Personal Jesus is a song by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 28 August 1989 as the lead single from their seventh album, Violator (1990). It reached No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was their first to make the US Top 40 since 1984’s “People Are People”, and was their first gold-certified single in the US (quickly followed by its successor, “Enjoy the Silence”).
In Germany, “Personal Jesus” is one of the band’s longest-charting songs, staying on the singles chart for 23 weeks.
In 2004, “Personal Jesus” was ranked No. 368 in Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and in September 2006 it was voted as one of the “100 Greatest Songs Ever” in Q magazine.
“Personal Jesus” was rereleased as a single on 30 May 2011 for the Depeche Mode remix album Remixes 2: 81–11, with the leading remix by the production team Stargate.
The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Johnny Cash, Marilyn Manson and Sammy Hagar. “I was never a huge fan of synth music in the eighties,” Hagar remarked, “but that song has a badass groove and a cool lyric.”
As well as a video for Everything counts, there were also photographs from this concert.