Discovered this while checking out the Hollies history....
JD Souther hopefully said a few prayers of thanks that folk singer/songwriter Judee Sill (RIP) wielded a wicked pen ONLY.
Perhaps her greatest song. Warren Zevon, The Hollies, Cass Elliot and Linda Ronstadt were a few that covered it.
Months after completing the recording sessions for her debut album, Sill was touring as an opening act and reeling from the end of a “dramatic affair” with fellow songwriter JD Souther.She began composing "Jesus Was a Cross Maker" while reading the 1955 Nikos Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus is portrayed as a carpenter who builds wooden crosses for the Romans. “I was so excited when I was writin’ that song,” Sill said in 1972, “because it was not only the best thing I’d ever written, and I knew it, but it took the weight off my heart and turned it into somethin’ else, and I was able to forgive the guy for the horrible romantic bummer he'd put me on. And I gained a new kind of strength from it, from that combination of forgiveness and creation.
In a 2014 interview, Souther recalled his first time hearing the song. “She came over to my house at about seven or eight in the morning,” he said. “Pounded on the door, woke me up, came in, sat on my bed, and said, ‘This is for you,’ very sourly. Then she played it for me.”
Personally, for me the lyrics are extremely powerful.
JD Souther hopefully said a few prayers of thanks that folk singer/songwriter Judee Sill (RIP) wielded a wicked pen ONLY.
Perhaps her greatest song. Warren Zevon, The Hollies, Cass Elliot and Linda Ronstadt were a few that covered it.
Months after completing the recording sessions for her debut album, Sill was touring as an opening act and reeling from the end of a “dramatic affair” with fellow songwriter JD Souther.She began composing "Jesus Was a Cross Maker" while reading the 1955 Nikos Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus is portrayed as a carpenter who builds wooden crosses for the Romans. “I was so excited when I was writin’ that song,” Sill said in 1972, “because it was not only the best thing I’d ever written, and I knew it, but it took the weight off my heart and turned it into somethin’ else, and I was able to forgive the guy for the horrible romantic bummer he'd put me on. And I gained a new kind of strength from it, from that combination of forgiveness and creation.
In a 2014 interview, Souther recalled his first time hearing the song. “She came over to my house at about seven or eight in the morning,” he said. “Pounded on the door, woke me up, came in, sat on my bed, and said, ‘This is for you,’ very sourly. Then she played it for me.”
Personally, for me the lyrics are extremely powerful.
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