The release of the single “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!” began the promotion for Pope Francis’ debut album, scheduled to drop in November.
Amid Pope Francis’ five-day visit to the U.S., Rolling Stone broke the news Friday of “Wake Up!” — the first-ever wide-release music album featuring a pope. The album will be distributed by Italian record label Believe Digital in November, and is already available for pre-order on iTunes. (RELATED: Reporters Asked Pope Francis About Being Communist. Here’s What He Said.)
The album features musical arrangements backed by recordings of the pontiff delivering speeches and homilies. The music includes styles “ranging from pop-rock to Gregorian chant.”
The lead single shows strong prog-rock influences, with a 2-minute introduction of synthesizers, trumpets and electric guitars leading into Francis exhorting an audience to “Wake up!”
The recording comes from a speech Francis gave in English to young Asian Catholics at a conference in South Korea last year. Listeners hear typical Pope Francis lines such as, “it is the duty to be vigilant, not to allow the pressures, the temptations and the sins of ourselves or others to dull our sensitivity to the beauty of holiness.”
The track can be streamed on SoundCloud.
Pope John Paul II also released an album, “Abbà Pater,” in 1999, but it was primarily a work of devotion, with talks over a gentle reflective soundtrack of classical music and Gregorian chant.
Francis’ “Wake Up!” will likely be more targeted for general consumption.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.