Jesus Jones - "Right Here Right Now"

I mean who didn’t love this song. Don’t we all miss the 90’s just a little bit?

Well, once upon a time, as the 80s gave way to the 90s, there came a band called Jesus Jones. They were revolutionaries of sorts and they came to start a fight. 

Because Jesus Jones were idealists. They had grown up in Cidertown, Wiltshire (actually Bradford-On-Avon, a small town near Bath), where they had read the music press and, most importantly, believed it. 

They especially believed it when the music press said that music should always be changing, setting fire to the past and building something new out of the ruins, that the next big thing should forge fearlessly ahead into a new musical and cultural Year Zero – you know, like wot punk dun – and they set about doing exactly that.  

Jesus Jones mashed noise rock with hip-hop and techno, classic songwriting with art-rock, and the timing was perfect. The acid-house revolution had made guitar music look boring-as. Out in the fields and warehouses, hipsters and council estate wide-os were running from the police, gobbling amazing new fast drugs, hugging it up on the dancefloor and shagging on car bonnets to music that actually sounded like The Future.

So the music press loved Jesus Jones and clapped-hands-with-glee when Mike said things like: “I think sampling in the 90s could be what the electric guitar was to the 60s. Sooner or later, there'll be a Jimi Hendrix of sampling and I want it to be me."

By the mid-90s, though, the knives were out. In three short years, “Indie-dance” became seen as the last-refuge of the indie-schmindy sell-out. Every two-bit band in Britain had an Andrew Weatherall/Paul Oakenfold remix and the cry of “there’s always been a dance element to our music!” became a running joke. 

These numbers tell you all you need to know (but, uh, keep reading, cos I put some effort into this): 

In 1989, Jesus Jones’ debut album Liquidiser went to no.31 in the UK album charts. 1991’s Doubt went to no.1, propelled by hits like International Bright Young Thing and Right Here, Right Now. 1993’s Perverse landed at number 6. Next album Already, didn’t arrive until 1997. And it went to 161. 

The way Mike Edwards saw it, the music press killed his band. Today, they are still touring, have a new album out and the band has the same line-up as they had originally. 

“The lyrics are obviously about the Berlin wall coming down,” says Edwards. I guess it isn’t too surprising that the band scored a US no.2 with Right Here, Right Now, a song brimming with optimism. 

The song itself, about the Berlin Wall falling, but also about so much more. it reminds us to not only live in this current climate, but to be alive here and now in this present moment. It reminds us that the only moment we have to affect any change in ourselves, our lives, and our worlds. Right here. Right now.

So today, with this moment pulsing with vibrancy, I choose Jesus Jones’ "Right Here Right Now" as my, revenge of the 90’s, oldie but a goodie, who have you become song for a , who do you want to be, be here now, You are already that person, Wednesday.