I Predict 1990

[Image: 'I Predict 1990' Front Cover]

© 1987 Myrrh Records (Word, Inc.)
CD, CD Longbox, LP, Cassette

Sections:

Track Listing

  1. I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good (4:11)
  2. What Is The Measure Of Your Success? (4:38)
  3. Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel A Lot Better (3:25)
  4. Babylon (4:48)
  5. Jim Morrison's Grave (4:29)
  6. Svengali (4:28)
  7. Jung And The Restless (4:32)
  8. Innocence Lost (5:02)
  9. A Principled Man (3:26)
  10. Harder To Believe Than Not To (4:31)

About The Album

From Steve Taylor: Rock 'n Role Model, CCM Magazine, January 1988:

"The title came when I was flipping through the TV channels and, on one of the Christian stations, a guy was hawking a book called, I think, I Predict 1986, where he was saying what God had revealed to him about what was going to happen. And the idea struck me as being so absurd that I thought it was a worthily absurd title for a record.

"It's not a concept record, but when we were listening back to 'I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good,' my wife Debbie pointed out the line in the song where the preacher on the corner cries, 'The end doesn't justify the means any time' and said that if there's a theme to the record, that's it. That there's such a thing as right and wrong and that things can't be justified because they'll protect interests--be they American interests or personal interests--in the long run. That there are things higher than just expedience."

"I Blew Up the Clinic" starts the record off hilariously as the most outright example of Taylor's outraged outrageousness. It's also something of an anomaly on this, a far more sober record overall than he's made before. "It wasn't really a conscious effort to do less satire," he says. "I definitely didn't want to do any more 'Lifeboat'-type songs that were like comedy sketches set to music. But beyond that, I think it was just time to write some things that dug a little deeper and satire that had a sharper focus and more bite to it.

"The thing that worried me more was having songs that were so topical that they wouldn't be relevant in 10 years--and that's certainly been the case with a few of them in the past. If you write a song that's so specifically about something current that it doesn't really have a lot of other application..."

From Ever Unpredictable, Notebored, January/February 1988:

... Taylor sees I Predict 1990 as a logical progression from the last record. He claims to have added a few more songs that are positive but he says, "It is not a dramatic move toward more uplifting songs in general."

From Steve Taylor: This Joker's Wild!, Gospel Music Today, January/February/March 1988:

It wasn't really intentional at first, but we were listening to a playback of "I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good" and there's a line in the song that says 'Preacher on the corner, calling it a crime, says the end don't justify the means anytime.' And my wife, Debbie, said to me, 'You know, if there is one theme running through the whole album, it's that the end doesn't justify the means.' Expediency is not what Jesus had in mind for His followers. Right now, there's a lot of Christians that are going along with the idea that it's okay to do things that are morally questionable as long as the end result is good or as long as we're protecting American interests or personal interests. We've certainly seen that theory espoused in things these days, like the Iran Contra hearings. Yet, if our Jesus can say without a doubt that there is a right and a wrong, then that philosophy is the way to go.