Mr. Mister – Kyrie
#quotefromthe80s
Kýrie, eléison down the road that I must travel
Kýrie, eléison through the darkness of the night
Kýrie, eléison where I'm going, will you follow?
Kýrie, eléison on a highway in the light
#MrMister #Kyrie
I don’t know if it was a coincidence that a prayer-inspired song came out exactly four days before Christmas. In the 1980s, anything could certainly happen, and sometimes it even happened by accident. In December 1985 the American group Mr. Mister was riding an extraordinary wave, because just three months before they had released Broken Wings, the first song from their second album Welcome to the Real World (a fantastic title, every time I have to say it), and this song literally skyrocketed them to the top of the charts. And so, after three months of success and absolute celebrity, on December 21st, four days before Christmas, their new single comes out, a ballad halfway between rock and pop (but this was their style) with a solemn title: Kyrie.
And the refrain begins with the words “Kyrie eleison”, the “Lord, have mercy” of the Catholic liturgy. The lyrics for the song were written by John Lang, who was not a real permanent member of the group, but was rather a longtime contributor for the lyrics. And indeed Lang remembered this phrase from his youth, when he used to sing in a Phoenix church choir. And in his intentions, the song was a kind of prayer for closeness and supernatural protection during our existence.
When the leader of the group had to sing it, Richard Page knew the sacred inspiration of the song, and he knew how to keep the tone of a prayer. He had had different experiences, but after a lot of meditation he managed to see in the lyrics of the song the small dimension of human existence, and as he said in several interviews, he actually interpreted the song as a prayer. I have to say that the “Lord have mercy down the road that I must travel” might seem a bit detached from the usual sacred canons, but it is a phrase that combines ancestral, supernatural tradition, and healthy twentieth century pragmatism.
The song had been written about a year earlier, when Mr. Mister toured with a bizarre 80’s character, Adam Ant, leader of Adam and the Ants; yes, exactly the guy that the good Captain Sensible referenced negatively in his Wot. There was an urban legend that linked Kyrie to Richard Page being assaulted and forced to a period in the hospital, during which he would conceive this modern prayer. Later it was John Lang himself who put this affair in order. Meanwhile, the person who wrote the text as we have said was not Page, but Lang. To tell the truth, also the person who ended up in the hospital after an assault was not Page, but Lang, who however cleared all doubts by openly saying that the text of the song had nothing to do with that bad experience, which took place years before.
The video was shot in December 1985, while Mr. Mister were on tour with Tina Turner on her Private Dancer Tour. The video was shot in Florida and features concert scenes, routine scenes for rockstars (dressing rooms, extravagances, limousines) and scenes shot on a beach also in Florida. The director of the video, English gentleman Nick Morris who shortly afterwards would also direct the video for Europe’s The Final Countdown, was not very well versed in American laws, and when he shot the scenes on the beach he did not know that he should have obtained a signed authorization in order to be able to use the faces of the boys in the video. When this came out, he was close to delete everything and re-shoot, but he was lucky: he returned to the beach with his team, and was lucky enough to find almost all the guys who appeared in the video. Obviously they were regulars who went every day or almost every day to that beach!
In any case, Kyrie certainly knew how to collect the legacy of Broken Wings, which was in first place in the charts three months after its market release, in those December days when Kyrie was released. And Kyrie, after three more months, will also be able to reach the top position in the American charts.
Mr. Mister on Wikipedia
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