YOUNG HEARTS RUN AWAY

I never really understood the lyrics to Candi Staton's YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE. About to re-release her decade old club smash U GOT THE LOVE on Positiva, Skruff News unearthed an interview with some background on the diva and those lyrics.

Growing up in the 50s picking cotton and dodging the local Ku Klux Klan fanatics who were based near her home, she escaped her grinding poverty singing gospel alongside the likes of Aretha Franklin later becoming a regular at Studio 54. Achieving a massive worldwide hit with her disco anthem Young Hearts Run Free she became a huge pop star, despite the fact the song was inspired by an horrific incident in a high-rise skyscraper in Vegas, when her then husband attacked her.

“He was already possessive and jealous, we’d been rowing and the argument escalated on this particular night until he put his gun to my head threatening to blow me away, then he decided to hang me from the balcony instead, saying that if I coughed he would have dropped me,” she recalled.

“I was thinking of ways to get out of this predicament when I said to him ‘You know, this is a mafia owned club and I’m here for them, you gotta’ get outta’ here or they will find you’. That’s what made him come back to his senses. He then pulled me up, in a big sweat. I walked back into the living room and went to lie down on the bed with him still pointing the gun to my head, he lay down next to me and you know what? I went to sleep,” she said.

FULL ARTICLE: TRUSTTHEDJ

If you aren't familiar with Candi, ya oughta be. Her biggest hits were YOUNG HEARTS, I'M A VICTIM, and U GOT THE LOVE, but also VERY worth checking out are the rarer but equally brilliant WHEN YOU WAKE UP TOMORROW, WHY NOT ROCK?, and ONE MORE TRY--all classics at the Pyramid's smash Sunday night fagfest known as Whispers, with Sister Dimension on the heels of steel. Candi was once known as The Queen of Southern Soul and she also covered Tammy Wynette's STAND BY YOUR MAN, Elvis's SUSPICIOUS MINDS and The Bee Gees' NIGHTS ON BROADWAY. She overcame a drug problem and now sings for Jesus on TV. I think I saw her on Jan Crouch's (aka Bo Peep--that thing who's always breaking down on the air with the mauve wig) show, looking and sounding fantastic.

OK, I have to include a picture of Jan's incredible wig because I am SO JEALOUS! She has the adorable face of a pekingese!



And then of course I had to start googling her (because I'm so popular that I have no performing engagements or gentleman callers on a Friday night!) and found one site which occuses her of dabbling in the occult and even uses the word "occultic", which is either archaic, obsolete or they made it up like I made up "occuses!" It seems Jan mentioned in a newsletter that she levitated. This concerned the writer of this next piece. A friend on gospel circuit told me that prescription medications cause her frequent, teary melt-downs which do make for great tv and but could make her seem a little possessed. Doncha just love unsubstantiated gossip from people who you don't care about and who weren't even the original subject of this post? I'm off! Possessedeth!

CULTLINK

Oppenheimer noted that if she was being lifted off the bed "this is certainly not God doing this, this is a demonic manifestation." Pastor G. Richard Fisher of New Jersey who writes for the highly regarded Personal Freedom Outreach Journal, agreed. "This is very, very occult. If she is not lying, she is a witch. They [TBN] are shameless with their being bizarre - but that is what the fans want."

Could it be that Mrs. Crouch's use of guided imagery, an occultic form of meditation, could have opened her up to demonic influence? It would seem so. "When she says ‘I saw Jesus everywhere - in faces, on the walls, in hearts,’ this too is occultic manifestations," noted Oppenheimer. "To see Jesus in hearts is nebulous and nonetheless unbiblical. It seems as if this woman has been introduced to a spirit guide named Jesus."

"’Breathe in His love. Breathe in His peace. Breathe in His joy. Put your sweet hands over your tummy and breathe and lift. ‘Jesus, Oh Sweet, Precious Jesus, FILL that emptiness,’ -- this too is occultic. There are a number of songs running through the church singing you are the air I breathe, (your holy presence). We do not breathe in the spirit or anything else of God. We have the Holy Spirit in us. This seems to be a lot of soulish me-stuff in her message," Oppenheimer concluded.