I didn’t always buy Johnny Cash’s American Recordings though there were wonderful exceptions like Hurt. The same is true here.

He (or more likely Rick Rubin) took Basildon boys Depeche Mode’s electropop-with-guitars and stripped it back to the essentials.

The acoustic guitar is played by John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The barrelhouse piano, slightly submerged in the mix, is by Billy Preston.

Which leaves the space for Cash, his voice cracking with age, to take on Martin Gore’s lyric and invest it with all his decades of world-weary experience.

“It’s a very fine, fine evangelical song, probably the most evangelical gospel song I ever recorded, although I don’t know if the writer meant it to be that, but that’s what it is,” said Cash of his recording.

“It’s where you find your comfort, your counsel, your shoulder to lean on, your hand to hold on to your Personal Jesus.”

Songwriter Martin Gore actually wrote the song about Priscilla Presley and how she put Elvis on a pedestal.

It’s one of those few cover versions that matches – and arguably surpasses – the original.