This is Sister Janet Mead singing a song based on Psalm 63 with music by Arnold Strals from her album With You I Am. It’s almost a blues waltz, although her voice belies the style. It has a surprising off kilter charm for a refugee from the seventies. There are Bob Dylan and George Harrison influences in there somewhere.
The sheet music is out of print of course.
I went a little country on my backing, but couldn’t completely eradicates its pleading oddness.
At least the first part of this version of the Agnes Dei from Sister Janet Mead’s, With You I Am, is conceivably usable in a mass. The second part in a “calypso rock” style isn’t a suitable litany and would unbalance a mass. As part of a rock opera, why not?
The music was by Mead herself and Theo Van Der Sman.
I haven’t mentioned yet that all the arrangements were by Les Sands. He is mentioned in this 1974 article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Looking as chirpy as Mary Poppins, Adelaide’s singing nun, Sister Janet Mead, is spending this week in Sydney making another record.
This determinedly cheerful charmer has already trilled her way into the hearts of millions, taking the “Lord’s Prayer” into the charts. From nine on Tuesday morning, when she arrived in Sydney, Sister Janet has been closeted in the Festival recording studios at Pyrmont. Singing the same 12 songs (mostly religious, two of them her own) over and over again. When the backing variations (up to four for every song) were being recorded and re-recorded, Sister Janet popped into the panelled room next door for a quiet practice.
She cheerfully sang “I tell you, you’ve got everything” and tapped her foot to the rock backing.
“Oh my goodness. I’ m never going to get these words right.” she said, putting one hand on her hip and swaying with the beat of the music.
“I think they’ve had enough religion for one day in there,” she said while musical director Les Sands listened to the recorded tapes.
The 36-year-old nun is in Sydney till Sunday to record an LP which Festival hopes will outdo the astonishing instant success of the “Lord’s Prayer” record, both in Australia and overseas.
“It sold 250,000 copies in one week. It’s now a ‘bullet performer’ and 10th on the ‘Cashbox’ chart,” her producer, Martin Eldman, said.
“It is the first Australian record to sell over a million copies in America. And since it was released here last December, ‘Lord’s Prayer’ has sold over 50,000 copies, which is another golden disc award to Sister Janet.”
There was no fuss and publicity at Festival when Sister Janet recorded “Lord’s Prayer” — with music composed and arranged by Arnold Strals — last November.
Martin Eldman had just finished producing Abigail’s “Je t’aime” (a rather minor success now, when compared with “Lord’s Prayer “) when the Catholic Radio and Television Services asked him to listen to a tape of Sister Janet’s rock mass at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral, Adelaide.
Mr Eldman asked her to come to Sydney. “Lord’s Prayer” was recorded in one day. One of the singers who backed the record was Kerrie Biddell (she didn’t think it would be a hit.)
This week Sister Janet, wearing her plain beige cotton knee-length dress and brown veil of the Sisters of Mercy order, said she was bewildered by the record’s success.
The record royalties (there have never been so many sold by an Australian in the USA, so nobody quite knows how much she’ll make there, but it is already over $2,000 at five cents a copy in Australia) will go towards the Sisters of Mercy, so there has been no hesitation about making money.
One project she has in mind to help is teaching waifs in Vietnam.
What puzzles Sister Janet is why so many people bought the record.
“Some say it was because people saw the words of the Lord’s Prayer in a new light (that’s what I hope!), while someone sent me a magazine cutting from America suggesting that after seeing ‘The Exorcist.’ people felt so unclean they went out and bought a copy of ‘Lord’s Prayer’.
“But I can’t believe people would go and buy it just because it’s sung by a nun. I would never go and buy a record just for the singer, anyway, but then the kids do buy David Cassidy’s records because they like him.”
In studio 10, professional musicians (on their best behaviour — no swearing) ran through the numbers until 9 pm with Sister Janet, who is just getting over a nasty virus and all the publicity of being an unexpected pop star.
Sister Janet, with tired rings under her eyes, but still determinedly smiling, related how her “singing career” started several years ago.
“I was constantly involved with teenagers through being a teacher and I came to realise how important rock was to them.
“I decided to use it to bring them together in the name of God with the introduction of rock Masses to the cathedral.
“The Masses were so successful and so many people asked us for the music (Sister Janet has written her own Mass) for their own youth Masses that it got beyond us.
“We thought the best thing to do was make a recording of our own original stuff and get it published, so that it would he available.”
The result was “Lord’s Prayer.” Sister Janet was a little embarrassed to find herself a reluctant pop star when she arrived back after a two-month tour of England and Europe, spent looking at developments in drama and rock music as well as liturgical music.
She is taking this week off from teaching at St Aloysius College, where she takes English, drama, religion and singing classes.
She has been a nun since she herself left St Aloysius at 17.
“The reasons for becoming a nun change. Over the years you renew your dedication. I originally became a nun because I saw that their work was to help people who had a need.” she said.
Sister Janet is still helping. Besides teaching, the Sisters of Mercy (there are 38 at the Angus Street convent) care for the homeless and those in need, particularly young people.
The publicity attached to a singing nun has been she said almost crossly, “a nuisance.” It kept her from doing all the things she wanted to — youth work, teaching, reading (now mainly liturgy).
There have been offers (all declined) to do both stage and concert work, but Sister Janet does have her own weekly radio show “rock’n’religion.” she said in Adelaide.
The band did a quick run through of “I tell you,” and Sister Janet returned quickly to Studio 10. She looked like being there until Saturday night.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 4, 1974
This is an adaptation of Psalms 15 and 8 with music by Theo Van Der Sman that is on Sister Janet Mead’s album, With You I Am.
This is back in folk mode. She certainly was eclectic in her choice of styles.
This was the title track of Sister Janet Mead’s album of the same name. The sheet music is out of print.
This is a sung prayer based on Psalm 73 and is early 70s soft rock. It has an odd bridge of sung “doo, doos”.
My backing is a little heavier:
If you ever thought that what you really needed was a jazz/blues rendition of the Ten Commandments in a Peggy Lee style, then Sister Janet Mead was way ahead of you in the seventies, and included it on her With You I Am record.
It was written by Ursula Hicks, and it would have fitted into the Lloyd-Webber/rock opera idea of multiple genres just fine. It includes the timeless lyrics, “dance not to the devil’s can-can”.
Like most of this album the sheet music is out of print and all I can suggest is the second hand market.
I rarely get to use this sort of style in Band in a Box for church music.
I have blogged this before but I will repeat myself for context purposes.
“The Lord’s Prayer” is the hit off Sister Janet Mead‘s album, With You I Am, with music by Arnold Strals. This was meant to be a B side but sold more than a million copies. It would have been an even bigger hit but it sold poorly in the south of the USA, presumably because she was Catholic and this was the devil’s music.
It’s a great pop arrangement. I’d forgotten the distorted guitar introduction. It is very rock opera style – fitting in the the era of JC Superstar and Godspell.
This is my same old backing from decades ago closely based on the sheet music. I think this started as a BIAB file and was converted to MIDI, then played with on a cut down version of Protools I used to have.
While the sheet music for the album is out of print, this one is available at various sites including musicnotes.
Sister Janet Mead is in “Seekers” mode again with this Ursula Hicks penned song from her With You I Am album. It is more what you would expect from a nun in the 1970s, but the other songs suggest she wanted rock out more.
This one isn’t a psalm or part of the mass for a change with both words and music by Hicks. It is a sung personal prayer.
This is another Arnold Strals song from Sister Janet Mead’s album, With You I Am.
The words are based on Psalm 31. It appears all the texts are either parts of the Mass or Psalms.
It is in a blues funk style.
It is a pity the sheet music album, With You I Am, that accompanies the record by Sister Janet Mead is out of print. It’s ambitious to say the least.
She wrote the music herself for this setting of the Gloria in full rock opera mode. I know this is of no use for a current liturgy, the text has changed and it is for a soloist, but in a throw back prog styled band presentation outside mass, who knows? It’s still praise.
My backing is also in that mode.
I’m looking at Sister Janet Mead’s album, With You I Am. She used five songwriters on this record and Arnold Strals wrote five of them including this song and the hit version of “The Lord’s Prayer”. He was active in the Adelaide music scene in the seventies and eighties in bands like Systems Go! and Speedboat.
“The Earth is Filled” is based on Psalm 32 and Strals wrote the music. It sounds a little in the style of The Seekers.
My backing is more like a mutant big band for some reason.
