Did you like the music from Godspell?

What's that buzz everybody's talkin' bout?

I grew up listening to the OBC recording! Love it

The hippie Jesus freak movement was so bizarre.

Love it! I know every song to this day. I was a small child when it came out so I grew up with it. Back in college, I sang Turn Back O Man by G. Holst, a rather ponderous choral piece covered when I was a music minor. I could concentrate on the music because I knew the lyric from Godspell.

Turn back O man, forswear thy foolish ways! Old now is earth and none may count her days....

Fond memories.

I'm listening to Day By Day as I type - the OBC version. I love it.

I saw it when it opened in London. I had diarrhoea and had to keep going to the loo.

I've always liked We Beseech Thee. Too bad it got cut from the movie.

I was a young boy in Catholic grade school when the musical and movie came out so I remember both very well. Quite a few good songs.

Yes, love it. I particularly enjoy the ragtime piano accompaniment.

Much prefer Jesus Christ Superstar.

Sad seeing the twin towers partially built in the background of some of the scenes.

I much prefer the music to Godspell.

& never got into that technicolor raincoat thing.

None of the songs were hits. It good musicals like Hair, you'd have at least one or two top ten hits.

Any score that makes such a non-existent book bearable is one great score, And it IS .On the Willows is gorgeous. And even the movie had great moments along with the addition of the amazing Beautiful City.Great cast as well. Hey Victor, you rock!

and thanks OP for the memory!

Have you seen this???

TBOM was my favorite too, R4.

My brother and I rec'd the album for Christmas, '72. Along with "Led Zepellin II" and "anis JJoplin In Concert" Sweet Jesus. Hehe. We also got a rather nice Sony compact stereo, with a Dual turntable and a proper magnetic cartridge. A younger friend of my mom's, a hip, 30-ish media guy from the ad agency she worked at, heard "Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord" , grimaced and said, "That is just horribly over-produced". I had no idea what he was going on about, what kid would. I was lost in sound.

Years later, when my sensibilities were better developed, I had to concur with that fellow, but to this day I enjoy bombast and excessive studio knob-twirling. Good taste? Phhhtt!

No, I haven't R13. Thank you for the link. I love those 'the making of' films they made back then.

I hadn't realised Jesus, in the movie, was played by Victor Garber - his looks changed so much.

Which is the best version of the soundtrack - the stage or the movie? R14' s sounds like the British stage cast.

I like a lot of the music. All For The Best was my favorite when I was younger

Flash Mob.

(bit of a mess, quite frankly)

It has one of the most astounding closing shots I've seen in a movie. I still have no idea how they did it.

I know,right? GREAT closing! I think the movie version is the best. But then again, I didnt grow up on the OBC recording. I think this might be one of the few cases where the movie soundtrack is better than the cast recording.

Victor Garber's performance was a thing of beauty

Love, love, LOVE Godspell's music!

Day by Day was a very big hit. How could that poster say it had no hits? I listened to the entire album every day after school.

My favorite song however was the one not by Schwartz and as it was slow and folky that was not usual for me but it was so beautiful I couldn't help falling in love with it.

By My Side

For me it's the movie soundtrack, hands down. Probably because that's what I'm familiar with. My parents had the album and I would play it over and over. Love Godspell.

Yes, lots of good tracks. Also love "Light of the World", "Turn Back O Man", and "All Good Gifts". Like it much better than JC Superstar.

Yes. I listened to the OBC album incessantly, and second-acted the play five times when it came to town.

Doesn't OBC stand for Original Broadway Cast? Was there even a cast recording of the original Broadway cast?

The movie came out three years before Godspell opened on Broadway.

The guy who wrote the music was a straight guy who looks and acts like a gay guy. But he's still alive, unlike most of his gay contemporaries - so the proof is in the pudding.

DL fave Jeremy Irons was in the original London cast

I loved it as a child, but haven't heard it in decades.

I'm sure that, given how I've come to regard the poisonous fraud called Christianity, I would not be able to sit through it now.

Stephen Schwartz is not straight. Sheesh.

Married since 1969, R30 and still alive. Sheesh.

I love this clip and play it often.

You might be surprised, R29. I'm a former deluded xtian who has been an unabashed atheist for 25 years, and I can still appreciate just the beauty of the music.

I was raised Catholic so of course I hate the church and Christianity with the deep hatred only a former member could summon. But uncontestably Catholic art from the Renaissance through the baroque is the summit of humanity's artistic achievement.

Still I wouldn't trust a priest any farther than I could throw him.

[quote]None of the songs were hits.

R11, "Day by Day" was on the Billboard charts for 14 weeks. It did top out at #13, but your assertion that a good musical has at least one or two top tens is just silly.

Lifetime atheist here but I love "By My Side." I figure the hippies were just on one long strange trip hallucinating all the religious stuff. I like JCS too.

Written after the LA riots, "Beautiful City" is even more relevant today in the age of Trump.

No. I didn't like that one at all. But Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat had some catchy songs and an engaging story.

Liked it at the time.

But even then considered it so twee...

DL favorite, Telly Leung sings " All Good Gifts."

Miss Telly has some pipes

Telly is quite talented, and he performed wonderfully at R40...and yet, the performance feels plastic and artificial somehow. This is a pale comparison to the original, sort of like what LED Christmas lights are to the original incandescent bulbs. The original was analog and a little quirky here and there: this is flawlessly digital and devoid of any spontaneity.

On the other hand, the modern rendition of "On the Willows" is IMO even better that the original.

It tells the tale of Jews who were captured by the Philistines and then made to perform on the lyres and sing for the Philistines' amusement.

Thematically, this song speaks to anyone who has had people dear to them taken away from them, such as the ending of a loving relationship, or having to watch a loved one slowly waste away and perish. It also speaks to anyone who once held a loftier position in life but who now is forced by circumstances to perform more menial or inconsequential tasks because the memories of glories past are no longer known by others.

Live long enough, little gaylings, and this song will speak to more and more.

[quote]and yet, the performance feels plastic and artificial somehow.

I didn't even click on it and I knew it would be the case.

[quote] This is a pale comparison to the original, sort of like what LED Christmas lights are to the original incandescent bulbs

Gurl, please...you're too spot on.

Loved this. Used to do my own interpretive dances to it when I was a kid. So funny how obsessed I was.

[quote]Used to do my own interpretive dances to it when I was a kid.

What I wouldn't do to see this!

I prefer the original cast recording except Lamar. Sheesh. Blend bitch!

Babylonians, not Philistines, r43...during the Exile.

You are right, r31. Married men with children are never gay.

The latest recording has that harsh American Idol sound, complete with oversinging. It obliterates the hippie charm of the first two.

Exactly, R50.

[quote]The latest recording has that harsh American Idol sound, complete with over singing

The over singing thing began in the 80s. All about hitting the high notes as often as possible and for as long as possible.

Funny, I was looking at a clip of Donovan from the 60s. The 60s performance was so cool and and natural - then it flipped to today - and all the backing musicians, all wearing black, very short hair and making the whole process look so strained and difficult.

R37, You mean "rewritten", a version of the song was in the movie.

Godspell is on TCM right now. There were few joyous scenes on and around the WTC. Wish we could go back in time.

I want to thank my junior high choir teacher, Mr. Lamas, who had us sing songs from Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. He could’ve had us sing the typical stuff, but he enlightened us all. Years later I realized he was gay and knew what he was doing. A great teacher who wanted nothing but the best for us.

I love love loved the album as a kid. I've never seen the movie.

It still shocks me that Schwartz did this in the 70s and Wicked in 2003. I love Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth but can not really bring myself to enjoy any of the songs from Wicked as anything other than vocal challenges designed to exhaust two very different sopranos.

Love the score. For me, the soundtrack is the best recording and the use of in the film was brilliant.

I am more a Jesus Christ Superstar fan.

I love both the original OB soundtrack and the movie soundtrack. Had the OB ST first (I'm old), long before the movie was released, and I would give it the edge for the songs it includes that were cut from the movie. For me "Beautiful City," which was added to the movie, is very generic, and doesn't hold a candle to "Learn Your Lesson Well" and "We Beseech Thee."

That said, over the years I've seen four different stage versions of Godspell, and the movie countless times since it was released, and I always enjoy it no matter what, even though I'm a total heathen who doesn't even believe Jesus Christ existed. I love the movie for its humanity, its appealing, natural cast, and its message of love and caring for others, as well as its catchy, clever, sometimes truly emotional music. The show is really timeless.

R37. I love Hunter Parrish’s version ... saw him and Miss Telly in this production on B’way ...

I never miss a Lynne Thigpen musical.

So we've had musicals based on the Bible (JCS, Godspell, Two by Two, others) and the Book of Mormon ... when do we get "Koran: The Musical!"

This whole thread is so embarrassing.