Description
“The Lord’s Prayer” – b/w “Brother Sun And Sister Moon” – is a two-sided 7-inch vinyl single by the Australian singer Sister Janet Mead, released on A&M Records in 1974 (catalogue number AM-1491-S). It was recorded at Festival’s own studio in Sydney, Australia, with Martin Erdman producing and engineering. Arranged and directed by Les Sand. The track on the A-side was written by Arnold Strals while the track on the flip-side was written by Donovan Leitch.
The track on the A-side ended up being the title track from a full-length album originally released on the Australian label Festival Records the following year, recorded at Festival’s own studio in Sydney, Australia, with Martin Erdman producing and engineering. Arranged and directed by Les Sand. The track on the A-side was written by Arnold Strals while the track on the flip-side was written by Donovan Leitch.
“The Lord’s Prayer” was originally released as a single in Australia by Festival Records. After reaching number three on the charts in Australia, it went on to become an international hit, selling nearly three million copies worldwide and making the upper reaches of the pop charts in countries as diverse as Canada, Japan, Brazil, Germany and the United States.
It made Mead the first Roman Catholic nun to have a hit record in the United States since Jeanine Deckers (“The Singing Nun”), hit No. 1 with “Dominique” in late 1963.[3] It also became the only song to hit the Top 10 in which the entire lyrical content originated from the words of the Bible. More specifically, it is the only Top 10 hit with words attributed to Jesus Christ.
The single sold 250.000 copies in ten days in the US, and the flip-side, “The Lord’s Prayer”, hit the No. 4 position on Billboard Magazine‘s Pop Chart April 13, 1974. The phenomenal success of the single led to the recording of the full-length album With You I Am, which hit No. 19 in July 1974. (The profits from the massively successful “The Lord’s Prayer” contributed to the refurbishment of Festival’s Studio A with a Neve mixing desk and a 24-track recorder, resulting in that studio’s renaming to “Studio 24”, which commonly appears as Festival’s Studio 24 on mid-70s releases. Janet Mead though donated her share of the royalties to charity.)
SISTER JANET MEAD “The Lord’s Prayer”
Another “Singing Nun” has a fast-rising hit. In her native Australia, Sister Janet has been holding rock Masses which draw up to 2,000 to cathedral each week. Her “Lord’s Prayer” setting is tasteful and lilting, sounding as if it could come right out of the score of something like “Hair.” A&M nabbed world rights from Australia’s Festival label and the nun’s debut single was broken in the U.S. by music director Alene McKinney of KMPC-AM in Los Angeles. [Talent / New on the Charts (Billboard Magazine, March 2, 1974)]
7-inch Vinyl Single tracklist:
Side A. “The Lord’s Prayer” – 2:59
Side B. “Brother Sun And Sister Moon” – 2:39
Janet Mead formed a group called the Rock Band when 17 to provide music for the weekly mass at the local cathedral. A Sister of Mercy, Sister Janet Mead’s goal was to make contemporary Mass music available for everyone to understand and enjoy. In 1973 she started making records for churches and schools, but Festival Records detected a wider appeal for her lovely voice and recorded the soon-to-be hit on the B-side of a Donovan song, «Brother Sun & Sister Moon» (which had been written for the soundtrack of the Franco Zeffirelli film of the same name). Disk Jockeys flipped it and «The Lord’s Prayer» became so popular that A&M Records distributed the record worldwide to more than 31 countries. It became the first Australian record to go gold, selling more than a million copies in the United States, and two million worldwide. She donated all the royalties from the sales to charity. Sister Mead crept into the States charts once more with «Take My Hand», but never appeared again.
Mead became the second woman to have a Top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart while serving as a nun. Sister Luc-Gabrielle (Jeanine Deckers) AKA Sœur Sourire and The Singing Nun, had a Number 1 pop hit in 1963 with «Dominique».
I believe that life is a unity and therefore not divided into compartments. That means that worship, music, recreation, work and all other “little boxes” of our lives are really inseparable and this is why I believe that people should be given the opportunity to worship God with the language and music that is part of their ordinary life. The words of the songs on this record almost all come from books of the Bible, which so richly expresses the longings of man’s heart, his loneliness, his joy, his dependence on God, his desire to love his fellow man and to live in peace. We all recognise these yearnings – they are ours and are common to each of our lives.
In the «The Lord’s Prayer» there is a phrase which expresses what I believe is Christ’s ideal. It says, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That is what I think Christ tried to bring about. He kept talking about initiating the kingdom of heaven on earth. What I think he meant was that he wanted us to share in His vision of drawing people together in happiness, joy and peace. Music has all the qualities to help in this – it breaks down barriers, unites, makes us forget ourselves, make us aware of others and is totally involving.
In my life I have had the great happiness of seeing many people work together forr good. My parents who first taught me to love, the community of nuns in which I work, the students in my school in Adelaide, my very numerous friends, the young people who have devoted their time to preparing each week for hours for their Youth Masses and now the record company with which I have worked to make this record. If I, one person, have seen so many people of good will in a comparatively short life, surely it is innately in us all to work together in our own small way for the unity of mankind.
[Liner notes by Sister Janet Mead, featured on the back of the LP cover.]
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