Trial Before Pilate Lyrics – Jesus Christ Superstar
Trial Before Pilate Lyrics
And so the king is once again my guest.
And why is this? Was Herod unimpressed?
CAIAPHAS
We turn to Rome to sentence Nazareth.
We have no law to put a man to death.
We need him crucified.
It's all you have to do.
We need him crucified.
It's all you have to do.
PILATE
Talk to me Jesus Christ.
You have been brought here
Manacled, beaten by your own people.
Do you have the first idea why you deserve it?
Listen King of the Jews,
Where is your kingdom?
Look at me. Am I a Jew?
JESUS
I have no kingdom in this world.
I'm through.
There may be a kingdom for me somewhere.
If you only knew.
PILATE
Then you are a king?
JESUS
It's you that say I am.
I look for truth and find that I get damned.
PILATE
But what is truth?
Is truth a changing law?
We both have truths.
Are mine the same as yours?
MOB
Crucify him! Crucify him!
PILATE
What do you mean?
You'd crucify your king?
MOB
We have no king but Caesar!
PILATE
He's done no wrong.
No, not the slightest thing.
MOB
We have no king but Caesar!
Crucify him!
PILATE
What is this new respect for Caesar?
'Till now this has been noticeably lacking.
Who is this Jesus? Why is he different?
You choose Messiahs by the sackfull.
MOB
We need him crucified,
It's all you have to do.
We need him crucified,
It's all you have to do.
PILATE
Talk to me, Jesus Christ.
Look at your Jesus Christ.
I'll agree he's mad.
Ought to be locked up,
But that is not a reason to destroy him.
He's a sad little man.
Not a King or God.
Not a thief,
I need a crime!
MOB
Crucify him!
PILATE
Behold a man,
Behold your shattered King.
MOB
We have no King but Caesar.
PILATE
You hypocrites,
You hate us more than him.
MOB
We have no King but Caesar,
Crucify him!
PILATE
I see no reason. I find no evil.
This man is harmless, so why does he upset you?
He's just misguided, thinks he's important,
But to keep you vultures happy I shall flog him.
MOB
Crucify him! Crucify him!
(Thirty-nine lashes, Pilate counts)
PILATE
Where are you from Jesus?
What do you want Jesus?
Tell me.
You've got to be careful.
You could be dead soon,
Could well be.
Why do you not speak when
I hold your life in my hands?
How can you stay quiet?
I don't believe you understand.
JESUS
You have nothing in your hands.
Any power you have, comes to you from far beyond.
Everything is fixed, and you can't change it.
PILATE
You're a fool Jesus Christ.
How can I help you?
MOB
Pilate, Crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You have a duty
To keep the peace, so crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You'll be demoted.
You'll be deported. Crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You have a duty
To keep the peace, so crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You'll be demoted.
You'll be deported. Crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You have a duty
To keep the peace, so crucify him!
Remember Caesar.
You'll be demoted.
You'll be deported. Crucify him!
PILATE
Don't let me stop your great self-destruction.
Die if you want to, you misguided martyr.
I wash my hands of your demolition.
Die if you want to you innocent puppet!
Song Overview

Personal Review
This is the musical’s courtroom knot: philosophy versus crowd noise. The Trial Before Pilate lyrics stage a duel between an exhausted Jesus and a conflicted Roman governor, while the mob chants a single verdict until it becomes policy. Snapshot of the plot - Pilate tries to avoid bloodshed, the crowd refuses to blink, and fate hardens into sentence.
Song Meaning and Annotations

Stylistically this is grimy rock-opera: barbed guitars and martial drums under a choral chant that swells like a stadium crowd. The rhythm is an unyielding 4/4, but the groove shifts between terse spoken-sung lines (Pilate) and incendiary call-and-response (the mob). Across it all, the arrangement keeps a courtroom pulse and a parade beat at once - the sound of order threatening to become spectacle.
The emotional arc is a sinkhole. It opens with wry, almost bored authority - Pilate’s sarcasm bites - then tilts into civic panic as the mob hammers “Crucify him!” The whipping count is the song’s hardest turn: ritualized violence rendered as arithmetic. The number is not random; it nods to the limit in Deuteronomy that capped lashes at forty, a limit later interpreted as “forty less one.”
“But what is truth?” Pilate asks, and the line lands like a thesis statement for the whole rock opera - moral relativism in a tin helmet. The music breaks just enough to let the question hang, then the chant resumes, louder. Philosophy gets drowned out by policy.
Production-wise, the concept album cast brought together rock players from Joe Cocker’s Grease Band and theatre singers; Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) voiced Jesus, with Barry Dennen as Pilate, and Victor Brox as Caiaphas. That hybrid DNA - rock grit plus theatre precision - is exactly what makes this scene cut.
The number’s dramatic context tightens in the film and later TV stagings. In the 1973 movie soundtrack, Barry Dennen’s Pilate clocks the full “Thirty-nine Lashes” at roughly seven minutes of escalating dread. The 2018 Live in Concert staging put Ben Daniels opposite John Legend, winning multiple Emmys for the broadcast and helping complete EGOTs for Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, and John Legend - a rare instance of a 1970 rock-opera scene echoing through modern awards night.
“But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? / We both have truths - are mine the same as yours?”
Annotation: Pilate reduces theology to civics and then to semantics. It’s chilling because he isn’t a moustache-twirling villain; he’s managerial - the kind who keeps the peace by letting the crowd choose the punishment.
“We have no king but Caesar!”
Annotation: the mob’s chant reframes a theological dispute as treason-avoidance; their loyalty is less belief than survival. The chorus becomes percussion; words become cudgels.
“Thirty-nine Lashes”
Annotation: the count is theatre and law at once - the music’s downbeats mark each stroke, and the number traces back to the forty-stripe maximum in Deuteronomy. The “minus one” is bureaucratic caution dressed as mercy.
Creation history
When backing for a stage show stalled, Rice and Lloyd Webber dropped the concept album first: UK on October 16, 1970; US on October 27, 1970. It went gold in weeks and ultimately topped the Billboard album chart twice in 1971, finishing as the year’s number one album in the US. That momentum propelled Broadway, a film, and the long shadow this scene still casts.
Verse Highlights

Pilate’s opening
Sardonic, tight phrasing; the band sits back. He sounds like a magistrate tired of paperwork and uprisings. The vocal line stays near speech, heightening the sudden leaps into lyricism on “truth.”
The mob refrain
Minimal text, maximal force. Stacked voices and straight-ahead drums simulate political momentum: repetition begets reality.
Interrogation duet
Jesus answers in clipped, resigned lines - “It’s you that say I am” - and the harmony thins. It’s musical negative space, the sound of choosing not to self-defend.
Thirty-nine
Counting as chorus, law as percussion. Each number lands like a snare crack; the tension is the point.
Key Facts

- Featured: Pilate - Barry Dennen; Jesus - Ian Gillan; Caiaphas - Victor Brox; ensemble chorus.
- Producer: Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber.
- Composer/Lyricists: Andrew Lloyd Webber (music), Tim Rice (lyrics).
- Release Date (concept album): October 16, 1970 (UK); October 27, 1970 (US).
- Genre: Rock opera, art rock, progressive rock.
- Instruments: guitars, bass, drums, choir, brass, strings, keyboards.
- Label: Decca/MCA (original concept album); film OST via MCA/Universal.
- Mood: procedural, relentless, heated.
- Length (film soundtrack track “Trial Before Pilate”): 6:49.
- Language: English.
- Album context: Track 20 on Jesus Christ Superstar – A Rock Opera (concept album sequence).
- Music style: straight 4/4 pulse; chant-driven chorus; speech-song verses.
- Poetic meter: conversational iambs, chant anaphora in the crowd refrains.
- Recording: Olympic Studios, London for the 1970 album.
- © Copyrights: Decca/MCA for recordings; Rice/Lloyd Webber publishing as credited on releases.
Questions and Answers
- Why does the song count “Thirty-nine Lashes”?
- The number traces to Deuteronomy’s forty-lash cap; later Jewish practice often stopped at thirty-nine to avoid exceeding the limit, so the scene turns law into rhythm.
- Who sings Pilate and Jesus on the original studio recording?
- Barry Dennen is Pilate; Ian Gillan is Jesus on the 1970 concept album.
- Is there a notable modern version of this scene?
- Yes - NBC’s 2018 Live in Concert featured Ben Daniels (Pilate) and John Legend (Jesus) in “Trial Before Pilate (Including the 39 Lashes).” The broadcast won multiple Emmys and helped complete EGOTs for Webber, Rice, and Legend.
- Did Trial Before Pilate chart as a single?
- No. The concept album itself was the hit - it topped the Billboard album chart twice in 1971 and finished as that year’s No. 1 album in the US.
- How long is the film-soundtrack version?
- Approximately 6 minutes 49 seconds on the 1973 motion picture soundtrack.
Awards and Chart Positions
The 1970 concept album that contains “Trial Before Pilate” hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 twice in 1971 and finished as Billboard’s year-end No. 1 album. Decades later, NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert earned multiple Emmy wins including Outstanding Variety Special (Live), the night that sealed EGOT status for Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, and John Legend. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
How to Sing?
Pilate (baritone/low tenor): keep it dry, clipped, and conversational. Lean on consonants; the authority is in the diction. Save the only real belt for the final lines so the anger feels earned.
Jesus (tenor): centered placement with minimal vibrato in the speechy lines; when the line climbs (“I look for truth”), open the vowels without blooming the tone too sweet.
Crowd/ensemble: straight tone, locked tempo, and ruthless dynamic control. The chant must feel inevitable, not messy - count internally, breathe as a block.
Tempo & breath: it sits in a steady mid-tempo; take fast, silent sniffs before each counted lash to keep the pulse unbroken.
Songs Exploring Themes of justice and power
“The Trial” - Pink Floyd. A grotesque show-trial where a cartoon judge devours the defendant. Same courtroom theatre, different universe: cabaret and pomp where Trial Before Pilate is stone and dust. Both pieces weaponize chorus voices - jeers versus “Crucify him!” - to show how crowds can be deputized into punishment.
“Hurricane” - Bob Dylan. Protest folk built like a case file. Violins slash like headlines, and each verse adds evidence or bias. If Pilate muses “what is truth,” Dylan stacks receipts; both songs expose how institutions decide outcomes long before the gavel drops.
“The Hanging Tree” - James Newton Howard feat. Jennifer Lawrence. A lullaby turned rally cry. It starts private, becomes public - like Pilate’s chamber turning into an arena. The melody is simple by design; a crowd can carry it, and that’s the point (and the danger).
Music video
Jesus Christ Superstar Lyrics: Song List
- Act 1
- Overture
- Heaven On Their Minds
- What's The Buzz
- Then We Are Decided
- Strange Thing Mystifying
- Everything's Alright
- This Jesus Must Die
- Hosanna
- Simon Zealotes
- Poor Jerusalem
- Pilate's Dream
- The Temple
- I Don't Know How To Love Him
- Damned For All Time / Blood Money
- Act 2
- The Last Supper
- Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)
- The Arrest
- Peter's Denial
- Pilate And Christ
- King Herod's Song (Try It And See)
- Could We Start Again Please?
- Judas' Death
- Trial Before Pilate
- Superstar
- The Crucifixion
- John Nineteen: Forty-One