DEACON BLUE - PEOPLE COME FIRST
14/05/2025
The near graffiti protest of the visuals for the video of Deacon Blue’s brand new single lights up the the compassionate punch of the prophetic message in the song.
In a new world that is all about me and us and seems very quickly dismissive of them, here’s a song remind us of something old fashioned, woke and so much better - People Come First.
It’s a daring title, layered in meaning. In a messy foundation of a world that is dark and confusing both in the personal and in the wider society, this is a pop rock declaration to put people first again.
Give me your tired folk
Yearning to breathe
Your huddled masses
Longing for freedom
Obviously it echoes Emma Lazarus’s poem The New Colossus pinned in bronze to the Statue Of Liberty, that old woke imagining of a welcoming America tragically trampled underneath a Trumpian selfishness for our own profits and wealth without sharing or caring.
I have a little smile on my face as I consider a band without the right to be still going 38 years after I fell in love with their debut album Raintown, still climbing charts and declaring relevant mission statements like this across the airwaves.
For me it rings true about the Church too. I have lived and worked in the Church for as long as Deacon Blue have been making records and I often see things other than people becoming the priority.
Doctrine, denomination, legalism, pietism all take their place as the drive in people’s lives and work. Jesus did not become a human, live among us and die on a cross over doctrinal meticulously worked out or for laws to be kept absolutely.
The Father sent the son for the redemption of people and the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church for the healing of people and for those people to become themselves healers of people.
We are not called to wealth but to people, we are not sent to doctrinal purity but to people, we are not asked to be law keeping perfect but to people.
As God looks around he sings People Come First. His compassion and servant heart longs to reach out to the huddled masses, tired, confused and rejected. His humility puts people above himself. If God did rise every morning he’d open the curtains of the Universe and cry - People Come First. It is amazing grace.