Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus (1989)

"Personal Jesus" is a song by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released as the lead single from their ...

"Personal Jesus" is a song by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released as the lead single from their seventh studio album, Violator (1990) in 1989. It reached No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was their first to make the US Top 40 since 1984's "People Are People", and was their first gold-certified single in the US (quickly followed by its successor, "Enjoy the Silence"). In Germany, "Personal Jesus" is one of the band's longest-charting songs, staying on the singles chart for 23 weeks.

In 2004, "Personal Jesus" was ranked No. 368 in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and in September 2006 it was voted as one of the "100 Greatest Songs Ever" in Q magazine. "Personal Jesus" was rereleased as a single on 30 May 2011 for the Depeche Mode remix album Remixes 2: 81–11, with the leading remix by the production team Stargate. The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Marilyn Manson and Johnny Cash.

Music video

Anton Corbijn directed the music video for "Personal Jesus" and is his first Depeche Mode video in color. It features the band on a ranch (suggested to appear as a brothel), filmed in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, in Spain. MTV edited out some suggestive mouth movements of Martin Gore during the bridge and replaced it with some other footage from the video.