Clown Bible

Once again I am thinking about Dave Malloy’s Clown Bible. I’m not remotely Christian, but I don’t think that matters. I think there’s something really incredible about a silly musical retelling the Bible with clowns that suddenly switches gears for the last two songs and remains a musical retelling the Bible with clowns but decides to become almost transcendent, particularly with the final track.

It’s certainly less polished than Malloy’s later work; there’s a clear evolution between something like the penultimate track, “Judas”, and, say, any of the tracks from Great Comet, in terms of the musical arc and arrangement and what-have-you, but it’s fascinating as an early insight and as a work in its own right.

All this is to say, go listen to Clown Bible. The songs with lyrics are on YouTube, though some of the lyrics are inaccurately transcribed/attributed to the wrong characters. If nothing else, listen to the final two tracks (“Judas” and “Jesus”). The rest of the musical is worth listening to, particularly for the callbacks, but for the most part those final two tracks are where the tone properly kicks in.

Favorite Moments from said final two tracks:

- The humming from Lazarus echoing the melody which will return throughout “Judas”, and the fact that it’s finished by Jesus herself.

- The motion between what I think is a C sharp diminished and a D minor chord throughout Satan’s part, echoing the A7-D minor movement that’s constant throughout the instrumental for “Judas” but in a slightly more unsettled way

- The transition between Judas’s “I just want to know why to live at all” and Jesus’s “Foxes have their holes” lines

- The duet between Jesus and Judas before the final verse, where they’re finally signing together

- On “Jesus”, the glockenspiel/whatever idiophone that is

- The final repetition on “Jesus” (attributed to her on the fanmade lyric videos, but probably actually sung by God)

What a wonder.