Pope Francis to Release Rock Album, Shares First Song "Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!"

Popes have long dabbled in music: Pope Benedict XVI’s voice was featured on 2009′s Music From The Vatican: Alma Mater, and Pope John Paul II appeared on albums like 1999′s Abba Pater. Pope Francis, however, may be the first pope to rock. Today, His Holiness released “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!”, a prog-inflected song that features an address he made in English, as well as his singing voice. Listen to it above, via Rolling Stone.

“Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!” is part of Wake Up!, an 11-song album that features Francis speaking in English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The album will be released on November 27, and you can find the track list below. Part of the proceeds from sales will go to a support fund for refugees. 

“For many years, I’ve been the producer and the artistic director of albums by the Pope. I had the honor to work with John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis,” Don Giulio Neroni, who produced Wake Up!, told Rolling Stone. “As in the past, for this album too, I tried to be strongly faithful to the pastoral and personality of Pope Francis: the Pope of dialogue, open doors, hospitality. For this reason, the voice of Pope Francis in Wake Up! dialogues music. And contemporary music (rock, pop, Latin etc.) dialogues with the Christian tradition of sacred hymns.”  

Wake Up!

01 Annuntio Vobis Gadium Mangum
02 Salve Regina
03 Laudato Sie…
04 Poe Que’ Sufren Los Ninos
05 Non Lasciatevi Rubare La Speranza!
06 La Iglesia No Puede Ser Una Ong!
07 Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!
08 La Fa Es Entera, No Se Licua!
09 Pace! Fratelli!
10 Per La Famiglia
11 Fazei O Que Ele Vos Disser

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