Previously: WOW 2000.
I don’t know if I’ll ever quite get over the style evolution DC Talk went through in the relatively brief period between 1989 and 1995. In six years they went through more musical eras than most bands do in their entire careers – from golden-age-style hip-hop to rap-rock to grunge.
For a secular analogy, try imagining a world where Nirvana released Nevermind, Appetite For Destruction, and Black Sunday, all before Bill Clinton won a second term. (CCM was a small world at the time. You’ll have to trust me on this comparison.)
In honor of Jesus Freak‘s twentieth anniversary (“Has it really been twenty years? God, I feel so old!” Yes, well; time passes), and in honor of the fact that, in retrospect, the title track was clearly a Christian ripoff of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” here is a forced ranking of every track:
11. “Like It, Love It, Need It”
This is maybe the most obvious Nirvana ripoff of them all. You can’t rhyme “they don’t seem to care-oh” with “drowning in despair-oh” while using your Kurt Cobain voice. You can’t do it. It’s immoral, and I’ve never even owned a Nirvana album, and am thus impartial.
10. “Colored People”
You guys. This feels like airing our dirty laundry in front of the seculars, and I’m embarrassed to do it, because there’s a huge part of me that feels very affectionate toward this song. One thing I will say: Michael Tait, Kevin Max, and Toby Mac are genuinely talented vocalists. But this song…I can’t defend it. It starts off with “Pardon me, sir, your epidermis is showing” and it just gets worse from there. It’s every white person who has ever loudly proclaimed that she “just doesn’t SEE color” at a public zoning meeting, in a song.
THEIR HEARTS ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE, GUYS.
…but they do use the phrase “skin kaleidoscope.”
9. “Jesus Freak”
I hate to put the title track so low, but these are some of the worst rap verses of all time.
I saw a man with a tat on his big fat belly
It wiggled around like marmalade jelly
It took me a while to catch what it said
Cause I had to match the rhythm of his belly with my head
‘Jesus Saves’ is what it raved in a typical tattoo green
Defend that in the comments if you wish. I can’t. TATTOOS AREN’T GREEN.
8. “Mrs. Morgan”
Mrs. Morgan is, I think, the only one of those great spoken interstitials they used so much in Free At Last, so I have a lot of fondness for it. It adds nothing, but still.
7. “Day By Day”
Did the world need an alternative update of a song from Godspell? We got one. Consider it a mulligan.
6.”So Help Me God”
Solid.
5. “What Have We Become?”
DC Talk is always better when they’re cheesy and earnest than when they decide to go in for social commentary. Great falsetto, though.
4. “Mind’s Eye”
YES, just let this one FLOW THROUGH YOU, put your HANDS UP, you are at Agape Music Fest and you are having a fucking BLAST.
3. “Between You and Me”
This delivers a solid shot of nostalgic pleasure to the frontal lobes of my brain. The laundromat setting! The bowling shirts! Kevin Max’s UPSETTINGLY BLUE EYES!
2. “What If I Stumble?”
It’s not not cheesy, but it’s so sincere. These men have the sincerest voices I have ever heard in my life. Plus the harmonies are solid.
1. “In the Light”
I will defend this song to my death. Somehow during the creation of this list I have lost all shame and am just fucking jamming out to this uncritically. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO JOIN ME, HOWEVER BRIEFLY, IN MY MIND’S EYE.
I was hoping for more WOW reviews but a whole DC Talk CD? I am so happy I have no words.
I’ll spend the rest of the day listening to In the Light on loop because I WANNA BE IN THE LIGHT
also holy crap I never ever realized until now that Jesus Freak is Smells Like Teen Spirit even though it is SO OBVIOUS
this changes everything
Oh man. “Colored People” is indeed “problematic,” as the youth say, but there’s still something about it that I love.
100% agree on “In the Light,” though. I’ve actually been listening to this album a fair amount recently as background music for some writing projects I’m working on, and this is the track that gets stuck in my head constantly, and I ain’t even mad about it.
I … am going to put it on right now.
WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE OF ME
I’ve moved pretty far away from the earnest, simple believer that I was when I first heard “In the Light”–and I may yet move further still– but I will always unironically love that song.
Same.
Genesis 18:23
And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the bitchin‘ with the problematic?”
I can’t hate on it because it’s all so very sincere. Yeah, it’s problematic, but I think we forget that twenty years ago the evangelical world was still hotly divided on the sinfulness of interracial marriage and to me the song will always be a fumbling but incredibly sincere attempt to tell the evangelical world to stop being so darn racist.
In my mind it’s forever associated with my 15 year old self discovering that almost everyone my family knew thought that interracial marriage was a sin, and that the only reason the topic had never come up before was because it was assumed that there was no question my parents agreed. So even though the adult me cringes at the language, I have a soft spot for it because along with Steve Taylor’s “Color Code”, it was one of the few public Christian voices I had that were saying unequivocally that racism in the name of Christianity was wrong.
I grew up in a DC suburb. During 6th and 7th grade some of the cooler kids on confirmation classes were all about dc talk. I on the other hand was consistently confused as to why they were so into a talk radio show about traffic.
I never owned a DC Talk album but I will still have the top three songs here stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Just another way growing up evangelical messes with you.
Former apostolic pentecostal here. The “ways that messed me up” list goes on and on and ON.
Oh my god. How did I not remember that “Jesus Freak” was a ridiculous rap-rock song?! All I ever remembered was the intro and the chorus. Oh man. This is tripping me out.
I didn’t know any of the other songs on this album, just “Jesus Freak” from my brief Christian Rock phase in late middle/early high school, which, as a pretty committed atheist even then, is a pretty weird phase to have had. Plankeye, Fanmail, early MxPx, Relient K, Five Iron Frenzy, House of Heroes… I even went to SonFest, a christian music festival at a Nazarene University. What an odd time in my life.
Wait, was SonFest at the Mt Vernon Naz? Because I totally went to that! Probably late 90s early 2000s, but not sure exactly which year. I know John Reuben was there the year I went because I immediately developed a massive crush on him.
That’s the one! I was there probably sometime between 2002-2004. Relient K was one of the headliners. I recall because I managed to corner Matt T. and ask him to deliver a message to my then-girlfriend in the middle of their set, which was pretty cool.
I once learned all of the lyrics on Relient K’s The Anatomy of Tongue In Cheek to impress a Straight Edge boy at church camp.
Odd times for us all.
Gonna go out on a limb and say that Five Iron Frenzy holds up (at least the most of any of them, in terms of social awareness).
there was a huge FIF thread at the WOW1999 or WOW2000 post, and yes, FIF is still pretty darn great.
Mr. Floridagal LOVES Five Iron Frenzy to this day.
The first two Plankeye cds were amazing, the third was passable..then holy shit did they get terrible FAST…I mean. Just. Wow.
We used to have this rule that you couldn’t stop driving the car while one of their songs was playing. I can’t remember which one. It might have been “Drive”, but that seems entirely too logical.
I just went back and listened to some early MxPX last week and it held up. Super cheesy-jesusy on some of the tracks, but not bad musically. I remember the first 2 five irons being OK, never got into those other bands.
Generally speaking, I had mostly just a few songs or one album from any one of them, but I wore those MP3s out. I’ve tried going back to listen to a few, but it mostly just shows me that phase of my life is very over.
As for the other bands, Fanmail was loosely associated with (or predated) Plankeye. House of Heroes was a local band from near my hometown. But their debut album “What You Want Is Now” is still one of my favorites. It’s actually in my car’s CD changer right now.
I was an album (CDs AND cassettes!) kid…this is before mp3s. I remember when the first MxPx album came out it was kind of a shock. It was pretty hard to find “good” (as we defined it) Christian music at that point. I think I saw them a few times in the early years and they were fun shows.
Ohhh that sounds familiar now, re: Fanmail. I may have had that CD at some point, I think it was a band formed by an ex-Plankeye member?
We had a couple local Christian bands uhh…man can I even remember the names? Well, MY bands, but they never went anywhere ;). Oh, Watashi Wa, that was one of them. Maybe the only one that ever got signed? That sounds right.
Yep! Looks like Fanmail was formed by Plankeye’s drummer who left. He also started Vanishing Point Records, which, it turns out, is the label that released House of Heroes’ debut album. Christian rock music is a small world, I guess.
If you liked House of Heroes so much back then, you should really listen to how they have grown since. They are easily my favorite band. Make sure to check out their third album The End Is Not The End, which is widely considered their best album and my personal favorite, but there really isn’t a thing they have released that isn’t good. Since you like What You Want is Now, you’ll probably enjoy the second album, Say No More, too, and it serves as a great centerpiece to show the evolution from WYWIN to TEINTE. Say No More is the first album of theirs I heard/owned.
Oh my goodness my deeply earnest preteen self is having a BLAST right now reliving this concert experience. This is amazing.
But for real, what if I lose my step and I make foooools of us all???
This was the first CD I ever owned, and it was a Valentine’s Day present from my Dad.
(of us aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall)
The amount of time I spent in my room lip syncing and dancing to this disk is the reason I won the church camp lip sync contest in 8th grade.
I wasn’t cute and/or popular but I could rock out.
I would never question that Jesus Freak is a genuinely good album. HOWEVER, does anyone else remember “I Don’t Want It,” the DC Talk abstinence anthem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpZd6jqmuQ
I do. I remember already giggling at it when I was 11.
I DON’T WANT IT, WANT YOUR SEX FOR NOOOWW….
my brain still remembers all of the raps in that album. SEND HELP
but haven’t you heard that love is a serious verb?
Dammit, now the chorus to that one is in my head. And that repetitive “Down with the DC Talk…”.
Today, we are all down with the DC Talk.
I think my dad offered to buy it for me and i was like “nah i’m good”
I took her to the Garden where I guess they grow the Olives
She wore a tighter skirt than any I had seen in college
She said “I love to smoke and drink while cursing like a sailor” (or is that “I love to smoke and drink”, while cursing…?)
I asked her where she got her mouth and if she had a tailor
I am now twelve and at a Michael W. Smith concert at King’s Dominion and DC Talk opens and THEN comes out for an encore and they sing “Friends” and all is right with the world.
Oh man, I always manage to forget about “In The Light” and how satisfying it is.
I also, thanks to this post, realized that 90% of my action-movie young-adult fantasies stem from the music video from “Just Between You and Me” (I still, occasionally revisit the concept of being chased through a city/ running relay with an Important! Package! by a rival gang)
It’s pretty great
I never knew before today that there were music videos to any of these songs. It was before YouTube. Where did people see them?
OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT “COLORED PEOPLE”
Speaking as someone who has only now discovered it, explain to me how that is possible. Because my jaw, the floor.
At the Alive Festival in approximately 2002, my friends and I rewrote “In the Light” to apply to our love lives:
I wanna go on a date
To find the perfect mate
I want to shine like the stars in the heavens
But not until God
Shows me Mr. Right
All I want is to be in the light.
You’re welcome, Music.
Wow. Woooowww. That’s amazing. Man I must have really gotten around to Christian music festivals back in the day, because I totally went to Alive.
I’ve never heard any of these songs, but I immediately recognized that CD cover from the front-seat console of every friend’s mom’s car I rode in during middle school.
My husband was only a year into his career as a youth pastor when this CD came out, and I think we listened to it approximately one gazillion times. He’d play “In the Light” on repeat, and he told me he wanted it played at his funeral. I still fully intend to do that, even if that event is fifty years from now and all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be like, “Nana’s really gone insane, what even is this song.”
Yet another reason why the Toast and its commenters are My People. I love that so many of us have this CCM, earnest evangelical teen background.
I have never heard any of these songs before but I am enjoying being a spectator at your jesus nostalgia party. In 1995 I was listening to mostly 1) Indigo Girls and 2) sixties folk music and 3) eighties folk revival music, so I certainly had the earnestness going on.
Re: Jesus nostalgia party, this album is approximately 50% of what I miss about my fizzled faith. The other 50% is Supertones Strike Back.
Come on in, we have pizza.
HOW DID YOU KNOW I JUST NOSTALGIA-BOUGHT THIS ALBUM A WEEK AGO?
“Just Between You And Me” is my favorite boy-band crooning anthem that never was. DC Talk COULD have been the best smooth-pop band, and destroyed the boy-band competition, but they were just satisfied to record that ONE song, and be like “nah, we have other things to do.”
“In The Light” FOREVER AND EVER AMEN. I am *convinced* it’s the majority vocals of Kevin Max and Michael Tait, and only a little bit of TobyMac that makes this track. And the Latin-influenced bridge. Ugh, this song is soooo like Sting, and I LOVE IT.
Also, I’m sure one’s favorite DC Talk member says something significant about your musical tastes, but I’m not sure what. (Kevin Max 5ever.)
Did you ever listen to his solo work ? I think it was called “Stereotype Be” ? I remember loving it and hating it at the same time. But I have kept it on my computer for almost a DECADE
I debated LONG AND HARD about buying that cd, but it could never quite argue hard enough, so I didn’t, but it’s one that I wish I *had* bought so I could listen to it when my tastes matured. 😛
I have this feeling I’d *love* it now. or hate it. You’re right, there’s no middle ground.
I loooooooooved TobyMac. I went to his first tour post-split … not including that one summer where they were actively splitting up but played the amusement park circuit as a group and also debuted their solo projects, which was the very best day at Carowinds ever … and it was amazing. I got a picture with him and (1) he is super hot (2) my hair looked AMAZING, so even though it was ~15 years ago (!!!!!!!!) it is still one of my favorite pics of me.
The latin influence is the best part, for sure.
At first I was like “oh man I am so relieved I was atheist by 13 and so I’d never get into these guys” and then I remembered how HUGE I was into Counting Crows at the time and I’m like, right, nobody is safe from cringing at their past selves. But hey, it’s been 20 years. Maybe I should check back and see how Duritz and company held up!
These posts are always weird for me because I was a Christian then, but didn’t go to the kinds of churches where this stuff was popular, so I listened to Alanis Morrissette and Cake and No Doubt. I wore black nail polish and flannel and had frizzy hair and giant glasses and braces. Oh, 13 year old me.
I didn’t hear most of these songs until I went to college and was exposed to much more evangelical type worship services. So it’s 17-20 year old me that is loving these posts.
I still love Counting Crows of that era with no shame or repentance.
“In the Light” = me wearing out a very specific two inches of cassette tape as I rewound again and again in absence of a repeat button during a 16 hour drive to Colorado for family vacation.
The Disease of Self does, indeed, run through my blood. It is as though they know my very essence.
Every attempt on my behalf has failed to bring this sickness under control. The struggle is real.
OK, Colored People has not aged well, but it is NOT white people saying that they don’t “see” color, it’s white people clumsily responding to and rejecting that attitude!
Yes, this. It’s not a masterpiece by any means but my 11 year old ~colorblind~ self was kind of scandalized until I realized that was the premise of the song.
On that note, does anyone remember Michael W. Smith’s “Colorblind”? Including gems like,
“Why can’t we be color-bliiiind
You know we should
Be living together
And we’d find a reason and rhyyyyyme
You know we would
‘Cause we could see better
If we could see colorblind.”
So. They were going a step up from that? 17-year-old me thought “Colored People” was really radical and profound for that. (The next step in my journey to understanding the complexities of race came from the movie Save The Last Dance, so I had a ways to go.)
Oh my god.
“Just Between You and Me” is the one track that got played on secular radio,as I recall. It… wasn’t bad? But it’s kind of like a really talented actor in community theater trying out for Broadway shows: Their limits get exposed really quickly.
Thank you for reminding me that Toby Mac is a thing that exists, and that I still have his album somewhere.
Went on a road trip this summer and took all my sister’s old CCM CDs. In the Light was on a WOW compilation and I did indeed FUCKING JAM OUT. No shame.
Epic times. I should do that, even though it’ll definitely bring up some unpleasant associations with my mother, who one day decided that she would only listen to godly music aka nothing but CCM. We maaaay have gotten into arguments over which one of my Christian music albums were godly enough…
This is simultaneously the worst and best trip down memory lane.
I have no defense for you of any of this album, but I love it still. (We used to sing, no joke, Jesus Freak AND In the Light for chapel at my Christian school. We all knew it was cringe-worthy, believe me, but we all loved it anyway.)
LUKCYYYYYYYY
We just sang Shout to the Lord and In the Secret over and over and over and over.
When I was a wee Jesus Freak teenager, I actually made up a dance routine to “In the Light” with my sister. We did not perform it for anyone other than ourselves, in our bedroom.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
I still listen to In The Light REGULARLY. Perhaps the greatest CCM song of them all.
Y’ALL – I tweeted this article cause somebody I know had just mentioned dc Talk, and Kevin Max himself fav’d it, retweeted, and FOLLOWED ME! Oh holy crap, it’s awesome now, but 90s me would have passed out cold. Those piercing blue eyes! (Seriously, though, thanks, Mallory, reminding me of how great this album was and letting me relive those days again.)
I’m fairly sure I was involved in interpretive dance numbers to What If I Stumble and In the Light. Why yes, my youth group did have an interpretive dance group. It was so of the moment, you know. Yes, I did graduate in 1997. I am old.
Here’s a thing: I went to a Southern Baptist liberal arts college (1997-2001), and those of us who backslid from being devoutly churchy during the early years there got heavily, heavily into Dave Matthews, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Gin Blossoms, John Mayer, and others. And bands like DC Talk were the GATEWAY DRUG. I’m listening to In the Light, and it is the most hilariously obvious Dave Matthews ripoff I’ve ever heard. And I had no idea at the time. None.
Now, Mallory, when are you going to do a complete Jars of Clay retrospective? I need this in my life. They’re the only Christian band I still respect for their musicianship.
I completely agree re: Jars of Clay. I will unashamedly still listen to and love their music.
We should do a fundraiser and sponsor a post, I am willing to chime in with seveveral venti lattes for a Jars post.
At the very least, we need a ranking from the JofC self-titled album. (I say we, but I mean me because that’s the album I listened to over and over.)
I hate to be the naysayer here, but DCTalk formed 4 years before Dave Matthews. And I am getting ZERO Dave Matthews out of “In The Light” ….I just saw Toby last month…still amazing!! DCTalk is reforming for a show next year.
I lost my Jesus Freak CD before the advent of ipods so this is super nostalgic. But I do have Audio Adrenaline’s Some Kind of Zombie that plays when I’m living dangerous (shuffling my entire music library). Apparently they are still together and making music.
If I remember correctly, DCT’s Michael Tait is now fronting Audio Adrenaline!
Nope, the Newsboys. I heard them in a concert I went to with my mom and they did Newsboys as well as classic DCT songs. Nostalgia!
Kevin Max now fronts Audio A.
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Out of Eden had the best Godspell cover of all time. That was a very controversial opinion in the youth-camp-bound vans of 1998.
Every time my use of melatonin as a sleep aid comes up in conversation, I run the lyric, “I couldn’t help but note your shade of melanin” through my head, just to make sure I don’t recommend skin pigmentation to my insomniac friends.
I both love and hate my CCM history. But this is amazing.
Bless you, Mallory, for giving me this gift on my birthday. In the Light inspired me to write my 9th grade Bible class final on I John. Also, I think I still have some sketchbooks at my parents’ house filled with Kevin Smith fan art. Truly, you are doing the Lord’s work.
HELL YES. I still regularly sing the chorus/bridge? (idk about music terms) to myself because it is great. I really love breaking out with “What’s going on inside of me/I despise my own behaviour/…/this only serves to confirm my suspicions that I’m still a man in need of a saviour” really emphasizing man because I’m not a man. It amuses me.
Also how did I never realize Jesus Freak was a christian version of Smells Like Teen Spirit? Really self, what were you doing.
Oh my god. TYPICAL TATTOO GREEN. To this day, that line pops into my head from time to time and just entirely derails my thought train for the day.
Are green tattoos common? What particularly distinctive shade of green screams “tattoo”? Do I just happen to live in a weird corner of the world where these things are not known? Am I…colourblind to a very specific shade of green? What else am I missing?
I’m glad I can stop questioning my whole life now.
omg yes to all of this. WERE GREEN TATTOS A THING? I just shrugged and assume I was the sheltered kid who didn’t know wtf was up with the world when I heard it the first time.
but it STILL bothers me.
srsly though. Mallory is correct and so are you. Tattoos are not green. however, at age 12 I just accepted this, because I had not seen many tattoos?
I think it’s talking about old tattoos that would fade from black to that weird greenish shade because the “black” ink was actually dark green.
Oh! Oh man, so there *is* a reasonable explanation for this. Thank you Nausikaa!
Yep, super late to this, but my grandpa has two tattoos from boot camp (Korean War) and they are both very definitely green. The green panther in particular really messed with my early-elementary-school cognitive abilities.
Yeah, tattoos can be green, as can they be almost any color. Probably not exactly typical though. That said, old tattoos often fade to a blue-green color, which is probably what dc Talk was referring to.
I won’t lie, I still find what if I stumble reassuring.
I totally forgot about coloured people…uh oh
My mom thought DC Talk sounded “too secular” so I snuck and bought it at Walmart once, at the music counter in the back, then threw out the receipt so my mom wouldn’t know. And then was stopped by the security guard and DIDN’T HAVE MY RECEIPT so he thought I STOLE THE DC TALK CD and paged my mom and I was marched to the back so the music counter clerk to verify whether or not I had purchased the DC Talk CD in secret 20 minutes ago.
I was exonerated (IN THE LIGHT, if you will) and my mom confiscated the CD.
I didn’t know why I kept checking back in this comment thread, but now I do, IT WAS TO READ THIS STORY
I just have so much sympathy for you right now. So much.
I remember buying an album from “They Might Be Giants” while with my best friend’s family, and her dad said, in front of everyone, “WE don’t listen to THAT kind of music. Maybe YOUR family does but you better not play it at our house. My children won’t be exposed to that garbage.” The shame! The indignant thoughts! The bruising of my innocence! My preadolescent self was just trying to explore the world. I’m lucky my parents were like, “Seems fine to us.”
I think I received a Jesus Freak book at some point. It might still be on my bookshelf at the parents.
Did anyone else do missions trips/outreach where there was like a mime/drama thing to songs? I feel like our Canadian bible belt school must have taken the idea from somewhere down south. We did one to “In the Light” and I will forever associate that song with my intense shame/horror of earnest teenage street evangelism and spring break missions trips. Sigh.
I feel your pain.
The book about martyrs? This one http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Freaks-Stories-Those-…
Me too.
Me three. Although I seem to think I got mine by choice? I don’t remember.
My mom was reluctant to get it for me. She thought anything about martyrs was suspiciously Catholic
Yup i had that – I love that the Amazon link says -A hip and easy-to-read format….
Mind.Blown. dcTalk on The Toast…what next?
My church sang everything a capella. Clapping was too much for the some of the older folks. Lifting up hands and praising the Lord while singing was also considered too emotional. As I was in danger of drying up like an old prune or blowing away like a pile of sawdust, I started listening to Christian music cd’s from the library. This was one of my favorites.
I don’t do any of that stuff anymore. Now I just meditate and talk to my higher self.
So much for 30 years of fundamentalist dogma.
And I think a good thread would be, “How my musical world was formed by only what was available at the library.”
Mine too! Somewhere I have a box of cassettes I made from library CDs. Mostly show tunes and jazz (our library had a lot of World Music too but that didn’t make it on my tapes)
I fiercely love each and every CCM post on this website
I’m about 89% sure we had this album, but I only remember ever hearing Jesus Freak, In the Light, What if I Stumble, Colored People, Between You and Me, and What Have We Become. The first three are still such jams to me.
I got in so much trouble arguing with my 8th grade Bible teacher over this album. He was SO WRONG.
MALLORY I have done by best to contain a nervous cringe-induced sweat of shame at my desk
I’m white, and I had a hispanic and black friend growing up and the three of us used to sing “Colored People” out my window… *smh*
I’ve been waiting and hoping for this! I cannot judge the title track objectively because it was the most popular number our youth group outreach dance team used. We went on “mission trips” to Florida to perform… I’m honestly not sure what positive impact we made on the world, but it sure was fun.
Mission trips….to Florida. o.O
Oh yes. I’ll at least say this for 16-year-old me: I refused to hit up my relatives for “donations” to support our “important mission work,” despite the repeated encouragement of our youth leaders.
The Newsboys “Love Liberty Disco” is still my favorite CCM album of all time, but oh man, “In the Light.” I belted it out HARD whenever it came up on the program at our summer service trip evening programs.
All I have in this world is two things:
1) The lyrics to this entire album memorized.
2) NO SHAME
also, was about to ask about the reprise, then read the tags. Well played.
At the very least, we need a ranking from the JofC self-titled album. (I say we, but I mean me because that's the album I listened to over and over.)
You mention Mrs. Morgan and yet didn’t bring up Alas My Love and the Jesus Freak reprise?