I believe this song ends side one of 'Hallowed Ground', back when cassettes and LPs had sides. Sure, its catchy, upbeat straight gospel lyrically - and it's in the middle of their darkest album. Partly, this is because Gano wrote most of the songs for the first two albums at the same time, but Rıtchie made him save the religious material for the second one (per interviews with both).
What people may be missing here is that the image of water is pretty prominent on the album. First song, guy throws daughter into a well. Second song, 'I hear the rain', is full of water. Third song, 'Never Tell', has that part about sinking down to the bottom of the river. 'Its's gonna rain' ends the album with something like the story of Noah, and is just as catchy and religıous as this song. The other 3 don't explicitly have water (unless you count 'bombs falling down' as a form of rain in Hallowed Ground), but 2 of them do focus on God. Five out of 8 makes a theme.
Jesus walks ON the water. The first 3 songs involve being drowned or washed away. Jesus prevents this: sinking sand, took my hand, I can raise my head.high.'. Until finally the water itself is an opportunity for grace in 'It's gonna rain'. Religion is used to balance the darkness on this album, and in the Femmes music in general. I didn't think this song fit when I first heard it, but now it fits perfectly
I believe this song ends side one of 'Hallowed Ground', back when cassettes and LPs had sides. Sure, its catchy, upbeat straight gospel lyrically - and it's in the middle of their darkest album. Partly, this is because Gano wrote most of the songs for the first two albums at the same time, but Rıtchie made him save the religious material for the second one (per interviews with both).
What people may be missing here is that the image of water is pretty prominent on the album. First song, guy throws daughter into a well. Second song, 'I hear the rain', is full of water. Third song, 'Never Tell', has that part about sinking down to the bottom of the river. 'Its's gonna rain' ends the album with something like the story of Noah, and is just as catchy and religıous as this song. The other 3 don't explicitly have water (unless you count 'bombs falling down' as a form of rain in Hallowed Ground), but 2 of them do focus on God. Five out of 8 makes a theme.
Jesus walks ON the water. The first 3 songs involve being drowned or washed away. Jesus prevents this: sinking sand, took my hand, I can raise my head.high.'. Until finally the water itself is an opportunity for grace in 'It's gonna rain'. Religion is used to balance the darkness on this album, and in the Femmes music in general. I didn't think this song fit when I first heard it, but now it fits perfectly