“Hey Jesus” by Indigo Girls

Strange Fire
Epic Records
1987




This song is an intimate conversation between the narrator and God. Some painful event has driven the narrator to ask God to intercede. As the conversation with God progresses, the narrator moves through the Five Stages of Grief : denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While the grieving may be directed at the tragedy, the other crisis in the song is the fracturing of the narrator’s relationship with God and this is a more likely target of the grieving stages.

Hey Jesus it's me

I don't usually talk to you

But my baby's gonna leave me

And there's something you must do

I am not your faithful servant

I hang around sometimes

With a bunch of your black sheep

But if you make my baby stay

I'll make it up to you

And that's a promise I will keep

Hey Jesus it's me

I'm the one who talked to you yesterday

And I asked you please please

For a favor but my baby's gone away

Went away anyway

And I don't really think its fair

You've got the power to make us all

Believe in you

And then we call you in our despair

And you don't come through

Hey Jesus it's me I'm sorry

I don't remember all I said

I had a few, no, too many

And they went straight to my head

And made me feel like I could argue with God

But you know it's easy for you

You got friends all over the world

You had the whole world waiting for your birth

But now I ain't got nobody

I don't know what my life's worth

I'm not gonna call on you any more

I'm sure you've got a million things to do

All I was trying to do

Was to get through to you

Get through to you

Because when I die and I get up to your doors

I don't even know if you're gonna

Let me in the place

How come I gotta die

To get a chance to talk to

You face to face?

Interpretation

Hey Jesus it's me

I don't usually talk to you

But my baby's gonna leave me

And there's something you must do

This stanza depicts a typical transactional approach to prayer. The narrator has a problem and wants God to fix it for her.

I am not your faithful servant

I hang around sometimes

With a bunch of your black sheep

But if you make my baby stay

I'll make it up to you

And that's a promise I will keep

Here the narrator describes her unworthiness (she is not a “faithful servant”) but proposes a bargain with God, do this for me and I’ll “make it up to you”. Presumably this means that the narrator will be a “faithful servant” and not “hang around with your black sheep”, the converse of her current practice.

Hey Jesus it's me

I'm the one who talked to you yesterday

And I asked you please please

For a favor but my baby's gone away

Went away anyway

In this stanza the narrator continues addressing God in a transactional prayer. The simple piece of information the narrator conveys is that God failed to answer her prayer. The tone in this stanza is one of victimization. The narrator wants God to feel sorry for letting her down. This stanza also represents the first stage in the grieving process: denial. Here it is manifested by disbelief that God failed.

And I don't really think its fair

You've got the power to make us all

Believe in you

And then we call you in our despair

And you don't come through

In this stanza the narrator realizes that God is not apologizing for letting her down and so her tone becomes angry. The narrator is mad at God for not answering her request and proceeds to explain why it’s not fair. She states a general feeling that God who has “the power to make us all believe in you” seems to never answer us in “our despair”. The second stage of the grieving process is displayed here: anger.

Hey Jesus it's me I'm sorry

I don't remember all I said

I had a few, no, too many

And they went straight to my head

And made me feel like I could argue with God

The tantrum from the previous stanza gives way to remorse. The narrator apologizes for being angry and arguing with God claiming she “had a few, no, too many” meaning she was drunk and not in her right mind. The alcohol made her “feel like [she] could argue with God”. This use of excuse is the third stage in the grieving process: bargaining. The narrator hopes she can convince God she was not in her right mind; then maybe God will reconsider.

But you know it's easy for you

You got friends all over the world

You had the whole world waiting for your birth

But now I ain't got nobody

I don't know what my life's worth

In this stanza the narrator arrives at the fourth stage of her grieving: depression. She slips into a morose outlook and states that, unlike God who has “friends all over the world”, she “ain’t got nobody”. Her melancholy, almost suicidal attitude is fully revealed in the final line, “I don’t know what my life’s worth.”

I'm not gonna call on you any more

I'm sure you've got a million things to do

All I was trying to do

Was to get through to you

Get through to you

In the final stage of grieving (acceptance), the narrator relegates herself to the fact that God is probably too busy (God’s “got a million things to do”) to help her out. There is a sadness expressed in this stanza since the acceptance going on here has to do with the narrator letting go of God (“I’m not gonna call on you any more”).

Because when I die and I get up to your doors

I don't even know if you're gonna

Let me in the place

How come I gotta die

To get a chance to talk to

You face to face?

This final stanza is the real heart-cry of the song. The narrator questions whether or not God will even “let [her] in the place” or heaven. The narrator wants God to let her in since she desires to speak to God “face to face”. Though she has gone through a grieving process (both as a result of her loss and her broken relationship with God) the narrator wants to know God intimately. The climax of the song comes in the final line “how come I gotta die to get a chance to talk to you face to face?” A tension exists here between the human idea of having to wait to die and go to heaven to be with God and the more lofty idea of dying to self now as a means of knowing God now. The narrator seems to be asking why she can’t just have God on a string; a divine candy machine that dispenses predictable goodies on demand. That she has to be transformed is asking too much.