Background - Us followed Gabriel's Passion of the Christ soundtrack. Of all the songs on the album, there are two that stand out to me as paired through Biblical imagery and their heartwrenching, visceral emotion: Blood of Eden and Washing of the Water. It's well documented that Gabriel was thinking about his own divorce and new relationship while writing the album. Washing of the Water is tragic, lonely, and pleading, with a dirgelike pace, in comparison to the peacefulness, two-person harmony and steady beat of its partner song.
Washing of the Water is a literal prayer to the great river-sea spirit, the creator, to cleanse the narrator. "Washing of the water" is a phrase lifted directly from the KJV Bible, a common phrase about baptism, which is always conducted with water through light washing of the forehead or total immersion. Baptism is, in Christian practice, a symbolic rebirth, transformation, and forgiveness of sins.
This "baptism" by the great river is to help the narrator start over and be transformed - to be freed from pain, selfish expectations, and to free the object of his love from the same - or it could be to let go of the other person entirely, so that he can stop holding onto empty hope and begin again.
Either way, he's asking a higher power for rebirth and cleansing, because the narrator does not feel he has the power himself to grant his own forgiveness. Sometimes we hurt each other and don't believe we're worthy of redemption, but we want to stay in the relationship. It's a terrible conundrum - the only way forward is through.
Background - Us followed Gabriel's Passion of the Christ soundtrack. Of all the songs on the album, there are two that stand out to me as paired through Biblical imagery and their heartwrenching, visceral emotion: Blood of Eden and Washing of the Water. It's well documented that Gabriel was thinking about his own divorce and new relationship while writing the album. Washing of the Water is tragic, lonely, and pleading, with a dirgelike pace, in comparison to the peacefulness, two-person harmony and steady beat of its partner song.
Washing of the Water is a literal prayer to the great river-sea spirit, the creator, to cleanse the narrator. "Washing of the water" is a phrase lifted directly from the KJV Bible, a common phrase about baptism, which is always conducted with water through light washing of the forehead or total immersion. Baptism is, in Christian practice, a symbolic rebirth, transformation, and forgiveness of sins.
This "baptism" by the great river is to help the narrator start over and be transformed - to be freed from pain, selfish expectations, and to free the object of his love from the same - or it could be to let go of the other person entirely, so that he can stop holding onto empty hope and begin again.
Either way, he's asking a higher power for rebirth and cleansing, because the narrator does not feel he has the power himself to grant his own forgiveness. Sometimes we hurt each other and don't believe we're worthy of redemption, but we want to stay in the relationship. It's a terrible conundrum - the only way forward is through.