JCS: Poor Jerusalem & Pilate's Dream

Listen Along! (New for today, but you can go back and find the mp3's for all the previous songs I have covered as well. And when you're done reveling in the free awesomeness, go buy a CD, ya lousy bums.)
109 - Poor Jerusalem
110 - Pilate's Dream

I'm putting these two songs together because they're both prophetic songs that sit right next to each other. "Poor Jerusalem" is Jesus lamenting the imminent death of Jerusalem (well, imminent on his terms) and "Pilate's Dream" is Pilate's, well, dream predicting Jesus' near future.

PJ is probably one of the most abstract songs in the opera. It begins with Jesus listing everyone (which is everyone) who doesn't get what glory or power is, then he says that bad stuff is coming to J-town, and that "To conquer death you only have to die." So, when I say it's about the end of Jerusalem, I'm obviously interpreting here and perhaps prone to misinterpretation.

There is something similar to this event in Luke 19:41-44: "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.'"

So, kinda the same thing, but still a little abstract. Guess it jives. And just so you know, the fears of Jesus, Judas, the Pharisees, and Simon did come to pass, Jerusalem was rocked by the Romans after Jesus died and the Temple destroyed and everyone driven out into exile. Not much fun at all.

Next we have Pilate's dream which accurately predicts the events that are going to unfold in the next few days as Jesus is sentenced, tried, and executed. The last few lines are kind of interesting: "And then I heard them mentioning my name / And leaving me the blame." Uh oh, Pilate, better wash your hands of this one! Ha! It almost works, but not really. Is Pilate really to blame? Is he another evil ne'er-do-well? Sorry, we'll get to that later :)

Pilate's dream also represents a rather large deviation from the Gospels. In Matthew 27:19 we find out that it was Pilate's wife who had the dream: "While court was still in session, Pilate's wife sent him a message: 'Don't get mixed up in judging this noble man. I've just been through a long and troubled night because of a dream about him.'" Seeing as how Pilate's wife isn't in the opera and it's much more dramatic to have Pilate sing about his own dream, I see why the change was made. Doesn't really change a whole lot so it's not that much of a big deal. But boy am I glad I don't have prophetic dreams like that.