Jesus Christ Pose is a song by the grunge band Soundgarden, released in 1991 as the first single from the band’s third studio album, Badmotorfinger (1991). The song was included on Soundgarden‘s 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides. “Jesus Christ Pose” features lyrics written by frontman Chris Cornell and music co written by Cornell, drummer Matt Cameron, bassist Ben Shepherd, and guitarist Kim Thayil.
Some see the song as defining the “essence” of Soundgarden, as it is credited to all four band members. Cameron said:
“As soon as I played this pattern everyone dove right in, and within an hour we had the guts of the song. The approach we took on this one was pure assault of the senses. Canadians dance to this song.”
Musically, Jesus Christ Pose has been described as grunge and alternative metal. It was performed in the key of D minor, with the guitars in drop D tuning, in 4/4 time at a tempo of 134 beats per minute. Regarding the song, Thayil said:
“The song’s groove reminds me of helicopter blades. I bent the strings at the beginning and end of the song.”
The band explained that the lyrics for Jesus Christ Pose concern the exploitation of religion for personal benefit. The song is a criticism of how public figures use religion, particularly the image of Jesus Christ, to portray themselves as being “better” than others, or as “martyrs”.
Chris Cornell specifically mentioned Jane’s Addiction‘s frontman Perry Farrell as an influence on the song, explaining, “It became fashionable to be the sort of persecuted-deity guy.” In an interview with Spin magazine in 1992, Cornell explained the term Jesus Christ Pose:
You just see it a lot with really beautiful people, or famous people, exploiting that symbol as to imply that they’re either a deity or persecuted somehow by their public. So it’s pretty much a song that is nonreligious but expressing being irritated by seeing that. It’s not that I would ever be offended by what someone would do with that symbol.
Tracklist:
- Jesus Christ Pose (Cameron, Cornell, Shepherd, Thayil)
- Stray Cat Blues (The Rolling Stones)
- Into the Void (Black Sabbath)
- Somewhere (Shepherd)
The music video for Jesus Christ Pose was directed by Eric Zimmerman, who would later direct the music video for Rusty Cage. The video’s intro adapts John 3:16; “And God So Loved Soundgarden He Gave Them His Only Song”. The video features the band members wandering around a desert interspersed with various images of crosses, cyborgs, a crucified girl, a crucified skeleton and even vegetables crucified in human form. Thayil said:
“A lot was chosen by the director Eric Zimmerman, and we checked it out and decided what we liked and didn’t like.”
Cornell said: “It was a pretty unanimous decision by the band to have a woman being crucified in the video … As a visual, it’s powerful and it’s also challenging to people, because women basically have been persecuted since before recorded history, and it would almost make more sense than seeing a man on it.” He also added, “There’s upside down crosses and right-side up ones. But there’s certainly no blatant direction as far as religious conviction in the video.”
Thayil said that the video was one of the few Soundgarden videos the band was satisfied with. He stated that “on the Jesus Christ Pose video we did a lot of experimenting at different kinda fun, cool things. I guess it seems fun to me because I didn’t end up getting disappointed by it.” The video was released in October 1991.
Soundgarden
Chris Cornell: vocals, rhythm guitar
Kim Thayil: lead guitar
Ben Shepherd: bass
Matt Cameron: drums
Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017)
