2. Heaven on Their Minds

Synopsis

Judas can see that things are going badly awry and that all the good work Jesus has done will soon be swept away. The situation is volatile, and the authorities are beginning to focus their attention on Jesus’s activities. His followers are getting carried away with too many thoughts of heaven on their minds.

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Lyrics

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Alternate Lyrics (if any)

1969 Single Version

This is a whole other version of the song, lyrically speaking. In short, the authors got excited about their work on this one during the recording process and needed a single to go after “Superstar.” Tim Rice elaborates:

“The track worked out so well, with Murray [Head] in majestic form, that we thought it might be worth mixing ahead of the rest to get a second single released immediately, particularly in the United States, where the first one had only just dropped off the Hot 100. Having had U.S. airplay of ‘Superstar’ restricted because of the lyrical content, I […] decided to rewrite parts of ‘Heaven on Their Minds’ purely for the proposed single version, and Murray recorded the song all over again…”

Indeed, it’s possible that shaping this track specifically in an attempt to repeat the success of “Superstar” before it played a role in some of the quirks of its arrangement; for example, there are background vocals reminiscent of what the “Soul Girls” do on “Superstar” that have yet to appear elsewhere.

The complete lyrics, transcribed from the vinyl sleeve, follow:

This set of lyrics notably focuses more on Judas than the crowd – more “I” and “we” than the original. Realizing this takes us to an intriguing place: it’s a POV flip. A (perhaps the) crucial point of JCS (as we know it) is that Judas pretty clearly doesn’t believe Jesus is what they say he is, and further that he thinks everyone else’s belief is paving a path to sure destruction. But this version of “Heaven on Their Minds” comes from somewhere else. “I started to believe…” “…we’re stuck in this place / We’re only human…” Here, Judas does believe – or believed at one point – that “what they said was true.” He isn’t disillusioned because Jesus is beginning to buy his hype; he’s disillusioned because he fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and Jesus isn’t living up to his expectations. If this were used in the show as we know it, it would cast a much different light on Judas’ motivation.

Also, these lyrics are rather clever when one considers that, as frequently stated, JCS was developed, consciously or not, with clear parallels to the 1960s hippie movements. Lines like “no one listens anymore to anything today” and “…you would think that rock and roll’s all that we do” make it easy to picture Judas as a “true” activist disillusioned by the trend chasers who don’t get how “serious” the cause is. (Check out Tim Rice calling out “influencers” way before that was a viable lifestyle!)

After reading the extract from Tim’s memoir above, you might wonder if the gambit paid off. Did rewriting “Heaven on Their Minds” help it on the radio? Well, he answers that for us as well:

“[After quoting some of the alternate lines, including “Death… death…”:] Even if these and other lines had been a) good and b) not deeply depressing, it was foolish of me to forget that the airplay that we had achieved with ‘Superstar’ was precisely because of the lyrical content, not despite it. MCA did release ‘Heaven on Their Minds’ in the States, but very half-heartedly and it sank without trace.”

It was not so lost, however, that it couldn’t be resurrected (pardon the pun) as a bonus track for the deluxe edition of the 50th-anniversary concept album re-release; you can hear it here (courtesy of Spotify; it should also be on the streaming service of your choice).

1996 Revisions

As previously mentioned, when JCS received its first major London revival in 1996, Rice took a second look at the show’s lyrics to eliminate “several false rhymes, which annoy me now” (as his autobiography put it) and also seized the opportunity to change what he thought he could improve. This is not the first, nor the last, time that we will encounter his second thoughts in this section.

There are three differences of note in that regard when it comes to “Heaven on Their Minds,” two of which are still part of JCS today:

• For smoother phrasing and possibly a better rhyme with the word “best,” he swapped out “Tables, chairs, and oaken chests” for a singular version (i.e., “Table, chair, and oaken chest”).
• As he regretted repeating the “crowd”/“loud” rhyme in “Hosanna,” he chose to remedy the situation by replacing the earlier instance and – in the process – showing he’d done his homework. “I am frightened by the crowd / For we are getting much too loud” became “And our conquerors object / To another noisy sect.”
• Lastly, a clear ending was established for the song, rather than allowing the performer to improvise indefinitely, as heard in several revival-era recordings, starting with the 1996 London.

The lyrics to that coda read as follows, at least as recorded:

The switch from plural to singular remains in the score today, as does a variation on the coda. (Be the aim to have it both ways or to offer latitude within the suggested structure, only the first two and the final lines of the lyrics above presently appear in the licensed score, with instructions to ad-lib for a few bars indicated in between, as seen in the screenshot below.)

Considering how embarrassed Rice was by the lack of variety in his rhyming, it’s somewhat surprising that the “object”/“sect” lyric, although heard in the 2000 Broadway revival (and the tours in the States and abroad, and direct-to-video film, which immediately followed), is not in the licensed version today.

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Old vs. New

(Note: You may need to enlarge images to enable an accurate comparison.)

Aside from the above…

• Bars 84-89 of the old score (reflecting everything Judas does following “Yes, it’s all gone sour”) have been removed and replaced with Bars 103-114 of the new, which reflect the revised coda from 1996 and later. To this ear, the accompaniment is a little more accurate to where the piano usually eventually goes if a tad early (I don’t believe it starts until approximately 107 on the album).

(For this illustration, I use an anonymous typeset transcription of the handwritten score because it conveniently fits everything on one page; I had to do some magic with old-school MS Paint for the new one to achieve the same.)

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