I was introduced to Depeche Mode in my sophomore year of high school by a couple of cool girls I met on a service trip to Biloxi, Mississippi. And ever since then, it seems I have been mishearing the lyrics to “Personal Jesus.”

I dug the song when I first heard it, and not just because I wanted to like everything these girls — sisters from a town a couple of hours away from mine — thought was cool. I liked the sexy, vaguely sinister groove; I smirked at the could-be-taken-as-sacrilegious lyrics.

And when, years later, I heard Johnny Cash’s take on the tune, I shook my head at the way he changed those lyrics around to give the whole thing a more sacred, Christian reading.

EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE HE DIDN’T DO THIS AT ALL.

Yeah, I’d always thought those crazy Depeche Modes were singing “reach out and touch me,” which just (in my head) made the whole thing even more wonderfully sketchy. And I smiled at the Johnny Cash version, thinking oh, the sweet old icon, with his Christianizing edit of “reach out and touch faith.”

Except … no. This is the original lyric. The internet swears it is so, and when I have heard the song recently, I have heard it this way (aka correctly).

And I’ve gotta say, I’m kind of disappointed. I think “reach out and touch me” works a lot better for the swampy, sessy, skeevily blasphemous Depeche Mode version.*

Mr. Cash, of course, can sing whatever he likes.

*No, I still do not know why I like the swampy, sessy, and skeevy so very much, but I do. And pondering that affinity whilst drafting this post has made me think the kings of SSS, my beloved Aerosmith, could probably do a pretty flocking great cover of “Personal Jesus.” STEVEN TYLER: CALL ME.

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