Pope Francis – “¿Por Qué Aufren Los Ninos?”
So the Pope is releasing a rock album. We already know this, but it feels no less strange every time I think about it. Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, will drop his debut LP Wake Up! next month, and the first thing we heard from it was “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!,” which, in both title and sound, came off at least a tiny bit like something Godspeed You! Black Emperor might’ve done. And so maybe it’s even funnier that the Pope is going about the usual LP-promoting techniques, sharing a second song from the album to help build anticipation. As Pitchfork reports, the new track is called “¿Por Qué Aufren Los Ninos?,” and this one sounds nothing like GY!BE. Instead, it’s got Italian singer Anna Tosato singing a Latin hymn over churning strings, and it includes portions of a speech that Pope Francis gave, in Spanish, in the Philippines. (The title means “why do children suffer?”) It’s soft and melodramatic, and maybe it will help the Pope break into that crucial Latin pop market. Listen to it below.
Wake Up! is out 11/27; pre-order it here.