“Jesus Was Way Cool” by King Missile

King Missile slipped "Jesus Was Way Cool" onto Mystical Shit, the avant-garde outfit's 1990 album for Shimmy Disc, with Kramer producing, and it's a straight-faced put-on of the highest order. Over a lazy, drawn-out piano figure, frontman John S. Hall delivers a deadpan rave about Jesus: he healed people, walked on water, turned water into wine, and could have outplayed Jimi Hendrix, outskated Wayne Gretzky and outdanced Mikhail Baryshnikov if he'd felt like it.

Then Hall follows the logic all the way down, pinning the crucifixion on plain jealousy of all that cool and holding up the resurrection as more proof of it, before signing off with a dry crack that credits the coolness for Christianity's huge following. In the liner notes to the compilation Fluting on the Hump, Hall framed the piece as a reflection on Catholicism and on poetry.

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