecost and The Monkees' being about the man with the withered hand Jesus healed on the sabbath. I couldn't decide which one to pursue. Then it dawned on me that we could do both and put them on the same single, giving them similar spoof titles, with rhyming parenthetical portions — "The Man With the Withered Hand" and "The Land of the Risen Man."
Considering the fact that "Daydream Believer" and "Valleri" were originally on the same Monkees album in 1968, I thought it would be cool to put them on the same ApX CD in 2022. But I still had to ask Wayne Bartley if he could replicate that high-speed flamenco guitar. He could. And did. Quite well.
GALILEE (THE MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND)
You can read more about how this parody happened in my journal entry for "Galilee (The Land of the Risen Man)." The story of the man with the withered hand appears in all three synoptic Gospels, but ApX had only mentioned him briefly before, in our 1992 and 2009 parodies of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." I'm glad he finally got a song of his own.
While re-reading the accounts, I caught a little detail from Dr. Luke that I'd never noticed before: It was the man's right hand that was withered. Considering the preferred status and importance of the right hand in those times, it must have been especially humbling for the poor guy.
Several years before writing this song, I endured a period of time when my right shoulder was very sore, and it was difficult and painful for me to lift my hand in the air. I was extremely grateful when God healed that (gradually, as opposed to the man with the withered hand), and I think of it sometimes if I raise my hands in a worship song, so the opening lyrics of this parody are written and sung from experience.
I also remember what it was like to have a withered heart, so those words in the second verse are heartfelt (no pun intended), too.
I had just come up with the title of our Come See, Come Saw CD right before I started working on this parody, so I was delighted when the words "come and see" and "mon ami" appeared. They were gifts from God and not intentional on my part, but they let me know this song had to go on that CD.
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