Music: Songs about Mary

I rediscovered a song I loved the other day, and was almost tempted to post its lyrics as one of my poems in Poetry Month, but it just felt like a cheat.

Instead, I will share the lyrics, and a YouTube video of it – and then do the same for ANOTHER song with the same name (Mary) in the title.

The first one is Mary from Lou Barlow’s album Emoh, and suggests that the immaculate conception, well, wasn’t. It’s a cute love song – I think it’s utterly lovely.

     Mary

     Immaculate conception, yeah right.
     Crazy Mary it’s good that you lied,
     A test tube baby, seed of the Lord,
     Breaking the law with the man next door.

     Blame it on an angel, they’ll believe.
     Joseph will wonder but you know he won’t leave.
     They all love you, I still do,
     Magic in the air, swirling all around you.

     Mary, Mary under veil of stars
     You changed the world, you broke my heart.
     Thank you Mary, you saved me too,
     They’d stone us both if they ever knew.

     Sold out the manger, well all right,
     The mystery baby got a supernova spotlight.
     They say that He’s the One
     Brother Joseph got a king for a stepson

     Mary, Mary under veil of stars
     You changed the world, you broke my heart
     Thank you Mary, you saved me too,
     They’d stone us both if they ever knew.

     Mary kissed me and we lost control
     The oldest story never told
     Crazy Mary you’re forever divine
     They’ll never know the baby’s mine

Next up is a Chumbawamba song. I first heard it in the film Stigmata – Patricia Arquette stars as an unlikely victim of the stigmata, and Gabriel Byrne plays a priest who discovers much unsavoury in the depths of the Catholic church.

     Mary, Mary
     
     No virgin me
     For I have sinned
     I sold my soul
     For sex and gin
     Go call a priest
     All meek and mild
     And tell him, “Mary
     Is no more a child.”

     It’s raining stones
     It’s raining bile
     From the luxury
     Of your denial
     So I don’t deny
     I don’t make do
     I’ll press alarms
     Place bets on truth

     I’m so up and down
     And I love what’s not allowed
     I was lost, now I see:
     And now I’m growing old disgracefully
     Whatever happened to Mary?

     I’ll spit on floors
     Get drunk on love
     Wear next to nothing
     In the pouring rain
     Be a bad example
     And do it all again
     I’ll be uncareful
     I’ll cause such scenes
     And I’ll never talk
     Of ‘used-to-be’s
     Tattoo my face
     I won’t go grey
     Be a dancing queen
     I’m growing old disgracefully

     I’m so up and down
     And I love what’s not allowed
     I was lost, now I see:
     And now I’m growing old disgracefully
     Whatever happened to Mary?