Album: Jesus Wept
Year: 1995
One of the things that kept coming up as I did the research for these P.M. Dawn posts was just how slagged they were at the time for being out of step with what was going on with early 1990’s hip-hop.
And yeah, by the time of their third album, 1995’s Jesus Wept — named, of course, after the shortest verse in The Bible — if P.M. Dawn had very little in common with their hip-hop contemporaries, they also had little in common with anyone else, as their best songs are a psychedelic stew of hip-hop, soul, rock and gospel, and sound amazing all these years later.
And while “Downtown Venus,” which deployed a genius sample of Deep Purple’s “Hush” — a beat that had just been sitting out there, waiting — was a minor hit and even a bit of a crossover hit on Modern Rock radio, for me, the true gem of the album was “The 9:45 Wake-Up Dream,” which starts with a careening liquid crystal guitar, a straighforward funk beat and Prince Be’s heavenly vocals.
Destiny paints the picture at about 9:45
I possess the image at about 10:15
Reality paints the picture at about 5:25
And I’m like, “How much sugar do you take in your dreams?”
So I practice complicity around 9:45
Yeah, that’s right (9:45)
Yeah, that’s right (9:45)Unending, life
With Cameron Greider’s guitar turning into a corkscrew and a host of angels harmonizing on every single “Nine forty-five,” the chorus of “The 9:45 Wake-Up Dream” is insanely beautiful.
Are you in my mind?
Are all my dreams mine?
Wake me up at 9:45 (oh, life)
Do you believe in time?
Do you love your life?
Wake me up at 9:45
Sure, this is a long cry from capping motherfuckers who pissed you off, I guess, but of course, no less valid of an expression of a philosophy of life, either. And what Prince Be figured out was that even the hardest of genres needs the dreamers, too.
“The 9:45 Wake-Up Dream”
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