Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. Sing to him a new song; play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
When Peter Banks and I wrote our book ‘The Secret Chord’ we took the title phrase from the song “Hallelujah” which is now one of the most-performed rock songs in history. Leonard Cohen's song ‘Hallelujah’ makes the claim that the Biblical King David had found a secret chord which, when played, pleased even God himself.
The opening words to Cohen's song are extrapolated from the account in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 of how King Saul asked for a skillful musician to be found so they could come and play to soothe Saul's troubled soul. It is clear that David was both a competent musician and also a prolific composer. According to the Scriptures, he would go on to curate and compose many of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible which survive in multiple translations as part of religious worship today. What Cohen surmises is that whatever David played, or, most likely, improvised, would have also pleased the Lord and the children of Israel's God, as well as calming down King Saul.
Cohen's romantic hypothesis is that David had actually stumbled across and therefore deliberately employed a particular chord that has this mysterious power. A chord is a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. Arthur Sullivan in a song called ‘The Lost Chord’ wrote: ‘It seemed the harmonious echo / From our discordant life. / It linked all perplexèd meanings / Into one perfect peace.’
Music is a performance in which harmonies echoing from our discordant lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. Music, in performance, is an unrepeatable moment in in which all things come together enabling us to feel God's pleasure. In this sense the Secret Chord, about which Cohen writes, is indeed pleasing to the Lord.
Peter Banks remembers this occurring for him on 15th September 2001 when American conductor Leonard Slatkin led the BBC Orchestra in a dramatic rendition of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings at the BBC Proms. This was a change added to the usual program of jingoistic ditties that is regularly played at the Last Night of The Proms. Proximity to the tragedy of 9/11 helped to make it spine tingling for those present in the Royal Albert Hall at the time, as well as those viewing on TV. This was not an aggressive response to 9/11, but a truly spiritual one, with everyone experiencing something of God through the pain and suffering. There was a coming together of music and context which created a performance that took on greater significance after the actual event as time passed and as its cache built through word of mouth.
As a result of this linking of the echoes from our discordant lives, Cohen’s Hallelujah includes both the sacred and the sinful – the holy and the broken Hallelujah. It doesn’t matter which you heard, he suggests, because a blaze of light is found in every word and he will be able to stand before God – the Lord of Song – presumably at the Last Judgement and simply sing Hallelujah itself because both the holy and the broken are encapsulated in the one word and one chord.
This is to say that distinctions between sacred and secular are false divides as all of life and all music is holy. Cohen once said, 'This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by "Hallelujah".'
That’s also why Arthur Sullivan could write:
‘I struck one chord of music, Like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight, Like the close of an angel's psalm, And it lay on my fevered spirit With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow, Like love overcoming strife; It seemed the harmonious echo From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexèd meanings Into one perfect peace, And trembled away into silence As if it were loth to cease.’
Ultimately, music is a symbol of the means by which God created, and the musician is a partner with God in the creative process. Therefore, we can pray, with the singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, to be a little of God’s creative breath as it moves over the waters of chaos to bring all things into being. In other words, to see and hear life as God sees and hears it and to articulate something of that unitive vision. Amen.
"There are so many divisions in society, divisions between political parties, religious traditions and social groups. This is perfectly natural, of course. From birth, we experience a pre-existing matrix of beliefs and practices that differentiate us from others.
We discover early on that we have been given a mantle, that we are part of a tribe, one with a rich history, deep hopes and a variety of fears. The world is full of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Some of these divisions have deep histories that span multiple generations, while others are very new. Some are serious and others border on the ridiculous. But, at their most extreme, these divisions can result in local and global conflicts."
Rollins argues that to leave these divisions behind we need to transcend our given identities: "Whether we are Conservative or Labour, rich or poor, male or female, these various bearers of our identification do not fully contain or constrain us and all too often prevent us from truly experiencing our own humanity."
He suggests that that is what St Paul teaches when he writes to the Galatians saying, "there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3. 28).
"Here Paul mentions six distinct tribal identities that were ubiquitous in his time; six identities that can be further subdivided into three, namely the religious (Jew and Gentile), the political (slave and free) and the biological (male and female).
It was not that these different groupings were totally isolated from each other, but the way that each of these groups related to the others was clearly defined and carefully regulated.
These distinctions were justified by the authorities either in terms of a natural law or a divine plan; thus the difference in roles and responsibilities were non-negotiable and were required to maintain social stability."
In Jesus’ ministry though "we find a multitude of references to one who challenged the divisions that were seen as sacred, divisions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, and slave and free. Jesus spoke to tax collectors, engaged with Samaritans and treated women as equals in a world where these were outrageous acts." In our Gospel reading today (Mark 9.38-41) we see Jesus refusing to create an ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ division in relation the person casting out demons in Jesus’ name while not being one of Jesus’ disciples. Instead of creating a division with that person as his disciples wanted, he says that “Whoever is not against us is for us.”
More than this, in the incarnation we are presented with a picture of God coming down to earth as Jesus and being progressively stripped of all his prior identity as God’s Son. In Philippians 2 we read that he "made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2.6-8).
Rollins writes that, "This is called kenosis and describes the act of self-emptying. This is most vividly expressed in the crucifixion, where we see Christ occupying the place of the complete outsider, embracing the life of one who is excluded from the political system, the religious community, and the cultural network."
To do this is to cut through the divisions which exist in society because of our different tribal identities. This is what Jesus means when he says elsewhere he brings a sword into the world. He cuts into "the very heart of all tribal allegiances, bringing unity to what was previously divided":
"There is no change biologically (male or female), religiously (Jew or Greek) or politically (slave or free). Yet nothing remains the same, for these identities are now drained of their operative power and no longer hold us in the way that they once did. These identities no longer need to separate us from each other."
Our "concrete identity continues to exist, but it is now held differently and does not dictate the scope and limitations of one’s being. The singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn puts this wonderfully well in a song called ‘Us All’, which ends with a prayer that is appropriate to our reading and reflection today:
“Here we are, faced with choice / Shutters and walls or open embrace / Like it or not, the human race / Is us all
History is what it is / Scars we inflict on each other don't die / But slowly soak into the DNA / Of us all
I pray we not fear to love / I pray we be free of judgement and shame / Open the vein, let kindness rain / O'er us all”
At the last Unveiled evening I gave a lecture 'Tryin’ to throw your arms around the world' in which I talked about the spirituality of the rock band U2. The talk set out the main characteristics of U2’s spirituality, examines their roots, makes links between their spirituality and themes in contemporary theology and, considers three reasons why U2’s spirituality has connected with popular culture.
To read 'Tryin' to throw your arms around the world' click here - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
My co-authored book The Secret Chord explored aspects of a similar interplay between faith and music (and the Arts, more broadly). Posts related to the themes of The Secret Chord can be found here.
Rock ‘n’ Roll merged blues (with its spiritual strand) and Country music (tapping its white gospel) while Soul music adapted much of its sound and content from Black Gospel. For both, their gestures and movements were adopted from Pentecostalism. Some, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Cooke, felt guilt at secularising Gospel while others, like Johnny Cash, arrived at a hard earned integration of faith and music. All experienced opposition from a Church angry at its songs and influence being appropriated for secular ends. This opposition fed a narrative that, on both sides, equated rock and pop with hedonism and rebellion. The born again Cliff Richard was often perceived (both positively and negatively) as the only alternative. Within this context the Biblical language and imagery of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison was largely overlooked, although Dylan spoke eloquently about the influence of scripture within the tradition of American music on which he drew.
I've created a playlist on Spotify called 'Closer to the light'. 'Closer To The Light' is a song by Bruce Cockburn that he said "was written addressed to the late Mark Heard ... He was a fantastic songwriter. His death sent a shockwave through our whole community, and what that did in me was that song." As a result, 'Closer to the Light' is a song that straddles both CCM and mainstream artists suggesting that both can bring us closer to the light. Similarly, this playlist, which includes blues, choral, classical, country, folk, gospel, jazz, pop, rap, rock, and soul music, aims to straddle music from both CCM and the mainstream which also brings us closer to the light.
This is the music, in no particular order, that I've most enjoyed listening to in 2023:
Bruce Cockburn - O Sun O Moon: "O Sun O Moon is a surprise turn away from political and social satire or commentary to a more personal, and also seemingly more straightforward, blues and folk based music, where texture and arrangement are the focus. It’s subtle, enticing music that isn’t afraid to remain stripped back but also welcomes clarinet, upright bass, accordion, glockenspiel, saxophones and marimba into the mix as and when required. Cockburn sounds relaxed and slightly gruff vocally throughout, quiet and contemplative, whilst the album sounds as though it was recorded next door. It’s warm and enticing, with love – be that romantic, spiritual or sexual – often posed as not only the answer but a command from above."
Pissabed Prophet - Pissabed Prophet: "This album mixes the colourful and riotously explosive Britpop psychedelic influences of the Small Faces and Beatles with the melodiousness and carefully-observed lyrics of the Kinks... Like a prophet, Simpkins is reporting back from within the bell jar of cancer treatment to share a renewed zest for life as he refuses to mourn a dream and resolves to let life and love flow... Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired and profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse and inspire." Equally good is Apple, the EP that followed.
Corinne Baily Rae - Black Rainbows: "Bailey Rae takes us on a journey from the rock hewn churches of Ethiopia, to the journeys of Black Pioneers Westward, from Miss New York Transit 1957, to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs' loophole, in order to explore Black femininity, Spell Work, Inner Space/Outer Space, time collapse and ancestors, the erasure of Black childhood and music as a vessel for transcendence. Yet, 'Before the Throne of the Invisible God' is where her energised and empathetic, wracked and anguished, celebratory and creative journey through Black history and the continuing legacy of racism finds its resolution. In a place not of simple submission, but of living the questions raised by a capacious faith where responses to prayer are both the actions of life and also the explorations found on this album."
Dave Gaham & Soulsavers - Angels & Demons: "With Depeche Mode, frontman Dave Gahan‘s haunting baritone often provides the human touch within songwriter Martin Gore’s icy electronic tableaus. With Soulsavers — a British production duo known for its gospel-inflected, organic sound — the singer has room to grow into something more. Angels & Ghosts is the second album Gahan has recorded with the group, after 2012’s dark, bluesy The Light the Dead See. Prior to that, the producers worked with a who’s who of underground heroes — husky-voiced grunge vet Mark Lanegan, vocal contortionist Mike Patton and sensitive folk singer Will Oldham, among others — but they stumbled on a unique foil with the Depeche Mode singer. And while The Light the Dead See was very much a transitional record, this album is where Soulsavers and Gahan hit their stride."
J Lind - The Land of Canaan: "J Lind’s sophomore album, "The Land of Canaan" (2021), is the next chapter in an increasingly deep and diverse body of work. The production conjures other-worldly soundscapes reminiscent of Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno while the thoughtful lyric draws on those of Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, and Dawes. Laced with religious allegory and existential unrest, Lind’s second album grapples with the destabilizing effect of our ever-shifting values and the ephemeral nature of our private promised lands."
The Mercy Seat - The Mercy Seat: "Truly, the whole band is amazing and shines with virtuosity. Bassist Patrice Moran features very prominently here, and her lines really help to preserve the gospel tone of the record. Gano and drummer Fernando Menendez push the music much more into the Dead Kennedys or Butthole Surfers end of the spectrum. Singer/bombshell Zena Von Heppinstall is the major creative force here, penning four of the songs and carrying the music with her fabulous voice. Highlights are "Don't Forget About Me," the bluesy "He Said," and the "Let the Church Roll On/I Won't Be Back" medley."
Victoria Williams & the Loose Band - Town Hall 1995: "Victoria Williams is truly one of a kind. Town Hall is a perfect introduction to her eccentric talents." "'You R Loved' is anchored by slapdash percussion, pedal steel accents and prickly piano. A mid-tempo rocker it pivots on dense harmonies and flange-y guitar. This is Vic at her most spiritual, giving herself up to a higher power exemplified by 'lines of poetry, revealing mysteries.' Insisting Jesus’ love is universal, her impassioned ardor makes believers of even the most aporetic."
Mary Gauthier - Mercy Now: "Darkness. Lightness. Adulthood. Youth. Knowledge. Ignorance. Despair. Redemption. All reside in Mercy Now. As the last line quivers from Mary Gauthier’s pursed lips,'Every single one of us could use some mercy now', the listener is exposed to an emotion the artist has painstakingly painted into every note and vocal. Humility….something else we could us now. Thank you, Mary."
Ruthie Foster - Healing Time: "an album that gives off an overwhelming feeling of love and freedom. Foster has one of the best voices in American music today and she uses it as a healing tonic for our struggling world. Fans have always found healing qualities in Ruthie’s music but this new song cycle operates on a fresh, higher level. Her tones, lyrics, and ideas seem designed to comfort all of the displaced souls of the last few years. In many ways, this is the record that many of us need to hear right now. If you are dragging through endless lost and broken days, spin this and let Ruthie lead you to the light."
Bob Dylan - Fragments: "... seems to have been jilted by all that he once saw as his lover; the poetry and the musical backdrop are of a man at the very end of his tether. And yet it is not dark yet and Dylan still sees glimpses, tiny and all as they are... there are still inklings of hope and indeed maybe the candle of the Born Again late 70s and early 80s still flickers - I know the mercy of God must be near (Standing In The Doorway)- But I know that God is my shield/ and he won't lead me astray(Til I Fell In Love With You)... If faith kicks in as a refuge in times of trouble perhaps this is a more truely Biblical work than saved."
My co-authored book ‘The Secret Chord’ is an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. Order a copy from here.
Next week's Discover & explore service is on Monday 16 January at 1.10pm when Revd Sally Muggeridge, together with the Choral Scholars, will explore architecture and the achievements of Sir Christopher Wren.
In today's service I gave the following reflection (which draws on my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'):
‘John Dunstaple … was an English composer of polyphonic
music of the late medieval era and early Renaissance periods. He was one of the
most famous composers active in the early 15th century, a near-contemporary of
Leonel Power, and was widely influential, not only in England but on the
continent, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School.’
‘He died on Christmas Eve 1453, as recorded in his
epitaph,’ which was here in the church of St Stephen Walbrook in London (until
it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666). ‘This was also his burial place.
The epitaph – stating that he had "secret knowledge of the stars" –
had been recorded in the early 17th century, and was reinstated in the church
in 1904.’
That new memorial is by the London Section of the
Incorporated Society of Musicians and ‘consists of a Latin inscription above,
with simple pilasters and surround, matched with a charming 1900s lunette with
three angels playing musical instruments, seated on clouds with little stars
behind, at the top, and a wreath and fronds below.’ Its colourful painting on
mosaic backing is in an excellent example of the Arts and Crafts style.
‘Dunstaple's influence on the continent's musical
vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his
(attributable) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard
before in music of the Burgundian School: la contenance angloise ("the
English countenance"), a term used by the poet Martin le Franc.’ This was probably ‘a reference to Dunstaple's
stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony, along with a liking for the
interval of the third.’
Harmonies, and the place of chords as a basis of harmony,
give us a significant clue to understanding the power of music. Leonard Cohen's
song ‘Hallelujah’ makes the claim that the Biblical King David had found a
secret chord which, when played, pleased even God himself. The opening words to
Cohen's song are extrapolated from the account in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 of how
King Saul asked for a skillful musician to be found so they could come and play
to soothe Saul's troubled soul. It is clear that David was both a competent
musician and also a prolific composer. According to the Scriptures, he would go
on to curate and compose many of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible which
survive in multiple translations as part of religious worship today. What Cohen
surmises is that whatever David played, or, most likely, improvised, would have
also pleased the Lord and the children of Israel's God, as well as calming down
King Saul.
Cohen's romantic hypothesis is that David had actually
stumbled across and therefore deliberately employed a particular chord that has
this mysterious power. A chord is a group of (typically
three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. Arthur Sullivan
in a song called ‘The Lost Chord’ wrote: ‘It seemed the harmonious echo / From
our discordant life. / It linked all perplexèd meanings / Into one perfect
peace.’ Music is a performance in which harmonies echoing from our discordant
lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. Music, in
performance, is an unrepeatable moment in in which all things come together
enabling us to feel God's pleasure. In this sense the Secret Chord, about which
Leonard Cohen writes, is indeed pleasing to the Lord.
As a result of this linking of the echoes from our
discordant lives, Cohen’s Hallelujah includes both the sacred and the sinful –
the holy and the broken Hallelujah. It doesn’t matter which you heard, he
suggests, because a blaze of light is found in every word and he will be able
to stand before God – the Lord of Song – presumably at the Last Judgement and
simply sing Hallelujah itself because both the holy and the broken are
encapsulated in the one word and one chord.
This is to say that distinctions between sacred and
secular are false divides as all of life and all music is holy. As David Adam
has stated: 'We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be
discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the
heart of God.’ Dunstaple, too, provides us with an example of this as, although
known primarily a composer of sacred music, is also believed to have written
secular music, although no songs in the vernacular can be attributed to him
with any degree of certainty.
Ultimately, music is a symbol of the means by which God
created, and the musician is a partner with God in the creative process.
Therefore we can pray, with the singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn to be a little of
God’s creative breath as it moves over the waters of chaos to bring all things
into being. In other words, to see and hear life as God sees and hears it and
to articulate something of that vision.
Intercessions:
Bless those who give their time and musical talent in
service to You and to Your Church, O Lord, as they sing praises to You, and
glorify Your Name. Let their music be a witness to Your majesty and love, and
remind us all of Your presence in our lives. Help them to bring the Word of God
to others through music, chant and hymn singing. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord, may the gifts of our voices and melodies of our
instruments move with the work of your Holy Spirit. May we bring light into
dark places, restore hope and vision to all who are oppressed, and well-being
and health to all those who suffer. Today Lord, we give you our worship. May it
be a platform for you, Father God, to touch our lives afresh and build your
Church. Bless our music that it might glorify your name. May the talent that
you have bestowed upon us be used only to serve you. O God, whose saints and angels delight to worship in
heaven. Lord, in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
Creator God, be ever present with your servants who seek
through art and music to perfect the praises offered by Your people on earth; and
grant to us even now a glimpse of Your beauty, and make us worthy at length to
behold it forevermore. We thank you that you hear us, our words in prayer, our
silent thoughts and pleas and each note or melody we sing and play. May our
praises today connect with heaven and unite our hearts with the sound of
eternity. Let our music be a witness to your majesty and love, and may your
presence and beauty be found in every note. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
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“It is fairly obvious that theology concerns topics beyond our full comprehension. This is illustrated in science by the way our basic picture has to change for time to time: Newton eclipsed Aristotle; quantum mechanics eclipsed Newton. Such shifts are no disaster, unless your only standard for intellectual success is completeness: having things cut and dried, sorted out. Scientific revolutions show us that the world is always beyond our grasp.
Knowledge is always partial because, frankly, the world is rather strange. Human knowledge goes only so far; behind it there is mystery. The development of science over the centuries confirms that mystery rather than denying it. The fact that science is forced to shift, again and again, demonstrates that human knowledge is constitutively incomplete.
I would give the name “faith” to this mixture of knowledge and mystery; we understand in part, as St Paul memorably put it.
Science grasps something of the truth about the world, but it is partial, and it develops. Religion and theology grasp something of the truth about the world and about God — although I would rather say that they touch God than that they grasp him. That is also partial knowledge, and it develops. As Aristotle said, one can take great joy in even a little knowledge of the highest things …
Finally, science knows only in part, just as theology knows only in part. We never fully know what we are talking about; but we can talk about it. Saying that you know in part is not a weakness; it is reason at its strongest and most mature. There is to everything a mysterious depth that eludes us.”
St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13. 9 – 12: “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
In thinking about the way scripture speaks to us about God, Stephen Fowl notes that, “When it comes to almost any topic in Christian theology, but particularly to God, we will not get off to a good start if we expect the scriptures to demonstrate a unified, cut-and-dried doctrine of God.
Viewing scripture as a receptacle of doctrines will frustrate us, because on the one hand scripture’s accounts of God are rich and variegated, but on the other these accounts are not systematically organised.”
It is more theologically fruitful, he suggests, to see that scripture recognises this diversity and theologising about how we can organise and account for this variety.
“A competent community creates space for what is unknowable about life. This is another major distinction from systems. In system life, living with mystery is considered poor planning. Systems are organized around the desire for certainty, science, and measurability. Planning, goals, blueprints are a defense against mystery. Institutions are about eliminating mystery. They are concerned with risk reduction or risk management. Taking uncertainty out of the future …
“Mystery is the answer to the unknown. In actualising its abundance, a community welcomes mystery, for that is a catalyst for creativity. Mystery gives us freedom from the burden of answers. Answers are just a restatement of the past …
Mystery is to the unknown as grief is to sorrow. What do you do when you do not know what is going to happen to you? You name it a mystery. It lets you go. It is a name for things we cannot fully know or control …
“The reason we need art in all its forms is to grasp the mystery in our lives, to recognize the mysteries around us. To get away from the pre-ordained structured way of seeing things. That is why you can listen to a song over and over. You know exactly what is coming, and it still holds an element of wonder. Which may be the primary function of art and why it is so essential to sustaining community.”
One gift that poetry, in particular, has to offer to us “is not an affirmation, but a negation of the power of any formulation.” Malcolm Guite writes that:
“Because poets push language to the limit, they are especially aware that language has its limits. Often a poet’s greatest art is to bring us to the brink of language, and gesture wordlessly beyond it.
This is especially T. S. Eliot’s art in his greatest achievement, Four Quartets. The fifth section of each quartet constantly returns to his theme of words that “strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden . . . Decay with imprecision” (“Burnt Norton”).
Even the radiant spiritual poetry of these quartets has, as it were watermarked into every page, Eliot’s explicit confession of the limitations of language: “only . . . Hints followed by guesses” (“The Dry Salvages”).
All of that is summed up in two lines from “East Coker”:
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”
If we are to pay attention to the mystery of God, there are ultimately only three responses we can make. The first is to keep exploring. Eliot writes in ‘Little Gidding,’ “We shall not cease from exploration,” and that is right because if we stop searching, if we stop questioning, then we get stuck and stagnate. We only have to look at nature to see the way in which all growth involves change; the caterpillar and butterfly being one of the most dramatic examples. Our own bodies are constantly changing throughout our lives with many of our cells being replaced as we progress through life. Growth involves constant change and if we apply this same principle to our thought life, our emotional life and our spiritual life then, as Eliot wrote, we must not cease from exploration.
The second is to express our sense of awe and wonder by kneeling in worship. Once again, T. S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ describes this well:
“If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel …”
The answer to our questions is a person, not a fact, and the person who is the answer to our questions turns out to be God himself. Because God is infinite, he cannot be fully known or understood by human beings. With God, there is always more for us to know and understand. Knowing God in this way is exploration; like diving into the ocean and always being able to dive down deeper
The third response is to give gifts. Christina Rossetti expressed the gift we should give in her carol, ‘In the bleak midwinter’:
“What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”
I began by quoting Bruce Cockburn and I’d like to end doing so again. Death is the ultimate mystery for us and here Cockburn pictures it as entering into mystery:
"There you go
Swimming deeper into mystery
Here I remain
Only seeing where you used to be
Stared at the ceiling
'Til my ears filled up with tears
Never got to know you
Suddenly you're out of here
Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light"
"Low does a rare thing in today's indie-rock milieu by refusing to survive on cynicism and worldliness alone. Whether or not one ascribes to their beliefs, the heartfelt and reverential beauty of their sound and lyrics are perfect for the holiday season. Christmas is a rich treat in a tiny package." (www.allmusic.com)
Blood Oranges in the Snow is Ohio-based folk duo Over The Rhine's third seasonal effort following 1996’s The Darkest Night Of The Year and 2006’s Snow Angels. "The trend isn’t surprising considering Over The Rhine’s husband-and-wife core, Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, so often employ the strings and bells of pristine acoustic folk—tones and styles ideally suited for holiday music. Still, it’s not all “Silent Night.” The group has dubbed their record “Reality Christmas” for exploring what they say are nuanced songs reconciling the joy and peace of Christmas-time with the dangers of a violent world." (Paste Magazine)
The Transfiguration (Mark 9. 2 - 8) ‘is a vivid portrayal of the mystery of Jesus’ being with us, with the law and the prophets, and with God, all at the same time, and an invitation for us to enter that mystery.’ Through the responses of the disciples, it ‘demonstrates how much we resist doing so, and how Jesus finds a way to be with us regardless.’ (Sam Wells, A Nazareth Manifesto)
The great modern religious artist Albert Herbert viewed ‘Bible stories … as symbols, metaphors, revealing the ‘marvellous’.’ He said that his ‘painting of Moses climbing the mountain and speaking to God in a cloud, is about the incomprehensible; God is beyond understanding, it is the revelation coming from outside the tangible world of the senses. It cannot be put better than in this Biblical image of something hidden from you by a cloud; and you going upwards with great difficulty, away from the ordinary world, and looking for something hidden from you.’
The Transfiguration is about this same sense of being taken out of our routine lives and routine experience in order that we experience something more, something beyond, something outside our current experience which is transforming and transfiguring without being fully explicable. If it is real our encounter with God must ultimately be an encounter with mystery because God is someone other, someone more than, someone beyond and outside of human comprehension and reasoning. God reveals himself through Jesus, in ways that we can see and know and understand, but, ultimately, remains someone who is more than we can fully see and know and understand.
The Transfiguration was, therefore, the disciples (and, through them, ourselves) encountering the mystery of God. We call such experiences, ‘mountain-top experiences’. We are all likely to have had them at some point in our lives. Moments when something we encounter takes our breath away and we are taken out of ourselves and become specially aware of the wonder of the world, of existence or, directly, of God. They can be times of great blessing and revelation when all seems well with the world and when we know without any uncertainty that we are God’s children. Our mountain-top experience might be a great worship service, an experience of healing, answered prayer or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or a sense of overwhelming joy or of union with every other living thing in the whole created order but, equally, cannot be restricted just to those moments.
We can go with the flow in such moments and open ourselves to experience something beyond our understanding and experience or we can respond, like the disciples, with some fear and trepidation at this disruption of our usual experience and make attempts, as Peter did in proposing tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, to get this disturbing experience back inside the limits of our control and understanding.
Whatever it is and however wonderful it is, we will inevitably, as Jesus, did come down from the mountain-top to experience suffering or in our case failure. We cannot live on the mountain-tops but those experience sustain us when we are in the valleys. Such experiences are one of the means God uses to go with us through the valleys, even the valley of the shadow of death.
Mountain-top experiences are surprises which we cannot look for or manufacture. They are gifts for us to experience, appreciate and enjoy. The singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn sums up the attitude we need when he sings:
‘There you go
Swimming deeper into mystery
Here I remain
Only seeing where you used to be
Stared at the ceiling
'Til my ears filled up with tears
Never got to know you
Suddenly you're out of here
Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness Closer to the light’
To genuinely encounter God as he is, we cannot constrain or control him but have to accept that he is beyond our understanding, more than we can fully grasp, comprehend or reason. When we are open in this way, we can go swimming deeper into mystery, we can go from mystery to mystery, from daylight into night, another step deeper into darkness, closer to the light. This is the invitation and welcome extended to us through the Transfiguration.
Cockburn's trajectory as an artist is almost the opposite, although they share many preoccupations, to that of Bob Dylan; as Cockburn begins as a nature mystic before catching the intoxicating poetry of the urban and political.
He writes:
'My songs tend to be triggered by whatever is in front of me, filtered through feeling and imagination. I went looking for humanity in all its guises. I wrote about what I found: the love, the meanness, the artists, the farmers, the juntas; the books, the slums, the palaces; the conflicts, the peace, the music. That's why I don't think of the things I write as "protest" songs. They reflect what I see and how I feel about it. The songs are not ideologically driven. They are meant not as calls to action - though if someone heard one of my songs and was inspired to help the poor or save an ecosystem, all the better - but as an attempt to share my personal response to experience with anyone who feels a resonance, or even someone who doesn't, because life is one long conversation.'
'As a songwriter newly attuned to political subject matter,' he writes that he began to question his 'unexamined notion that art must remain "pure," untainted by the political ... I began to understand that if an artist's job is to distil the human experience into something that can be shared, then the political, as much a part of that experience as God or sex or alienation, deserved to be seen as raw material. The arts contribute significantly to social movements and cultural cohesion.'
Interestingly, Cockburn rates In the Falling Dark, The Charity of Night and Breakfast in New Orleans Dinner in Timbuktu as the records with which he is most satisfied. For me, he really hits his stride with Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws (the masterpiece of his nature mysticism) and Humans (which begins his series of insights into the urban and politics). Stealing Fire and World of Wonders showcase his hard-hitting and informed political reflections, while Nothing but a Burning Light and You've never seen Everything wonderfully merge his earlier and later preoccupations.
Cockburn was dealing with spiritual themes at a time in rock and folk when such things were not fashionable or widely recognised within the work of several of the most significant artists of the day. Lou Adler, who 'dreamed up [for Dylan's Gospel by the Brothers and Sisters) the concept of matching the words and music of Bob Dylan with the majestic, booming voices he had heard in the recording studios - the vocals of the singers who came from the Baptist churches of South Los Angeles to belt out back-up for the big names,' was one of those able to see the spirituality in the songs of Bob Dylan:
'Listening to a lot of his songs, I felt there was a gospel feel to them, both spiritually and lyrically ... I think you can find something spiritual about all of Dylan's lyrics. Certainly something that goes beyond just being a pop song.'
Merry Clayton says, of recording the album, 'We took it to the church. That's how we approached it. Just like we were singing in our choir in our church.' The results, as Jessica Hundley has written, 'are wonderfully cathartic.' 'This is Dylan elevated into a sound huge and shimmering and rich - a chorus of voices lifting up his poetry ... into something close to scripture.'
That was 1969, when the Brothers and Sisters recorded a representative retrospective of Dylan's work from The Times They Are A-Changin' to Nashville Skyline by way of Another Side of Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde, TheBasement Tapes and John Wesley Harding. There are many other Dylan tracks from the same period which could be given similar treatment including 'Blowin' In The Wind,' 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,' 'When The Ship Comes In,' 'All I Really Want To Do,' 'Sign On The Cross' and 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine,' among many others.
Sid Griffin, writing on 'The Importance of The Basement Tapes,' describes in Biblical terms how the 'beat poetics' of Dylan's political and urban songs 'morphed into whimsy or Biblical-like prophecies'; 'songs derived from old sea shanties, melodic reflections about life's absudities, hard-rockin' and often hilarious fictitious character sketches, musical tributes to past heroes which bordered on pastiche, musical pastiches so authentic they bordered on being tributes, devout spirituals, C&W laments, a new take on blues balladry, and, yes, love in all its guises':
'A year earlier [1966] the singer had been in the middle of an exhausting World Tour ... And then, during a break in the touring, the singer saw a light as bright as Saul witnessed on the road to Damascus when he fell to the ground blinded. Bob Dylan, also temporarily blinded, fell to the ground from a motorcycle and when he healed he had changed his thinking almost as dramatically as Saul did. He too sought a new peace in his life for he'd found a direction home ...
Bob Dylan would now place a new emphasis on family, on his new home and its immediate community, on his personal spirit, and would view Mammon with even greater suspicion that he did before.'
Griffin notes that 'when you look at the song titles on an "Americana" chart in any trade magazine today you are seeing the Basement Tapes' musical grandchildren.'
In 1966 Dylan described the range of music and imagery which he has tapped since: 'Traditional music is based on hexagrams. It comes from legends, bibles, plagues, and it revolves around vegetables and death. ... All these songs about roses growing out of people's brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels - they're not going to die. .... I mean, you'd think that the traditional music people could gather from their songs that mystery is a fact, a traditional fact ... In that music is the only true, valid death you can feel today off a record player. ... It has to do with a purity thing. I think its meaninglessness is holy.'
He has stated clearly that: 'Those old songs are my lexicon and my prayer book. You can find all my philosophy in those old songs. Hank Williams singing 'I Saw The Light' or all the Luke The Drifter songs. That would be pretty close to my religion. The rabbis, priests, and ministers all do very well. But my belief system is more rugged and comes more from out of the old spiritual songs than from any of the established religious attempts at overcoming the devil.'
More reflections on the work of Cockburn and Dylan can be found in my co-authored book The Secret Chord.
"Since 1970, with over 30 albums and numerous awards to his credit, Bruce Cockburn has earned high praise as an exceptional songwriter and pioneering guitarist, whose career has been shaped by politics, protest, romance, and spiritual discovery. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, blues, rock, and worldbeat styles while travelling to such far-flung places as Guatemala, Mozambique, Afghanistan, and Nepal, and writing memorable songs about his ever-expanding world of wonders. Having been asked to write his memoir many times over the years, now is the moment when he will open up about his Christian convictions, his personal relationships, and the social and political activism that has both invigorated and enraged his fans over the years.
Born in 1945 in Ottawa, Ontario, Bruce Cockburn began his solo career with a self-titled album in 1970. Cockburn’s ever expanding repertoire of musical styles and skillfully crafted lyrics have been covered by such
Rated “rock’s last great obscurity” by Melody Maker Cockburn has quietly made a living as a singer/songwriter since 1970 and his self-titled debut while never going all out for fame and fortune. As literate a guitarist as he is a lyricist he fuses sparklingly complex jazz/rock rhythms with metaphor loaded lyricism, as often spoken as sung – “sometimes things don’t easily reduce to rhyming couplets”. Forty plus years of consistent, intelligent exploration of the personal, political and spiritual, often within the same song, is no mean achievement. When combined with both an honesty about his own relationship and faith frailties and a willingness to campaign with the likes of Oxfam raging against US and IMF oppression in the two-thirds world, you have to give the man respect.
Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws showcased the mysticism which, as Vox said, he seems to understand better than anyone not named Van Morrison. His Christian faith developed from an experience of God’s presence during his marriage ceremony and was given wings through the writings of C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Creation Dream opens this album and is worth quoting both as a wonderful depiction of God at his creation-work but also as a picture of what the Christian artist aims to imitate:
Centred on silence, counting on nothing,
I saw you standing on the sea.
And everything was dark except for
Sparks the wind struck from your hair.
Sparks that turned to wings around you,
Angel voices mixed with sea bird’s cries.
Fields of motion surging outwards,
Questions that contain their own replies.
You were dancing, I saw you dancing,
Throwing your arms towards the sky.
Fingers opening like flares,
Stars were shooting everywhere.
Lines of power bursting outwards
Along the channels of your song.
Mercury waves flash under your feet,
Shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn.
World of Wonders kicks off, by contrast, with the “you don’t really give a flying fuck about the people in misery” of IMF. Here Cockburn marries the energy of the music with the anger of the lyric, something he failed to do on the earlier Stealing Fire where he flirted with Dire Straits territory while unleashing the most un-Knopfler-like sentiments – “If I had a rocket launcher I’d make somebody pay” (Rocket Launcher). He hymned the absence of both God (Lily of the Midnight Sky) and his lover (See how I miss you) while celebrating the dawn of revolution (Santiago Dawn) and tropical partying (Down here tonight).
Nothing But A Burning Light was the first of two T-Bone Burnett produced albums, with Dart to the Heart being the other. Michael Been and Sam Phillips also contributed. The burning light of the album’s title is the Bible, an image taken from Blind Willie Johnson’sSoul of a Man which Cockburn covers here. Cockburn’s work is shot through by the illumination of that burning light. In a world where there are “Not many answers to be found” and where “We’re faced with mysteries profound”human love is one of the best of those mysteries (One of the Best Ones) while the very best is the redemption that “rips through the surface of time/In the cry of a tiny babe” (Cry of a Tiny Babe).
In 1992 in a song, Closer to the Light, written following the death of Mark Heard, Cockburn wrote the line - "There you go/Swimming deeper into mystery” – which seems to sum up the direction in which Cockburn’s work has been heading over the past forty plus years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the great pleasures of 2012 for me was discovering the music of Bill Fay through Life
is People.
Fay's songs are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual
imagery and insights (both whimsical and surreal bearing comparison with Syd Barrett and Nick Drake) delivered with gravity and grace. 'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is
People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of
the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which
stirs his soul. I'm currently absorbing his classic Time Of The Last Persecution; empathy in the face of apocalypse. Humility seems to run throughout his music; both in his low-key, almost hesitant and weathered delivery and in lyrics such as "The never ending happening / Of what's to be and
what has been / Just to be a part of it / Is astonishing to me" ('The Never
Ending Happening') and "I don't ask much, for myself / But for the one's I
love" ('Thank You Lord').
Following on from that discovery, here are some other stunning songwriters who, like Fay, have not achieved the attention that their work actually merits:
Michael Been, The Call's singer/songwriter, was born in Oklahoma City but migrated to California before forming The Call with Scott Musik. Sin and salvation are staples of the diet that The Call served up. Been thought that every fault in the world was within him and said that he had had "hundreds of born-again experiences" needing them because he was dead a lot of the time: "I believe in truth. Whatever is necessary for a person to experience to find the rock bottom, to know the darkness of his life, that's right. A lot of our music is confrontational, it deals with the dark side of life because that teaches us something." Red Moon and Reconciled represent the peak of The Call's work combining literate lyrics with powerful anthems and genuinely encompassing despair, ecstasy and the stages in between.
T. Bone Burnett creates ridiculous satirical morality tales - the marijuana smoking computer operator paying through the nose for free love (The Sixties), the millionaire buying culture in massive fashionable chunks (A Ridiculous Man) and the émigrés selling soft sentiment and soft porn to children (Hefner and Disney). Burnett knows though that judgements are precarious - that what we think we know and what we actually know are often in opposition - so he balances his tales on the jerky, anxious, angular rhythms of his rock 'n' country hybrid, almost like stiltwalking.
Peter Case neatly summed up the dual strands of American music when he wrote in the sleeve notes toPeter Case that he didn't know any songs about America but that these songs were about "sin and salvation". Like Bruce Springsteen, Case has an ability to speak in the voice of those people struggling for a nickel, shuffling for a dime who find themselves caught in relationships that have ensnared them. Theirs is the voice of hope deferred - to someone else (Turning Blue), and the voice of harsh experience - "You don't know it but it's plain to see/You can't tell when you're workin' for your enemy" (Workin' For The Enemy). His eye for colourful detail authenticates his character's tales and adds extra layers of meaning - "So we made love in that place out in back/The last time that we took off our clothes/We took other things and took more than that/I took off with my clothes in a sack and I froze"
Rated "rock’s last great obscurity" by Melody Maker Bruce Cockburn has quietly made a living as a singer/songwriter since 1970 and his self-titled debut while never going all out for fame and fortune. As literate a guitarist as he is a lyricist he fuses sparklingly complex jazz/rock rhythms with metaphor loaded lyricism, as often spoken as sung – "sometimes things don’t easily reduce to rhyming couplets". Forty years plus of consistent, intelligent exploration of the personal, political and spiritual, often within the same song, is no mean achievement. When combined with both an honesty about his own relationship and faith frailties and a willingness to campaign with the likes of Oxfam raging against US and IMF oppression in the two-thirds world, you have to give the man respect. In 1992 in a song, Closer to the Light, written following the death of Mark Heard, Cockburn wrote the line - "There you go/Swimming deeper into mystery" – which seemed to sum the direction in which Cockburn’s work has headed over the course of his long career.
Like Gordan Gano of the Violent Femmes, David Eugene Edwards has a preacher in the family - in Edwards case, his Nazarene preacher Grandfather. Edward's songs not only oscillate around the twin poles of sin and salvation but use the language of the King James version as they do so. If any current music fully inhabits the Southern mindset then surely it is this. 16 Horsepower released their debut album Sackcloth 'N' Ashes in 1995 and, after the eventual demise of 16 Horsepower, DEE continued in similar vein with Woven Hand. As he has said: 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and
gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this
music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and
the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America.'
Formed in 1982 and discovered by Chrissie Hynde busking outside a Pretender's gig, the Violent Femmes were among the first to combine punk's frenzy with country's resignation and gospel's jubilation. That full on clash of contradiction is the raison d'etre of the band (and something they were into long before the idea featured in U2's third coming). "That's the thing about this band," said Gordon Gano their singer/songwriter, "in the songs, in the whole performance of them, there's all different levels of total contradiction going on at the same moment where we are serious and as far from being serious as possible, it's important and also far away from being important". It's also part of the "American tradition" - "Country music has a long tradition of singing horrible songs about drinking and sinning and then doing some sincere gospel numbers". This is where 'Country Death Song' gets its dark inspiration from - "I even think 'Country Death Song' is happy because all the awfulness of the song, it came out of my love for country music and I feel happy when I sing it. I must have a different perspective".
Mark Heard wrote, in 'I Just Wanna Get Warm', "The mouths of the best poets speak but a few words/Then lay down, stone cold, in forgotten fields" - in retrospect that seems prophetic. Just a glimpse into the soul of a man known by so few and yet so deeply missed by so many. The liner notes from the tribute album say it best: "Mark Heard left behind a legacy of music that will undoubtedly impact the lives of many, just as he has impacted the lives of the artists who participated in Strong Hand of Love. The testimony of his brilliance as a poet and artist is undeniably evident throughout this inspiring tribute."
Los Angeles group Love were, in the words of David Fricke, 'the bi-racial folk-rock pirates who made Love and Da Capo in 1966, then the silken psychedelia of Forever Changes in 1967.' 'Although Arthur Lee was the main writer, [Bryan] MacLean contributed some fine songs, including Orange Skies, Old Man and the haunting Alone Again Or, with its flamenco-style guitar and dramatic trumpet flourishes.' ifyoubelieveinis a collection of MacLean's music written when he was in the band and written with Love in mind. 'After an aborted attempt at a solo career ... [MacLean]joined a Christian Fellowship Church called the Vineyard ... During Friday night Bible stints [MacLean] took the concert part of the session and was so amazed at the reaction he gradually assembled a catalogue of his Christian songs.' Taken from the Latin and literally meaning 'within the walls', Intra Muros is the album of "spooky" Christian music MacLean was completing at the time of his death. Due to 'the great strength of songs like the amazing Love Grows In Me and My Eyes Are Open', Intra Muros 'stands as fine testament to the ability of a great songwriter.'
Michael McDermott's trademark embrace is "of faith and hope in the face of adversity." His lyrics are "uniquely evocative" as he "sings in poetry", his tunes being "literate story-songs." Stephen King wrote of him: “Michael McDermott is one of the best songwriters in the world and possibly the greatest undiscovered rock ‘n’ roll talent of the last 20 years.” In “Mess of Things,” McDermott sings, “the trouble with trouble is that it sometimes sticks/plays tricks with your mind while it gets its kicks/And slowly there’s a momentum shift/And the weight becomes too great to lift.” McDermott sings about a world where “everybody is bleeding, or everybody is filled with doubt,” and yet he sings, “say the word/And I shall be healed.”
'After the Flood' from Lone Justice's debut album neatly fits Maria McKee's description of country music - "originally Country music was very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". With a half brother (Bryan MacLean) from seminal 60s LA band Love and Victoria Williams as a next-door neighbour growing up ("she taught me my first guitar chords", McKee has said and they sang briefly together before their separate careers took off), the emphasis was always likely to be on the raw, spiritual and gut-level rather than the country aspect of the definition. By the time McKee recorded her second solo album You Gotta Sin To Get Saved, with a band that included Jayhawks, Gary Louris and Mark Olson (then Williams' husband), she felt she was standing still, merely reprising her work with Lone Justice. She responded by recording the critically acclaimed album Life Is Sweet. Here she felt her songwriting becoming "crystal and dramatic ... this larger-than-life grandiose thing, sort of riding the fine line of bad taste". Grunge based and coruscating on tracks like 'Scarlover', Life is Sweet sounds a far cry from the cow-punk of Lone Justice but it remains "very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". At the end of the day that's what matters.
Julie Miller writes nakedly emotional songs which in their aching beauty combine perseverance and faith with sorrow and heartache. Her songs have featured in her solo work, her husband Buddy Miller's solo albums and on several jointly recorded albums. An early song reflecting on the crucifixion asked, 'How can you say No to this man?' The same question can be asked of Miller's confessional work - how can you say no to the grace and openness found therein?
Neal Morse is a US prog rocker who first
made his mark in the band Spock’s Beard and then formed the prog-rock supergroup
Transatlantic. Following his conversion to Christianity in 2000, he left both
bands and has since produced a substantial and well-regarded body of solo work
exploring different aspects of his faith. His fourth solo album
Sola Scriptura, across four tracks and 76 minutes (this is prog
rock we’re talking here!), tells the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
Morse says, “The point of it is to point us … toward the light of God's truth
which is laid out wonderfully before us in the scriptures. Of course, this is a
lofty goal for a mere CD, but, with God anything is possible!”
Over The Rhine'sLinford Detweiler and Karen Bergquist say: "... we try to write music that in little ways helps to heal the wounds that life has dealt us or the wounds we’ve dealt ourselves. We try to write songs that can hum joyfully at the stars when something good goes down. We try to write tunes capable of whispering to a sleeping child that in spite of everything, somehow, all is well. We try to write words that help us learn to tell the truth to ourselves and others." “We’re really only reflecting what we’ve already heard,” Detweiler explains, “a mix of all the music we grew up with and were drawn to: old gospel hymns, the country and western music on WWVA, the rock and roll records the kids at school passed around, the symphonic music that my father brought home, the jazz musicians we discovered in college, the Great American Songbook performers that Karin’s mother loved, and of course the various singer-songwriters that eventually knocked the roof off our world. But when this music is reflected back to the listener through the filter of our own particular lives, hopefully it becomes a much different experience (maybe even somewhat unique) for those with ears to hear.”
The Innocence Mission hail from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and own up to a "religious upbringing where our parents lived out their faith rather than evangelised". They formed in 1982 and initially attracted the support of Joni Mitchell and her then husband, Larry Klien. Mitchell called Karen Peris "one of the most interesting singer/songwriters around at the moment", while Klien produced their first two albums (The Innocence Mission and Umbrella). Peris summed up the band's approach when she said "I saw something in a book Float Planes. In the beginning there's a quote from a hymn that said, "When I die hallelujah! Bye bye I'll fly away ..." and that's exactly what I think we want to say." In 'Wonder of Birds', from the first album, they talk of building homes with windows to fly through and this is an apt description of their songs. 'Bright As Yellow' for example, from their third album Glow, is a joyful celebration of that open-handed, open-hearted approach to life, as exemplified by Peris's mother. Peris writes conversational songs that draw significance from the everyday while the band on the earliest albums set these to a swirling, chiming, transcendent version of the 'big' music.
Leslie Phillips sang in Sunday School with Maria McKee and recorded several albums for the CCM label Word before a name change to Sam, a marriage to T-Bone Burnett and a series of critically acclaimed albums often produced by Burnett. Phillips combines a cool pop sensibility with razor-sharp lyrics. A mix that finds her ethereal voice, tinged with melancholy, soaring over like a seagull skimming waves.
Jim White inhabits a world where the natural and supernatural are intertwined and where the ordinary slips seamlessly into the extraordinary. White says in 'Still Waters', "Well, don't you know there are projects for the dead and projects for the living?/Though I must confess sometimes I get confused by that distinction". White's characters have ghosts in their homes, curse ships which promptly sink and serenade the dying ('Still Waters').
Victoria Williams has a naive, folky style which uses images and characters that would not be out of place in a painting by Marc Chagall. This style, however, conceals a great subtlety of approach and a willingness to experiment with musical form in a similar to fashion to that of Van Morrison. Williams builds songs that are not simply a melody running through verses and chorus but which, in tandem with the lyrics, veer off in directions that are consistent with the emotional ebb and flow of the song as a whole. She sees the divine through the local, the ordinary, the common-place, and the natural finding the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through the building of a raft and duets with a fellow-traveller on the New York underground ('Holy Spirit').
I write more about some of the above in my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.
