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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I keep waiting for things to settle down, for life to quit throwing curve balls, to offer me a season without change. And although this has been one of the most transitional stages of my life, I have discovered that life itself is a transition. The transition has no end. It is always changing. I am learning that one of the few things I really have is the ability to choose what matters.
I tend to write songs in which I coach myself through the process I’m going through. In this case, it is learning to slow down and “wait” through a season that has felt unexpected, confusing, and has left me wondering how it will turn out. My career as an artist has always felt uneasy-- never the posh life-style that many musicians have been labeled with. I struggle every day simply to remain me, to continue creatively thriving as me, to make a living being me. I’ve been worn out by the struggle, and this songs are telling me that there is plenty of time for me to slow down if I wait. Along the road, if am diligent to take the time, I will learn to lean into the things that are close to my heart.
This song is what gave birth to the entire 3 album Travel series. Travel is a subject that seems to open up all sorts of songs about the long journey. Although many of my songs have been about home, I have come to realize that this life here is, in essence, varying spaces that we travel through. Hence came the 3 EP’s releasing every 4 months this year featuring air travel, sea travel, and land travel.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The verses in the song are about the world of spiritual forces around us. The chorus is a response to that. Deciding to listen to and be influenced by the positive instead of the negative. The idea of “singing out” is not so much a light “singing in the rain” kind of idea. But more of the brave-heart war song that is sung before battle. It is mustering up the strength to believe and deciding to move forward without fear or hesitation.
Monday, May 11, 2009
This song is about the messiness of life. Yet, when we step back we find that it is the beautiful mosaic that we are a part of. We go through life learning how to see this. We grow, we learn. The weight of eternity is pulling us forward. The closer we get, the more vivid the colors of life become. What has seemed like chaos becomes a work of art.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Closing your eyes takes trust. Without trust comes fear. Closing your eyes takes a certain level of peace. In this song I am telling myself to trust, to lean into love when the natural tendency is to protect myself. This is a song in which I imagine God asking me to trust in the midst of uncertainty. “Trust will be your light tonight, so close your eyes this time.” Sometimes I have to tell myself what I believe before I really believe it. It’s the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. Its easy to say, “I trust you” but another thing entirely to follow someone into the dark. I am beginning to experience God as a person. And in that, trust must be a foundation.
Monday, May 11, 2009
This song takes me to the depths of honesty that I don’t often like to live in. In that place are the deeper human longings that have only been met in part. I have met God in a lot of ways. But I have found myself wishing for what I don’t have…something tangible, something tactile, something I can see, hear, feel, and taste. This is the struggle and tension of physical meeting spiritual. It is the unmet part of my understanding of God that continues to drive my heart closer to the Divine.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Adonai. Father. Halleluiah. They are words that are both familiar and mysterious to me. This song isn’t much of an exposition or story of any sense. It is both music and words that represent the hope and love that finds me in the Father. The emotion in this song is that glimpse of beauty that I know awaits me in fullness someday. Until then, it is song-writing and music making to paint pictures of that place in my soul, the place where God is love.
I’ve gotten a lot of super cool albums from friends and artist working on an independent level (no record label). I’ve admired the time they put into it. Sometimes hand-making or hand-sowing their own CD jackets and recording the album on their own. There’s an innocence and purity to indie CD’s that you don’t often have on record labels. Shouldn’t it be possible to have both? I’ve been determined that it is. So my record label (Credential EMI/CMG) and I discussed the idea of a self-produced series, and off we went. Producing it was the first step. Mixing it myself was another. Then, just to take it over the top, I decided to take on the artwork as well. I took all the photos and my wife painted the gouache cover art from the reference photos in an art nouveau style. All the original photos were used in the album artwork. My wife and I are teaming up to do all 3 albums in a row. We’ve already done the photo-shoot for the next album and will begin recording next month. Needless to say, it’s a season requiring an exhausting amount of creativity. But something worth doing.
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