Personal Jesus

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Lore & Background

The band had asked songwriter Martin Gore to bring less complete demos to the recording sessions for *Violator*, as in the past he'd brought nearly-complete demos which had limited the band's ability to improvise. Accordingly, Gore brought in a very simple demo for "Personal Jesus," which he played by tapping the beat with his foot while playing the melody on an acoustic guitar. The band liked the sound of the song and selected it as an early single before the rest of the album had even been recorded, saying it was a perfect song that said "here's Depeche Mode, but not as you know them." The band had used guitars in songs as early as 1982 with "Get the Balance Right!", but this was the first guitar-forward single the band had released. To support the single, a personal ad was placed in newspapers and magazines in some regions that asked "Do you need your own Personal Jesus?" and people who dialed the 1-800 number in the ad heard a clip of the song. Some British newspapers such as the *Aberdeen Evening News* and *Nottingham Evening Post* refused to play the ads, and London's *The Standard* only relented when it was pointed out that they had already run similar advertisements for Billy Graham.

In Their Own Story

According to Martin Gore, the song is "about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It's about how Elvis Presley was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a god in some way. We play these god-like parts for people but no one is perfect, and that's not a very balanced view of someone, is it?" The band had low expectations for its release, with both Gore and band member Andy Fletcher suggesting the song would struggle for airplay in the US given its religious theme. The band had two of its songs previously censored by radio stations due to their lyrical content, "Master and Servant" and "Blasphemous Rumours," both released in 1984. Despite these concerns, "Personal Jesus" went on to become Warner Bros' best-selling 12-inch single of all time up to that point, surpassing releases by artists such as Prince and Madonna. The single was successful enough that its B-side, "Dangerous," hit number 13 on the US Modern Rock Tracks Chart itself.

Reader's Guide

"Personal Jesus" is written in the key of F♯ minor with a tempo of 130 beats per minute in 12/8 time. The video for the song was directed by frequent Depeche Mode collaborator Anton Corbijn, shot in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, in Spain, the same village where Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Westerns were shot decades earlier. The shots of the band dressed as cowboys harkened to the Wild West, and shots of women that alluded to the location being a brothel, alongside "suggestive" mouth movements by Gore, led to MTV to censor the video. "Personal Jesus" was one of the first colorized videos the director made for the band. The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Johnny Cash and Marilyn Manson. In 2004, it was ranked No. 368 in *Rolling Stone*'s list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time," and in September 2006 it was voted as one of the "100 Greatest Songs Ever" in *Q* magazine. "Personal Jesus" was re-released as a single in May 2011 for the Depeche Mode remix album *Remixes 2: 81–11*, with the leading remix by the production team Stargate.

Did You Know?

• The song was inspired by the book *Elvis and Me* (1985) by Priscilla Presley.
• It was Depeche Mode's first gold-certified single in the US.
• The music video was shot in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, Spain, the same location where Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Westerns were filmed.
• The single became Warner Bros' best-selling 12-inch single of all time up to that point, surpassing releases by Prince and Madonna.
• The B-side, "Dangerous," hit number 13 on the US Modern Rock Tracks Chart itself.