Welcome To Paradise Lyrics
Jesus is here!
In the name of Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Feel like your life is going nowhere
Ten seconds... Standby
Jesus is the Son of God
Come in Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Oh God I'm a sinner!
I deserve to go to hell (Alleluiah!)
The bible said you keep him out in the lie
In the name of Jesus
Jesus is the Son of God
In the name of Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Hey poor, you don't have to be poor anymore
Jesus is here! (Don't tell the devil)
Hey poor, you don't have to be Jesus!
Looks like a commentary on Christianity. The repitition throughout feels like fanatical chanting somehow. --The poor are told that Jesus will help them. Christianity makes people feel guilty ("Oh god I'm a sinner!"). At the end, says that you don't really have to be like Jesus. Meh. It has a strange sound to it.
From the Technology Works Front 242 interview:
TW: On "Welcome to Paradise" you were dealing with religion which you've done in the past and you continue to do on the new album. But you don't say that religion is bad, you're just putting it out there.
Jean-Luc We never have. We have no message. We don't want to say anything to the people. We just take samples from the world around us, the news, television, movies, the street. We put them together and we work a little bit like journalists. We act as a reflection of what's happening and what's interesting for us in the world. We put those songs together to make a collage of news.
(http://www.waste.org/front242/interviews/technologyworks7.html)
I guess Christian Fundamentalism was becoming popular in the early 80's in the U.S (though it was quite quickly discredited and a laughing stock again by the early 90's).
The song is of course about the pitfalls of christianity but more specifically it was inspired by Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. In February 1988, Swaggart stirred controversy after a private investigation found he had solicited a prostitute. Later it was discovered with the help of one of his "friends" and fellow TV evengelists that he had paid for the services of multiple prostitutes many many times with money that people gave to him through is TV evangelist show. Initially, Swaggart denied the accusations; but, as a media investigation proceeded, he acknowledged that some allegations were true. He later publicly apologized for the acts in a televised broadcast where he famously cried and said "I have sinned.". Many of the samples in this song are of Swaggart.
Front 242 took the words of Jerry Falwell, diced them up & made this track, you people way over think things.