Search - Kurt Cobain, William S. Burroughs :: Priest They Called Him

The Priest They Called Him - Review by Tom Roach, NJ

01/11/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

""The Priest They Called Him" featuring Kurt Cobain on a noise gutiar and William S. Burroughs doing a spoken word story. This is a story that is fairly hard to follow, in my opinion, but between Burroughs' voice and words, along with Kurt Cobain's straining and mood-defying harmonic noise guitar-playing, this album is one you shouldn't pass up!! I bought it back in the Winter of 1994, and used to listen to it every once in a while. It is only 9 minutes long, but just to hear Kurt Cobain playing the "Silent Night" in the background of an erie Christmastime story by William S. Burroughs. I bought this when I was a huge fan of Nirvana, but still years later I found the vinyl, which is a limited edition picture disc of 50,000 numbered copies. It is still sealed of course : ) I strongly recommend it since it'll be out of print one day and it's cool to see things like Kris Novoselic on the cover in a priest's outfit!! : ) Later!!"

Interesting, but rather short, so weigh your options.

Hiroo Yamagata | Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Japan | 07/15/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The story is the one that is included in WSB "Exterminator!" If you are a WSB reader, you'd say this is the original, and the "Junkie's Christmas" is the variation... but that's not an important distinction. A nice sarchastic (but warm) story, while Kurt Cobain starts from "Silent night, Holey night"and then wanders off into his trademark random distorted noisy tunes.The feel of the thing is well represented in the sample recording provided on the page, so give it a shot if you're in doubt. The 2 never met actually, they recorded their part individually and then someone mixed it down.The whole thing lasts 9minutes and 44 seconds. I like it, and the cimbination is interesting, but it's short, so if you're not a big fan, well, you might want to weigh your options there. If you ARE a big fan... then, you're going to buy this anyway, right?"

Not your typical "night before Christmas"

meltdowner | Good 'ole USA | 07/17/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A very dark and grim story, the narration is perfectly interpreted by Kurt Cobain's harsh guitar. The music seems to express what's going on inside the heart of the priest in this story. Especially incredible is the junkie priest's death as we seem to hear his soul spiral out of this world into oblivion. A haunting story for Christmas and an incredible performance by Cobain."