Rockin' The Lord's Prayer

Not only the first Australian recording to sell over a million in the U.S., this rendition by Sister Janet Mead also brought the gospel to the top of the Australian charts in 1974. (This is the second top ten smash in history by a nun, though Sister Janet's story is a far happier one than Sister Smile's. Sister Smile did have the distinction of blocking Louie Louie from going to #1.) Here, The Prayer limbos somewhere between post-Psychedelic folk and a kind of Broadway gospel cum proto-Disco. (I love that she chose the Anglican version with its use of the awkward forgiving trespasses wording. It kind of drops like a mouthful of whipped frappé which doesn't happen in the more musically streamlined forgiving debtors version.) 

Anyway, it's much better than anything you're going to hear on a Christian rock station today. (Not that I'd know firsthand...)



And then there's this: My kind of flava and more than a wimple's-full of subtext:



Knocking on Heaven's door/ Who's that knocking on my door/Let me in! Let me in!/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-f**kin'-ling-a-ling