Murray Head, Alan Doggett, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice — Heaven On Their Minds

The opening salvo of Jesus Christ Superstar — Judas's furious warning, sung by Murray Head over a churning rock riff — is broadly charting today, appearing across 85 country and platform charts after a stretch of dormancy. Head recorded the track for the 1970 concept album that preceded the stage show, which Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice conceived as a sung-through rock opera built around Judas's disillusionment rather than the passion narrative itself. The piece later anchored Norman Jewison's 1973 film adaptation and has been reworked by every subsequent cast, from the 1996 London revival to the 2021 remaster now in streaming rotation. Its blues-rock urgency has kept it durable across five decades of restagings — the rare overture that reads as a protest song.