70. Oliver, Good Morning Starshine
The morning star is not a star at all, but our neighbor Venus. In ancient times, it was referred to as the “light-bringer,” which in Greek is Phosphoros, and in Latin is, interestingly, Lucifer. How did the name of one of the most beautiful celestial entities come to mean the devil? It goes back to ancient, pre-Christian mythology, and the fact that the morning star eclipses all other stars but never reaches the zenith of the sky. Canaanites viewed this as a story of a lesser god reaching for the throne of heaven and, failing, descending to rule the underworld.
Oliver, "Good Morning Starshine," 1969. Written by Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni & James Rado for the musical Hair, 1967.
This post is part of Music 100, a love letter to songs. 100 words on 100 songs in 100 days, running from Groundhog Day through early June, 2025. Inspired by my MFAH 100 project.
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This was "en-lightning"! Thank you...loved the music....
Not to be overly technical, but it also arose when St. Jerome translated the Hebrew scriptures into Latin, he translated from the original Hebrew, not the Greek LXX version commonly in use by many Jews of the Diaspora who had lost the use of the Hebrew language. Isaiah chapters 13 and 14 are a prophecy against Assyria and Babylon which was part of the Assyrian empire at the time of Isaiah. Isaiah equates the fall of the king of Babylon to the fall of an angel named "helel ben sahar" or light-bringer, son of the morning star (Venus). Jerome translated "helel" as "lucifer" or light bringer which was already in use as the name of Venus in Latin and the name stuck as a name of the devil. That coupled with Jesus' quote in Luke's gospel "I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" has led to much extra-Biblical lore about Satan as one of the brightest of the angels before his/her fall.