Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 84

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The Popular Culture Review

sense and grace/ to arrive wherever you’re going." This balancing
point is exactly where one is able to "hit the switch / and drive in
moonlight,” to experience the particular beauty so deeply interwoven
with the harshness of the landscape.
In the song "Jesus Just Left Chicago," ZZTop’s Jesus resembles
McDonald's lone rider on hardscrabble. He possesses a power which
isolates him, places him on a frontier where his own freedom of
action is dangerous. "You might not see him in person / but he'll see
you just the same / You don’t have to worry / cause takin' care of
business is his name." The Jesus depicted here is hardly an orthodox
portrait of the savior. The last line is especially suggestive of a
darker, more ominous person than the traditional Jesus, especially
when sung by Dusty Hill’s raspy, vibrating, sensuous voice which has
its own harsh beauty. The subtle fusion of Christian rhetoric with
suggestive street language leaves Jesus teetering between holy savior
and illegal street dealer. But he is neither an overt parody of the
Christian Jesus nor an ancient legend unrelated to the harsh realities
of modem urban existence. The grafting together of the Christian
ideal with the street-hardened criminal again demonstrates the
inseparability of harsh reality and beauty.
The Jesus of "Jesus Just Left Chicago," is similar to the angel in
ZZTop's song "Hot, Blue, and Righteous." This particular song is
perhaps the most straightforwardly religious piece of the two albums
we are examining, but even here the lyrics hint at much more than the
traditional, born-again religious experience, especially given the
over all tone of Tres Hombres. Placed within the context of "La
Grange" and "Precious and Grace" -- both songs about prostitution —
the adjectives "hot" and "blue" take on rather suggestive connotations
even when attributed to an angel.
Hot, blue, and righteous
an angel pulled me aside,
hot, blue, and righteous
and said stick by me and I'll be your guide
I heard the word as I closed my eyes
down on my, down on my bended knee.
It felt like a blow and I realized
something good happening to me.
Hot, blue, and righteous