Music Day - She

Picture this.

North American Christian culture, 2003. At this time it was still a very common belief that video games of any kind were spawn of Satan himself. VeggieTales' Jonah movie was the only film that millions of Christian children had seen in theatres because all the others were demonic in some way (Harry Potter had magic, Star Wars had magic, The Lord of the Rings was simply 'too scary'...), and were you really a Christian if you didn't listen to Adventures In Odyssey every weeknight at seven o'clock?

Into this culture came a group of three women who found instant popularity with pre-teen girls with their inspiring, poppy, uplifting (in every sense of the word) melodies. Behind trendy, pop art album covers in bright purples, whites, yellows, and oranges, they sang catchy, bright songs with slick production. Were you really a Christian girl if you didn't have a ZOEgirl album in your CD wallet?

In 2003, ZOEgirl dropped their best -- sorry, third studio album, Different Kind Of Free. The pop sound had matured along with their listeners -- now solidly into their mid-teens -- and the record took on an acoustic R&B vibe (probably influenced by BeBe and CeCe Winans, Nicole C. Mullen, and Out Of Eden, who were all big names on Christian radio at the time). Even the bright colours of ZOEgirl's previous offerings were muted, with a palette of blues and greys decorating the album.

DKOF still offered uplifting, poppy lyrics in the first half of the album. The album kicked off with their trademark energetic songs of dedication to God. This is a simple goal, but difficult to execute well. Executing these well had always been ZOEgirl's strength.

But halfway through the album, the subject matter takes a wildly different turn. The electronic bass, staccato rhythm, and lower vocal register of Wait was the only warning the listeners got of the shift. It was skillfully subtle -- I doubt most people realised what Wait was about, as the topic of suicidal ideation was absolutely never touched in churches at the time -- but to those of us who knew, we knew. Those of us who already felt the cold tentacles of depression tightening around our souls and minds knew that song was for us.

In an artistic move both bizarre (given the subject matter) and necessary (given the parents of the target audience), the next song was perhaps the breeziest and most carefree song of ZOEgirl's entire career. Feel Alright was a stylistic, if less manic, throwback to Upside Down from their first album. It was also the song I skipped over the most (despite loving Upside Down when it first come out), because it was the least relatable and the least intellectually stimulating. But they had to put it there, because the following song was a doozy.

She was a slow burner for me. My best friend at the time, a year older than me and a pastor's daughter to boot, caught the significance of it immediately, but she had no way of expressing to me what she saw in her life and in the song. I found the song too slow and boring and brushed it off as album filler. But as our ways parted and I saw the absolute worst the evangelical church had to offer in the wake of my calling and my cousin's death, I began to see what she had seen... enough that when I found Daniel Amos' brilliant album Doppelgänger in 2013, I 'got it' immediately: the church of North America was extremely broken. In Doppelgänger, I could see the indictment of the church in the lyrics clearly. But ten years had passed by then, and I had forgotten about that soft little ZOEgirl song which had sharp teeth.

The other day, out of nowhere, my brain started feeding me lyrics: She's alone / Caught up in the undertow / Where it takes her no-one knows...

I started listening, and the rest of the lyrics arose from my dusty memories from over half my lifetime ago. Then I dug the track out of the bottom of my iTunes and listened to it for real.

What a ballsy song.

To release a song not only about teenage sex and pregnancy out of wedlock, but to also use that song to point the finger directly at the failings of the church on an album specifically targeted to young teenage girls would have been CCM PR suicide if not handled with kid gloves. So they tucked it in one of the 'filler' slots (it's track eight out of eleven), mellowed down the music so it wouldn't attract immediate attention, and trusted God would open the ears of those who needed to hear. My guess is that most listeners, like me, assumed it was a typical 'don't have sex before marriage' song (yes, those are a thing in CCM), and completely failed to see that they weren't placing the blame on the girl, but on the church that didn't have compassion on her.

She went to them for help

But blindly they cast the first stone

They could have taken her in

But instead they left her on her own

All alone...

And it worked. No feathers were ruffled, DKOF is still regarded as their best album, and ZOEgirl made another successful album before calling it quits.

I just... I am in awe if the finesse they needed to pull this off, especially at that time, and it worked. Nowadays critique on Christian culture in Christian music is more common (and still sorely needed), but at that time for a Christian band to make a song blaming the church instead of the girl was revolutionary. It was countercultural. It could have ended their careers. They could have been excommunicated from the church for a song like that, but they did it anyway. They hid a scathing critique in plain sight for those of us who needed the warning the most and they lived to tell the tale. And those teenagers in 2003 are now the ones calling out the hypocrisy of the evangelicals.

Maybe that's why I can never quite let this group go. I've always chalked it up to nostalgia (which is definitely a factor in my enduring love for them), but the more I listen with my jaded adult ears, the more I realise there was more to this little pop-vocal group than any of us realised.

Set Apart - The Silverwind Album Nobody Talks About

21 June 2021, 12.39pm.

Today I'm going to show a little love to the bastard Silverwind album.

I'll be honest... I hated this album when I first heard it. Hated it. I had been a Silverwind fangirl for several years by that point, and fourteen-year-old me wanted nothing more than to be the next Betsy Hernandez. Her voice is still my favourite female voice ever, in any genre, bar none.

When I plunked Set Apart (1986) onto the turntable and heard thick alto harmonies coming through the speakers, I felt betrayed. It was like I'd been punched in the gut. It took me over five years to realise that actually, the hyped-up '80s tracks and the sweet, calming harmonies that balanced them were really quite good. Had the voice been Betsy Hernandez's, this would have instantly become my favourite album of all time, but the shock of the very different voices made this album a slow burner. And, from what I can gather online in all my music-nerd groups, I was not the only one who felt this way.

Certainly, the trio that replaced Hernandez, Banov, and Gramling were very talented singers who blended beautifully, but the change in sound was so sudden and drastic that it was hard to look past the change to the album itself, or even the strengths of the singers that replaced the original three. It's no surprise that despite the beauty of the songwriting, the harmonies, and the instrumentation, this was the last album to bear the Silverwind name -- the change was simply too great to overcome in one album, and in the music business, one album is all it takes to sink you as a recording act. The producers tried to soften the blow by having Betsy Hernandez sing guest vocals on two of the songs, but it was too little, too late.

And yet... this album is a banger. It was ahead of its time while keeping one foot firmly planted in the gentle Maranatha keyboard/string machine sound a CCM audience would be looking for. In fact, the production and arranging was so cutting edge for the time that if you were to play me this album for the first time with no background information and ask me what year it was from, I would guess 1989. The saxophone sounds, the woodwind-esque keyboards, the synth stings, the occasional squarewave bass, the very electric guitar -- all these were motifs that were not yet mainstream in 1986. The opening track (I'm Forever Yours) may have the biggest drums in CCM this side of Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart's Crack The Sky. In fact, the drums are a huge part of the entire record -- even the mellow songs. Just listen to Heart Of Love and tell me you can't see that song in front of a live audience of thousands having the absolute time of their lives.

Lyrically, this is still very much a Silverwind album. Simple, honest lyrics of childlike wonder and heartfelt praise still abound here. Most of the songs were still written by the Hernandez and Hernandez husband/wife team -- in fact the clarity and quality of the lyrics here takes a marked leap. This album is full of striking lyrical gems, such as But once you've seen the sun, there isn't anyone / Who is able to persuade you it's not there... (I Believe In You), or  No manufactured fake or forgery / No counterfeit could make a fool of me / I've found a love so real / A power I can feel... (Heart Of Love -- this bit is just so fun to sing), or God's heart was broken to make me my own... (Crystal Heart) or They say you're wise as you grow older / But all I know is I've grown colder... (First Love).

As to the quality of the voices -- the harmonies are still catchy and dare I say addicting. They're just different, and once you get past that, they're truly enjoyable. Silverwind has often been called the 'Christian ABBA' due to the soaring harmonies, and that nickname is still relevant even with the personnel change. Even this is actually a step up from the previous album, By His Spirit. BHS relied heavily on Hernandez, with the other two members singing lead on only one song each (though to be fair, who wouldn't give in to the temptation to feature such an angelic voice so much?). In Set Apart, vocal duties are pretty much divided equally between the women, even within individual songs, and one hears some lovely male solos on Side B (First Love is a beautifully emotional performance). Older Silverwind relegated the harmonies largely to choruses, but Set Apart Silverwind used them everywhere, and it made their swan song truly shine. If you hold out through the initial style shock until the penultimate track (I Believe In You), you'll be rewarded with a strong and powerfully-sung glimpse of classic Silverwind.

It was really context that sunk this album. If it hadn't been released under the Silverwind name, with all of the sonic and vocal expectations that came with that name, I daresay this album would have blown up. This was the most rocking female-led album in mainstream CCM at the time (Leslie Phillips' magnum opus The Turning was not yet released, and Margaret Becker wouldn't make her debut for another year), and definitely the hardest-hitting worship record to date (Petra's Petra Praise... The Rock Cries Out was still three years away). Yet it remains the only album of Silverwind's catalogue that has never seen a CD release and consistently gets either hated on or not mentioned at all among fans of the group.

It's really a shame that this record didn't have a better chance at life. It's a really strong album in almost every respect, and I'm glad I stuck with it long enough to see that. I encourage you to do the same.

You can listen to it on YouTube here.

Music Day - Emotional Tourist

This is another one of those 'I can't believe I haven't featured this song' posts.

I got a CD with this song on it sent to me by an acquaintance in a fan group for obscure '80s music, while I was in college. It didn't take at first. I have already featured the one song that immediately stood out to me (here), but the rest of it was a slow burn. Despite this, I somehow kept returning to the album in the summer of 2018, and then, two days before M died, I randomly picked this song to warm up to one at my dance practice and choreographed almost the entire thing in two days. Something about the song grabbed my soul and dragged me along for the ride.

I'm just realising now as I think about it that this song probably got me through M's death. I was still at college, where I had already been emotionally abused for grieving after losing Brittney. I knew nobody was going to believe that one person could be unlucky enough to lose two 22-year-old friends within three years of each other. I knew I was going to be mocked and shamed for even talking about the fact that my very good friend had died.

I'm not good at stuffing feelings away. If I do, they become rage -- at everything. But I was completely immersed in an environment where there was nowhere to go. The only -- and I do mean the only -- refuge I had was dance. M died right when I was just coming off of the choreography high from this song, and I hyperfixated on both the song and the dance for it for the next year. It became my warmup dance for every practice, and I practiced every day. I've used it at dance auditions and submitted it to multiple competitions. It's probably the most personal dance I've ever choreographed.

Now for the actual song (hey, it only took me three paragraphs of personal ramblings before I remembered the point of this post instead of five...).

This starts out as what could be called a 'cheerful goodbye song.' It's upbeat with a lighthearted musical tone, even as the lyrics are contemplative and a little somber. One would never really notice unless they read them or really paid attention, given Scott's bright, energetic delivery, the beautifully interwoven guitar work, and the big drums.

Don't say the words goodbye, love

You'll break my heart in two

Rain clouds would fill the skies, love

And all because of you...

Such poetry. But in the very next breath we get a very different perspective.

Put me down as a lonesome traveler

Write me off as a minor character

I move, I leave no traces

Just a wave in a sea of faces...

The chorus solidifies the 'wandering heartbreaker' theme. Or, as one might put it, 'emotional tourist.' There's a melancholy tone here, but only if you're listening very closely.

In the second verse, Scott deftly transitions from the language of physical tourism to emotional tourism and continues to explore the theme of an emotional tourist -- always restless, never staying in one place -- by stealing a page from Daniel Amos' lyric sleeve for their ¡Alarma! album. Warzones, TV news, hungry children on the streets -- our protagonist sees them all within seconds, a rapid fire assault on both his consciousness and emotions. My heart feels as big as the ocean / My God, these are dangerous times...

How many times have I used that (first) phrase? I wrote an entire blog post about it years ago, how my heart felt like it was holding all the emotions of all the people in the world and how it felt like it was either going to explode, crush me, or strangle me.

This time, the chorus sounds weary. And in the bridge, we really see the compassion fatigue setting in... thank God I can change the channel.

The third chorus sounds sarcastic, aggressive, filled with pain. The protagonist has, for better or worse, claimed the title 'emotional tourist' as a defense to keep his battered soul from hurting anymore. The poem concludes with our protagonist repeatedly and desperately shouting thank God I can change the channel, as if saying it louder and more often will make all the problems in the world go away.

And I can relate.

In these hyperpoliticised COVID days, I think we can all relate.

Title: Emotional Tourist

Artist: Steve Scott

Album: Lost Horizons (I think? Steve Scott's music release history is very confusing)

Year: 1988 (maybe? see above)

iTunes here; YouTube here.

I'm just an emotional tourist

Call this a harlequin romance

So sad we couldn't make the connection

Call us victims of circumstance

Too bad we couldn't get it together

Put it down to a change in the weather

Someone said that there's nothing to fear except fear itself

Hey, I wish you were here...

Music Day - Reality

Like any good Christian '90s kid, I grew up on a steady diet of Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, and dc Talk on the radio (you know, back when 'Christian radio' was at least palatable). The thing is, when you grow up surrounded by something, you trade freshness for nostalgia.

This song was ubiquitous in my early childhood circles (so, church and home), to the point it was just part of the landscape, part of the air I breathed as a six-year-old. I was barely aware that I even knew of this song until over ten years later when I bought a Newsboys greatest hits album after attending one of their concerts on a whim. Even then, this song remained background noise -- just part of the culture that I still had one foot in.

The other day, though, I suddenly remembered the Newsboys existed and played this album off the cuff. This song stood out to me.

It's little secret that I've lived my life so far in a way very similar to the runaway in the song -- constantly out of money, constantly traveling/moving around and involved in odd-sounding activities that concern the people who feel some obligation to show concern for my well-being. Even in this song, the protagonist has performing arts-based aspirations and admits to being malnourished -- these could be subplots taken directly from my own story.

Runaway

Where's your head

Dreamers' dreams

Are grounded

In reality that comes from above

In this simple lead-in to the chorus that takes all of ten seconds, Steve Taylor deftly sneaks in a very powerful truth that we often forget -- the same God who created our dreams also created reality. Christians especially tend to think that dreams and reality are two separate (and mutually exclusive) things, and rarely (if ever) stop to realise that God is in charge of both. The same God who created the runaway dreamer created the reality around them, and therefore the dream will only make sense in God's timing.

This is something I've been pondering a lot for myself lately. I started exploring that in my Desert Rose post from a few weeks ago, and I feel this song continues the thought. For my entire life I've been pushing for more experience, more practice, more education, more opportunities for my art. And those aren't necessarily bad things -- in fact, personal development in the area of one's calling is the best way to make the most of the gift you've been entrusted with when it's really time to shine. But I was starting to get frustrated with how little was happening -- why I was still languishing in the back of the ensemble despite 97% of the directors I've worked with noting both my skill and my ability to learn things accurately and quickly (which is almost more important than pre-existing skill) -- why I'm living in a tiny dying town in the literal middle of nowhere with very few opportunities to practice, let alone learn more. I had worked so hard and invested so much, and none of it seemed to amount to anything. It was like my gift was being wasted. And my increasing age was only fueling the fire of frustration.

At the time I wrote the Desert Rose post, I prayed that if God really wanted me to be an artist; if He had truly called me to be a dancer, that He would provide opportunities, because I sure as heck wasn't finding any. For perhaps the first time in my life, I stopped trying to make stuff happen. I was just too worn out to do it anymore.

Last week a prominent figure in the tap dancing world who I auditioned for exactly once two and a half years ago messaged me completely out of nowhere saying she was just starting up a Zoom class that would be right around my level (based on what she was seeing on my Instagram) and would I be interested? She even readily negotiated a payment plan that worked for us. My husband agreed immediately. I don't even have to pay gas money to drive two hours to the nearest class -- all I'm paying is the tuition. This is exactly the kind of opportunity I've always dreamed of but either was too far away or didn't have a consistent enough income to support it.

Perhaps the reality is that I am called to dance after all... but I had to live in the reality that comes from above.

Now for the song itself.

The Newsboys' glory years were marked by a brightness in the drums and a freshness in the bass paired with melodies just catchy enough to be fun and not annoying. The Australian accents and Steve Taylor's unique (and brilliant) approach to song lyrics didn't hurt anything either.

For this song, Taylor and Furler peek into the letters of a runaway sending letters home to their parents, attempting to soothe their fears (read: keep them off their back) while subtly asking for money to fund their sketchy-sounding exploits (they may or may not have quite literally joined the circus). The thing with Steve Taylor's writing is it's almost funnier to read the lyrics in the liner notes than it is to hear them in the song. I'm very willing to bet that nobody else could write a serious song about God's timing and guidance and include lines like lent the money you sent me to the clown with the knife or could you find a better photo for the milk carton backs? and make it work. The pair also prominently features a line ripped directly old of a Baptist hymnal -- trust and obey; there is no other way (the hymn continues 'to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey'), mostly because it supports their point, but no doubt the chance to annoy all the anti-rhythm-section Baptists was a clincher. And I am very certain that no other band could have managed to pull off this song with the right mix of light humour and serious exhortation -- too much seriousness and the brilliant writing would have fallen flat. Too much lightness and the point would be gone (which would also have been a disservice to the writers).

The song is almost surprisingly fast. One doesn't notice it really until they near the ending, when the chorus repeats. It's a testament to the band's skill that the listener doesn't feel 'rushed.'

Musically, this is Newsboys in their prime. This is the sound and styling that made them CCM superstars and cemented their legacy. This song was a mega-hit in CCM in the mid/late-'90s, and it was still second to Breakfast, which appeared on the same album and may very well be the most well-known Newsboys song of all time (also probably holds the world record for 'most breakfast puns in one song'). It also features Taylor/Newsboys' trademark clapping section (this time a nearly a cappella repeat of the chorus accompanied only by clapping the rhythm).

Title: Reality

Artist: Newsboys

Album: Take Me To Your Leader

Year: 1996

iTunes here; YouTube here.

In the reality that comes from above

God is calling -- there's no greater love

It's His reality that welcomes us back...

Music Day - A Song In The Night

I'm surprised I haven't featured this one.

Silverwind was, vocally, the 'Christian' equivalent of ABBA, and I loved both equally. There's not a lot of call for soprano voices in CCM, and from the day I first heard this album I was enraptured by Betsy Hernandez's pure, clear voice (come to think of it, those are also the same vocal qualities Rick Florian has). My short-lived desire to be a singer was born then, listening to my dad's vinyl copy of the album I'm about to feature.

For me, this was a slow burner of a song. It was pretty, of course, and I could appreciate the lyrics even then, but I liked Forgiven better (ironically the one song on the album that didn't heavily feature Hernandez's fairy-like soprano voice). It was around 2016 when this song sprang into my mind out of nowhere and I spent the next eight hours choreographing the entire thing start-to-finish from scratch. I had never even thought about choreographing it (there were too many Daniel Amos songs ahead of it in the queue), but suddenly I saw the entire thing in my head, fully formed, and it was all I could do to write it all down before it was gone. It was one of maybe two dances I've made that I would suspect were divinely inspired. There were seventeen dancers, angels flooding the stage. I'm not normally one for angels, but that was what the piece demanded so that was what I wrote. This is probably one of the ones I would most like to see on stage before I die.

The song itself is written as a lullaby -- a rather more lush and fleshed-out lullaby (the song clocks in at nearly four a and half minutes long). It includes not only Silverwind's signature harmonies, but also a child choir. If you can tune out the oom-pah-pah-like bass line (I promise, it is literally the only kitschy part of the song), you will find a beautiful bed of piano work (I wish I knew who played piano on this so I can buy everything they ever played on), accentuated by some light synth touches.

There are several highlight moments here. The first is the second chorus. The first chorus features only the children singing the melody in unison on la la la, accompanied only by a gentle rhythm section. The first and second verses are lovely and touching but not overly arresting -- painting a picture of a frightened child singing a simple song to beat back the terrors of the night -- but after the second verse there's a short but hard stop and Betsy's voice, nearly a cappella, puts words to the melody that the children sang earlier.

Take me soon, O morning star

To the heavens where you are

Sailing on a silver wind

Take me where my dreams begin...

In recent years, I've begun to imagine singing this to any future children I might have. It's the only time I have ever really pictured having a child of my (our) own. But the angel theme that I suddenly associated with the song in 2016 is a hard one to break. It does make sense -- in 2016, I was still very much grieving the losses (read: deaths) that happened in 2015, including the death of my cousin at nine years old. And in the past year or two especially, I have developed a very intense longing for 'home' -- the heavens, beyond the stars, beyond the wall of sleep. It's much deeper than the suicidal urges I've fought off and on through the years. This is a pervasive longing -- not to die, necessarily, but to go to the place where things are Good. The words take me, morning star / To the heavens where you are (as it is sung later in the song) sometimes fill me with so much longing to go there that it brings me to tears. This song is a lullaby, but a very emotionally intense one, one with the aura of death.

The second major highlight moment is where is seems the song comes to an end. At this point, it's been a lovely but mellow lullaby. It slows to an ending with a repeated line and a cadence... then the piano surges into the space and a triumphant trumpet kicks off a repeat of the chorus...

The third highlight is after this repeat. The chorus is repeated again, but with the children singing a counterpoint line -- which is something you literally NEVER, EVER hear in CCM (yes, DA did it in Horrendous Disc, the song, a couple years earlier, but by then they were in the process of being relegated to the 'probably heresy' section in Christian music stores). It is absolutely otherworldly.

Title: A Song In The Night

Artist: Silverwind

Album: A Song In The Night

Year: 1982

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Shadows fade and then disappear

When voices rise up sweet and clear...

Music Day - Desert Rose

I really only have two criteria for Music Day posts: 1. It must be legally available for purchase; and 2. It should be a song that means a lot to me at the time of writing.

This is a song that I always glossed over. White Heart has so many loud, interesting complex songs that I was very confused by this ballad's immense popularity. If you mention the name 'White Heart' (to anybody who even knows who White Heart is), this is, nine times out of ten, the first song they mention. And that boggled my mind -- what about Let The Kingdom Come? What about Raging Of The Moon? What about Heaven Of My Heart? I do primarily listen for the lyrics more than the music, but in ten years of listening, I never 'got' the lyrics to this particular song.

Until now.

I am currently living in a VERY remote 'small town' that is literally an hour and a half drive from any other civilisation. There are no arts, no theatre, no dance classes, not even a freakin Staples. We've talked of moving but small tourist towns like this have a way of hiking grocery and gas prices so high that it is literally impossible to put together any kind of savings in order to actually do it (gas prices have been $1.43 a litre here since July; meanwhile my parents three hours north are zipping around on $1.17 gas. In the same province).

I don't have dance and I don't have money. I'm just watching my dream wither and die without practice. And I've been crying out to God, asking why He gave me this dream only to take it away again; terrified that I'm going to die in this literal hole in the ground, completely forgotten. I'm terrified of proving my program director right when he said I would never amount to anything.

Is this one of those desert experiences that so many people in the Bible went through -- Moses, the Israelites, Elijah, Jesus...? Is there still some important thing I'm supposed to do forty years from now and I just have to go through the motions until then?

I still feel angry and ignored sometimes when I think about how Brittney and M and my cousin died and I'm still here. It's not survivor's guilt so much as it is jealousy. They already live in a place where mercy is unreceipted, but I'm not lucky enough to get that chance. Given the choice between life and death, I would absolutely pick death. I'm not suicidal, per se, but I wouldn't fight death if it came for me. This world is not my home, and I want to go home. I don't even really know what 'home' is, but I know this world isn't it. I'm just so weary of life here.

And it's hard not to despair completely when all you see is the desert rising up on all sides -- literally.

(Forgot I was supposed to be doing a Music Day post. Pretending those last five paragraphs never happened.)

The song opens with a mellow but very classic '80s keyboard intro that hints at some of the haunting woodwind flavours that the band would explore in more depth on their next album Tales Of Wonder. And the tender, clear, angelic voice of Rick Florian (who I still maintain in the greatest singer to walk the face of the earth, even after five years of listening to music of all eras and genres while acquiring a BA in Music) comes in, painting a picture of an ocean of featureless sand and the tiny beauty drowning in it.

And you wonder

You wonder

Can you last much longer

This cloud you live under

Will it cover you?

The chorus features White Heart at their band-harmony peak. Harmony was something that White Heart always excelled at (their best-known line-ups featured a minimum of four competent vocalists), and it shimmers here, floating along on that bed of gentle keyboard that Mark Gersmehl weaves throughout the song.

Sometimes holiness

Can seem like emptiness

When you feel the whole world's laughing eyes

This is the part that resonates with me. I feel abandoned, alone, empty, tossed to the side, unwanted, unneeded, and useless. I feel like I and my life have been wasted and I'm just a shell of all my old dreams and potential just shuffling around waiting to die.

After the second chorus, the heretofore muted harmonies go from backdrop to centre stage, filling the song with layers and that beautiful '80s 'big' production. Chris McHugh's fantastic drums go a long way here too, and the effect is so lush and rich that it was several years of listening to this album non-stop (because of the title track and Storyline) before I realised that there isn't actually a verse here, only vocalising and a bit of vamping from Florian. (They pull off the same stunt in their song Let The Kingdom Come from their previous album, but that time they did it by distracting the listener with truly epic guitars, giant drums, and energetic rock vocals.)

Title: Desert Rose

Artist: White Heart

Album: Powerhouse

Year: 1990

Label: Sparrow Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

He will hold your tender heart

Oh desert rose...

Music Day - Ten Thousand Lightyears

After the disco/dance/pop reign of Boney M., they took a page from ABBA's book and did some rather more serious and introspective work, and in fact they stuck to it longer than ABBA did. What you hear on the typical 'greatest hits of Boney M. album' is NOT the whole story, in fact, those albums only cover the first (and more frivolous) half of their career.

Perhaps their greatest (and most unrecognised) work is the first half of the album Ten Thousand Lightyears, a song cycle about escaping planet Earth for a better world in a plot that foreshadows Halo (assuming I understand Halo correctly, which I probably don't). This song cycle culminates in the epic title track, a slow burner of an anthem that so perfectly captures the sehnsucht for a better world that only Terry Scott Taylor/Daniel Amos can match that level of intense emotional longing.

The song starts with what sounds like a real live string bass, immediately followed by a slow sparking synth melody, then some gentle, airy percussion. This builds slowly for well over a minute before Liz Mitchell's warm voice soars out over the canopy of stars that the synths have laid out before her, painting a picture of a utopian world ten thousand lightyears somewhere out in space... they practice love and they know what it takes... lightyears away, far from pain... came to a place full of grace and of peace...

And it somehow keeps building. Some lovely harmonies follow, then some soft brass in the chorus. For all the mellowness and heart-wrenching lyrics, this is still very clearly Boney M. -- the percussion still somehow recalls hits like Rasputin.

In the second verse, the dreamer is awakened back into a rude and very not-utopian reality.

Suddenly it's ringing in my ears

Why is it now; I don't want to be here

...how I wish that this dream could go on.

By the second chorus, the voices have doubled into what sounds like a small choir, and the music continues to grow richer and fuller, sprinkled with some pizzicato strings and given added richness and polish with the brooding brass section.

Liz Mitchell is capable of incredible vocal depth and emotion, and by and large Boney M. underexploited this ability (probably the only thing they didn't exploit). One sees it on the infamous Christmas album a little bit, but this song was the best opportunity she had to do it with Boney M. proper and boy, does she ever seize it.

Title: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Artist: Boney M.

Album: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Year: 1984

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Obviously this song resonates a lot with me, as I often feel the exact same way. There is a place beyond the stars where Brittney and M and my cousin all live, and I so desperately want to go, to get away from the pain and abuse of this world. I'm not even thirty yet, but I am so, so world-weary. I understand what old people mean when they say they're 'ready to go.' I get it. I am too. I want to go beyond the stars and rest for the first time in my life -- rest from the constant terror that I'm going to breathe wrong and offend somebody or that I'm going to have someone at my throat because I did the literal exact thing they had asked me to do the day before and rest from knowing every single second of my life that I will literally always be a failure and a disappointment. I want to go there so badly it often brings tears to my eyes.

I'd give all I've got if that's where I could stay...

And I would. I really, really would.

Music Day - Kyrie

 How have I not featured this one yet?

Yeah, okay, it's more well-known than 99% of stuff I post on this blog, but that's for good reason. This song -- as the kids say -- slaps. This is the song that inspired my best novel. This is one of the most soaring songs from an entire decade defined by music that soared. How in the world have I not featured this?

If you, like me, were sheltered as a child, you may not know of this song, and that's okay. In fact, that's great, because now you're old enough to remember your first time hearing it instead of just always sort of being aware of it, and that's honestly a really special thing. Get comfortable. Relax. Take a couple deep breaths. Prepare to be enchanted.

The song starts out with Richard Page calling out the title exactly as the original Greek intended -- as a plaintive cry of the heart, soft and distant across the desert of life. God have mercy.

We get a percussive synth buildup, a guitar hit, and glorious big drums. The verse is great. Page has the perfect smooth-but-passionate voice for a harder pop song like this, especially one with more introspective lyrics. But the real magic happens once you hit the chorus.

It's big. It's bombastic. It's shimmering. It's looking up at a thousand stars at night and pondering the galaxies beyond -- an exercise that might inspire one to echo Page's heart-cry. God have mercy.

God have mercy down the road that I must travel

God have mercy through the darkness of the night

God have mercy -- where I'm going, will You follow?

God have mercy on a highway in the light...

This is not a party-pop song. This is a song written by a pensive person reflecting on their life -- both what has come and gone as well as what lies dimly ahead. The chorus is literally a prayer -- a rather upbeat and danceable one, but a prayer nonetheless. The fact that they took a lyric like this and made it into one of the biggest pop-rock anthems of the decade (as track 7 on a vinyl album to boot) is a testament to the band's skill. (It was not a fluke either -- see also Broken Wings.)

And just when you think that spine-chilling chorus literally cannot get any better, all the instruments drop out except those phenomenal drums and those soaring band harmonies, crying for mercy like the monks in the choirs who first put those Greek words to music, but even earlier than that, like the tax collector named Zacchaeus who not only repaid what he stole, but quadrupled the return payment, like the woman clothed in little more than jewellery and makeup as she dumped perfume on Jesus' feet, like the ragged scrap of skin writhing on the cross next to Jesus as he asked to taste a small morsel of the Kingdom.

It was a well-crafted pop hit, to be sure. But it came from a place of honesty that leveled it up above anything that today's carefully-curated pop songwriting teams could ever hope to attain. Skill and experience certainly helped this song -- there's no question that Page and co. have copious amounts of both -- but those alone can seem sterile when not taken into the stratosphere with a gut-level lyric like this.

Listen and be amazed, whether for the first time or the thousandth time.

Title: Kyrie

Artist: Mr. Mister

Album: Welcome To The Real World

Year: 1985

iTunes here; YouTube here.

When I was young I thought of growing old

Of what my life would mean to me

Would I have followed down my chosen road

Or only wished what I could be...?

Music Day - Arise

 I've been playing this song a lot lately.

I was first introduced to Flyleaf in 2010 at 'Rock The River' in Edmonton. My best friend was a fan of theirs and continued feeding me a steady diet of their work. I bought most of their first two albums around that time. They enjoyed semi-regular rotation on my iTunes for a couple years... and then I forgot about them entirely.

Until my husband introduced me to Breaking Benjamin.

Both bands play similar levels of hard rock (or at least Flyleaf did at the time; I haven't heard a single note they've played since 2012's New Horizons). Breaking Benjamin led me back to Flyleaf, which now has a nostalgic shimmer, so of course now their appeal has increased in my books.

I didn't take much notice of this song when I first bought the CD, but I do remember thinking it was nice. Earlier this summer, I started craving this song. So, for most of the summer, I took it like a drug. I generally don't repeat songs, but I'd play this one three or four times in a row.

It's a song of sadness, but also hope. The vocals and the thick wall of guitars rise and fall together perfectly. The song feels a little bit like a prog rock song, though it clocks in under four and a half minutes. It kicks off with a muted bass, and immediately Lacey Sturm's vocals swoop in and brood right along with it with quiet determination.

Tell the swine

We will make it out alive

There's a note in the pages of the book

So sleep tonight

We'll sleep dreamlessly this time

When we awake, we'll know that everything's all right...

Then it crunches into the pre-chorus and chorus, spinning soaring guitars rising and falling above each other as Sturm cries out with a hope that perhaps she doesn't quite believe:

Hold on

To the world we all remember fighting for

There's still strength left in us yet...

Maybe it's the cultural context. We've now been in lockdown for most of the last year and a half. And the undiluted hatred I'm seeing among people I love and care for is so draining and everything feels so hopeless. I worry that we're past the point of no return, relationally. There are friendships and families and relationships that will be permanently damaged -- a LOT of them. And looking into the future and seeing those damaged relationships destroy the rest of my generation just sucks the wind out of my sails. Even if the virus was gone tomorrow; if all restrictions and all of the COVID-19 deaths stopped tonight, there would still be so much that will never be fixed. What hope is there? Everyone is so bitter and so angry.

Hold on

To the world we all remember dying for...

In March of 2020, we all shut down and wore masks for the greater good. To protect each other. Nobody questioned it. It all seems to utopian now. We sacrificed our lives, our jobs, our hobbies, our paycheques, to keep our loved ones safe. We died to our previous lives to keep each other safe, to preserve the world.

Fast-forward just over one year.

I have seen families literally torn apart because some have and some won't get the vaccine. A year ago, we protected strangers at all costs, and now we would rather cut contact with blood family and friends we've known for decades than get the one tiny shot that would actually protect them.

We died in March 2020 for a world that, it seems, will never, ever come back.

Sing to me about the end of the world

End of these hammers and needles for you

We'll cry tonight

But in the morning we are new

Stand in the sun

We'll dry your eyes...

Often it seems better and easier to hope for the end of the world than it is to hope for the restoration of this one. This one feels beyond repair, and there is nothing left but to wait for it to be over and remind each other that we have that hope, at least.

The song slows again -- Sturm crooning Sing... sing...

A breath.

And then the cry of courage -- arise!

The end is both sad and triumphant -- the world burns in the background, guitars thrashing along with the flames, and we have survived, yet we mourn what we have lost in the fire. The anthemic final chorus, repeating until that final a cappella, is a heart-wrenching cry.

Or maybe I like this song so much because I relate to it on a personal level -- the world always burning around me and the desperate fight to find hope and survive and rebuild myself, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, mustering up strength from nothing within myself again and again because more often than not I've got no-one to draw from.

Title: Arise

Artist: Flyleaf

Album: Memento Mori

Year: 2009

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Hold on

To the world we all remember dying for

There's still hope left in it yet...

Music Day - Somebody's Gonna Praise His Name

In light of Girder Music's announcement today that they will be reissuing Petra's PHENOMENAL On Fire! album for the first time EVER since its 1988 release, I decided to feature one of the best cuts from that album (and believe me, it is not an easy choice. The whole album is -- as the kids say -- fire). Petra had some 15 years of songwriting experience by this point, plus they were coming off their mega-hit album This Means War! the previous year. They knew exactly how to write a hard-hitting, high-energy song with well-crafted dynamics.

On Fire! was very much the musical and spiritual successor to This Means War! The theme of spiritual warfare continues as well as the guitar-heavy arena rock sound. John Schlitt was really settling into his role as lead vocalist, and songwriter Bob Hartman and the rest of the band had fully gelled with his no-holds-barred vocal style.

This song in particular seems to flown under the radar, which is where all the very best songs seem to go. It is hard arena rock at its absolute zenith. Big shining keyboards, bombastic drums, growling guitars, and thundering bass -- all were in full force on this entire album, and on this track in particular. This is probably one of the (musically) hardest worship songs you will ever hear in your entire life (a theme Petra brought to bear the very next year with their The Rock Cries Out album, whose title was probably inspired by this song), but it starts out deceptively calm. A soft, leisurely synth builds and Schlitt sings a simple praise chorus, backed by an angelic choir of '80s band harmonies (which Petra was no slouch at).

After forty seconds of Baptist-church-worthy solemnity, the drums kick open the door and you're hit with a wall of Bob Hartman's very crunchiest guitars as Petra cranks church up to eleven. The music would absolutely have gotten any church-going fifteen-year-old grounded for a month, but the lyrics come either straight from the pages of scripture (mostly the psalms, but the song does take as its refrain the words of Jesus from Luke 19), or as a direct response to said scriptures. They even take the song down a notch at the end with a gentle acoustic guitar and what almost sounds like waves on the beach (although it could just be cassette noise from my imported copy. I guess we'll all have to buy the CD to find out for sure).

Title: Somebody's Gonna Praise His Name

Artist: Petra

Album: On Fire!

Year: 1988

Pre-order the album here (special sale price for the next four days!), YouTube here, live version here.

As long as I draw breath my lips will praise You

As long as I have strength I want to praise Your name...

Music Day - Song In My Soul

Here's another song I inherited from my dad's music library. As far as I know, this is the only not-Christmas album he had from this band.

They were an a cappella band, but without the pretentiousness of Pentatonix. These are clean, simple, refreshing songs with no unnecessary virtuosity. There's nothing in this track that doesn't directly contribute to the pure richness of the song. These guys also write their own songs, so if you love a cappella music but you're tired of Pentatonix butchering perfectly good hymns and Christmas songs with overdone, overdramatic flourishes, this is the artist for you.

My dad listened to this song all the time when I was a kid, and now all it takes is that ascending bass intro to put a smile on my face. I still have a hard time believing that this is all done with the human voice. There's even some beatboxing in other songs on this album (keep in mind, this is 1989 in CCM -- we still don't have beatboxing in mainstream Christian music in 2021). The songs are so rich and full of backing harmonies that one doesn't even miss the band.

This song in particular is a song of unabashed joy, something I don't think any of us has seen in a good long time. It's a worship song that you'll never hear in a church. Parts of the lyric hearken back to the Psalms themselves. It's a pure, simple declaration of joy in God's handiwork. It all clips along at a very danceable, grooveable pace, and they make their point and get out of the way in less than three and a half minutes. It's cheerful and energetic and fun. If you need a quick little pick-me-up, here's a song that'll keep a spring in your step for the rest of the day.

The smile on my face comes from the smile in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

You put a song in my soul and I want to let it out

Your Spirit in my life, well it makes me want to shout

I'm moved to sing with every beat in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

Title: Song In My Soul

Artist: AVB

Album: Song In My Soul

Year: 1989

Label: Clifty Records

iTunes here; YouTube here (live version here -- caution, mullets abound).

The Return Of Royalty

ABBA's back.

Yes, this is old news by now, but it happened the week my grandfather died and I wanted time to process it properly.

I was the biggest ABBA fangirl in the world in my early/mid-teens. That phase ended right around the time I started this blog, actually. I still listened to ABBA songs once in a while, but they were WAY behind artists like Daniel Amos, Crumbächer, and White Heart on my most-played lists.

Then the Instagram announcement came. And fifteen-year-old Kate The ABBA Nut has returned in all of her glory.

If you haven't heard this song yet, do so. I Have Faith In You has somehow become the song of the movement, but Don't Shut Me Down is many times more upbeat and danceable. This is more the ABBA that we knew. I Have Faith In You hearkens back to endlessly slow songs like I Have A Dream, and really, that wasn't who ABBA was. Don't Shut Me Down is what ABBA was -- big and bombastic and dance-inducing. Don't let the melancholy and frail-sounding opening lines fool you -- you just wait for that piano gliss and then tell me that's not ABBA.

This is what pop music needs to be. That rich, lush instrumentation (the warm strings, the plump bass, the glorious keyboard) has been sorely lacking in pop music since the early 2000s when people decided the acoustic guitar was the only instrument that existed anymore. Everyone's talking about the harmonies (and they do sound just as clear and glorious as they did in 1982), but I challenge you to listen to the music. You simply can't make music that soars like that with a solo voice and one (1) acoustic guitar.

Even in the height of my fangirling in my teen years, I always gravitated to the 1980s output. There were only two '80s albums, but both were pure, solid gold. Up till Super Trouper, their albums usually had at least one 'filler' track. But Super Trouper (1980) and The Visitors (1981) both demonstrated a marked growth in their songwriting (possibly due to their increasing familiarity with the English language as well as increased maturity in general as the band members settled into their 30s), as well as increased richness and depth in their instrumentation. I always thought they were just beginning to hit their artistic stride in The Visitors, but of course, true art does not go over well with the masses, so ABBA called it quits.

With all that being said, this song would have fit right in on the overall glittering, shimmering album Super Trouper, perhaps right after Lay All Your Love On Me. Literally nobody in 1980 would have batted an eye. Even vocally, nothing has changed. It's as if they never stopped. It literally feels like The Visitors came out a year ago, rather than 40 years ago. That's how little their skills deteriorated. These people transcend time and trends. Don't mess with them. Even the subject matter of the song hints at this... I'm now and then combined...

It's been a rough two years, friends. Put this on and go dance a bit.

Title: Don't Shut Me Down

Artist: ABBA

Album: Voyage

Year: 2021

Pre-order on their website or iTunes, YouTube here.

Music Day - Secret To Love

Possibly one of the funnest and catchiest songs on my iPod (even counting Crumbächer's incredible contribution to the 'fun and catchy' section of my collection).

This thing starts out with bombastic drums, a head-bobbing rhythm, and a high-spirited keyboard melody before taking it down exactly enough notches for the verse to contrast with the big soaring celebratory (and above all singable) chorus. This is exactly the song you blast in your car with the windows down on a sweltering August day in the city. It's dated in all the right ways (the slightly raspy vocal, the existence of both a keyboard and band harmonies, the big drum production), and timeless in its energy and fun.

Title: Secret To Love

Artist: Halo

Album: Heaven Calling

Year: 1991

Official remastered CD available here. YouTube here.

Listen 2-3 times daily until you feel happier.

Music Day - Ashes Of Eden

I know the new ABBA songs dropped today, but I'm currently traveling due to my grandfather's funeral and haven't got time to properly do those songs justice this week. I already had this post 95% written so this is today's offering. Enjoy!

I'd heard of Breaking Benjamin before. My best friend has gone on about them for years. I always planned to look them up, but never remembered to do so.

Then, on a late night trip down a lonely highway last year, this song came up on my husband's phone. We had been making light conversation, but this song happened to pierce a lull and pique my interest. I listened in silence, hanging onto every word. The man was singing everything I had been feeling since 2015 when my entire world fell apart. I had never heard my feelings put into words so succinctly (even Terry Scott Taylor had to make a whole career out of encapsulating my feelings). The comfort that came from the intimate familiarity quite literally made me cry. My bewildered husband tried to comfort me, but the tears were tears of joy -- the sort of joy that comes when after YEARS of wasted effort and futile attempts, somebody finally understands you and your pain. They were tears of joy in the camaraderie. The man in the song was finally putting into words the questions and the longing and the prayer that my deeply wounded soul had never been able to articulate...

Will the faithful be rewarded

When we come to the end?

Will I miss the final warning

From the life that I have lived?

Is there anybody calling?

I can see the soul within

And I am not worthy

I am not worthy of this

Are You with me after all?

Why can't I hear You?

Are You with me through it all?

Then why can't I feel You?

Stay with me; don't let me go

Because there's nothing left at all

Stay with me; don't let me go

Until the ashes of Eden fall...

The song is MUCH slower than my usual pace, and I would have completely missed it in literally any other context. That song was meant for that exact moment in time, otherwise I would never have heard it.

At the same time, the release date of this album is not lost on me. 2015. The year that everything fell apart. The year that everyone and everything I ever loved died, at least in a spiritual sense. The year that broke my heart into so many pieces that I will never be able to repair it. The year that caused my permanent mental and emotional limp. This album was right there, existing in the world at the same time as my shattered shell, and I missed it when I needed it the most. In a way, that makes me angry. I wonder what kind of person I would have been had I heard that album the year it was first released. Yes, it provided a healing balm for me in 2020, but how much more effective would it have been in 2015, when the wound was still raw and pouring blood?

There's no way to know. If we're being perfectly honest, I probably would have snubbed it at the time, as I generally do with 99% of new music. Heck, I hated even some of my favourite albums that year. I had been a massive ABBA fangirl for well over five years and I found myself literally skipping past my favourite ABBA songs in 2015 because it was too much to process music over the immense amount of pain. I could only manage to listen to three albums (Crumbächer's Escape From The Fallen Planet, Terry Scott Taylor's A Briefing For The Ascent, and Russ Taff's self-titled 1987 album), and it stayed that way for nearly a year.

I just have to accept the little bit of healing this song can offer me now. I suppose it's better than nothing. And it is a beautiful arrangement. Sparse strings and light drums add to the big loneliness of the song and keep the lyrics -- the true star -- front and centre.

Song: Ashes Of Eden

Artist: Breaking Benjamin

Album: The Dark Before The Dawn

Year: 2015

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Music Day - Celebrate This Heartbeat

Now that college isn't eating my life and soul and the very blood from my veins, I can attempt to re-instate this once-proud feature of the blog. Since I'm not paying for college and by some miracle managed to find a job, I can actually kind of afford music again, so now I've also got actual material for these posts again.

I actually had a different post all written and lined up for today, but then this afternoon I finally decided to check out Randy Stonehill's gold mine I mean Bandcamp store. I've been eyeing up this album since they first opened the store (last month). It's so rare you can't even find a 'fair' version on Discogs. All I had was a TERRIBLE crackly noisy vinyl rip I bootlegged from somewhere years ago. I'm no audio snob (as you can probably tell from the average production values of my genre of choice), but even I cringed at the audio quality of that bootleg. I knew I wanted to replace that copy with a clean copy the first chance I got. It's a beautifully orchestrated and written album, and it deserved better than to be drowned out by surface noise.

This song was always my favourite, even marred as it was by the cracks and pops. I can't think of any other artist in this genre that does a legitimate overture to their album, and if they all could be as beautifully done as this one, I would say that more people should do this on their albums.

I can't think of any other time I have reacted this viscerally to an instrumental piece of music. Lyrics, sure, but never raw music. I cried. I had never heard this song other than on that atrocious bootleg, and to hear the orchestra (and it is an orchestra) in all its purity gave me chills.

Woodwinds feature heavily in this overture, and I think that's very apropos. Randy is a lighthearted soul (and voice), but can fit right in with the likes of Terry Scott Taylor or Mark Heard, lyrically, just as the flute is playful and light but still is a crucial part of any 'serious' orchestra. The lighter woodwinds also embody the idea that life is fleeting -- an idea that's also found in the title song and recurs throughout the album. Celebrate This Heartbeat -- as the next one is not promised to us.

Maybe it's more poignant just today. My grandfather's heart beat its last very early this morning. This brings up conflicting emotions, as he was not a good man by almost any standard. I think that in itself is sadder than anything else about his death -- any chance he may have had to redeem himself is well and truly gone now. He was a bitter man, deeply shaped and wounded by Nazi ideologies that he never did truly shake in all his ninety-two years -- even after spending more than seventy of those years on the other side of the world, both physically and culturally. When I think of celebrating this heartbeat, he is probably one of the last people I would think of. That itself is what saddens me most, I think. He had a long life and could have done so much... but he left behind a legacy of brokenness and pain because he was never healed from his own brokenness and pain eighty years ago. And now it's too late.

Don't be like this (I preach this to myself as well). It's so quietly, deeply tragic. I suggest using this song to kick off your own celebration of your own heartbeat.

Title: Overture - Celebrate This Heartbeat

Artist: Randy Stonehill

Album: Celebrate This Heartbeat

Year: 1984

Listen and purchase on Bandcamp here.

(Keep in mind today is Bandcamp Friday, which is when the Bandcamp site waives their own fees so ALL the money from purchases made on Fridays goes directly to the artist.)

(Also, if you're in the market for more Randy Stonehill, there are other older gems on his Bandcamp store that have been out of print since before The Simpsons was on the air -- plus you can check out his brand-new album The Lost Art Of Listening, which should be arriving in my mailbox next week.)

Music Day - Tourist Trap

I recently acquired this album on vinyl. I already have it on CD/my iTunes, but this is one of my top five favourite albums of all time and I wanted it on vinyl.

For context, this is a space-age concept album, born out of the 'not of this world' school of thought that you find in the Bible (referring to the people of God whose home is not on earth, but in the kingdom of God). This is a theme also used by Larry Norman in his Only Visiting This Planet album (1972) and Petra's 1983 song Not Of This World, although in my completely biased opinion Crumbächer gave it the most thorough and relatable treatment.

Until I listened to the vinyl and read the enclosed lyric sheet, most of the lyrics of this song had eluded me. I had gotten the general idea of it -- that this was a song about how alluring fallen-earth society can be and how easy it is to get comfortable and to lose sight of the fact that this is not our home. But on the day I listened to this vinyl, lyric sheet in hand, I was not in a great headspace and I was starting to ruminate on suicide again (I say this casually only because it's such a common occurrence).

This song had never been a favourite of mine (that was an honour given to tracks like Royal Command Performance, Interstellar Satellite, and Solo Flight) -- until that day when nearly every single line leapt through the stylus and struck me, particularly this one:

When the pressure drives I want to stall

It would be so easy after all...

It would be so easy. At the time I was exhausted -- physically, mentally, emotionally. The thought of waking up every single morning for the next sixty years and fighting literally non-stop with the demon in my head when I was already so deeply depleted at such a (relatively) young age was more than I could stand. All I wanted was to stop fighting. I just wanted a break. I just wanted to breathe without something telling me I couldn't or that I wasn't working hard enough or that I wasn't good enough. The song's opening lines capture it so perfectly: [W]hen every day's a constant uphill climb / They say the joy of living can get lost within the bittersweet of time...

In spite of that, the chorus continues:
So I sally forth, try, try again
Passing up a 'last chance' now and then...

I couldn't feel the same determination that Stephen and Co. feel in this song within myself, but I caught enough of theirs that it inspired me to keep going, just one more day.

Title: Tourist Trap

Artist: Crumbächer

Album: Escape From The Fallen Planet

Year: 1986

Label: Frontline Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Musically, I think my favourite moment is the key change after the guitar solo (I'm always a sucker for a key change). Other highlights include Crumbächer's trademark harmonies and of course plenty of space-age keyboards. There's a nice little guitar solo in here too (a rarity in early Crumbächer, but I think it gives the song added weight and substance).

Music Day - Treasure Of The Broken Land

Four years ago today, dear Brittney left this world, flew beyond the stars without the rest of us and our leaden souls still tethered to time.

I discovered this song probably about a year and a half after her death. It was Mark Heard's (recorded) swan song before his sudden death in August 1992 (Brittney would only have been a month old at the time). It so perfectly captures the tension of being alive on earth and missing those no longer on earth just a phone call or a text away. The song is rich with longing and even a touch of regret, but it's up-tempo enough to keep it from being unlistenable.

My words are weak in the face of such lyrical dexterity, so I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves...

I see you now and then in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to...

I thought our days were commonplace
Thought they'd number in the millions
Now there's only the aftertaste
Of circumstance that can't pass this way again...

You were relieved of a life-long thirst
I was dry at the fountain...

I often still wonder why she got to die and I didn't. I attempted suicide just over two years after she died, and yet I lived. Why then didn't she? She had so much more to offer than I ever have. Why did I have to stay while she went on without me?

I awoke when you called my name
I felt the curtain tearing...

Remind you of anything? Like Terry Scott Taylor's gut-wrenching One More Time? 'I thought that I heard / Your voice call my name / But that couldn't be 'cause you walk beyond the stars... Here inside a dream / I see you standing on a hill / You smile, then turn away / Now I must go...'

I could melt the clock hands down
But only in my memory
Nobody gets a second chance
To be the friend that they meant to be...

If this line doesn't force you to re-evaluate your entire life, I'm willing to bet a lot of money that you don't have a pulse. In just a few words, Heard throws the unforgiving march of time and the fragility of human life into razor-sharp focus.

Title: Treasure Of The Broken Land
Artist: Mark Heard
Album: Satellite Sky
Year: 1992
iTunes here; YouTube here.

We live in a broken land -- I think we'll all agree on that, at least to some extent. But she was a treasure in this wasteland of false fronts and manufactured love. She was the real deal. And I miss her every day.

Music Day - Only One

I accidentally stumbled on this one in my iTunes yesterday and MY GOSH I am melting.

Within the first verse, Uncle Terry's incisive writing slices the heart with the line You've broken so many hearts, darling / That you're not untouched... (Is this true or is this true?)
Beautiful lyrics spin out across a lush early-'60s-style arrangement and can we talk about the harmonies? Mid-century rock harmony is what early DA did best and they may very well be at their peak here.

I've been listening to a lot of late '50s music lately for my novel this year, and this fits right in, but with lyrics that aren't cheesy, mushy, sappy sentiments. I could not ask for more. (I love the '50s sound, I'm just bored with the 'love' theme, in all eras of music.)

Title: Only One
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Shirley, Goodness And Misery
Year: (song) 1981 (album) 1992
Label: Alternative/Stunt Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The song has a complex history. Originally recorded during the ¡Alarma! album sessions (which was in itself a saga for the ages), the original version of the song languished on the shelves for eleven years before it appeared on a compilation of demos and unreleased songs on the Alternative/Stunt label (though a rewritten version with more synth strings showed up on the side-splitting Best Of album, The Miracle Faith Prickly Heat Telethon Of Love in 1990 -- the same album that first introduced us all to the hilarious if somewhat heretical Dr. Edward Daniel Taylor). The original has since found a wider audience as part of the bonus disc on the recently released ¡Alarma! two-disc deluxe reissue (which was my first encounter with it).

Music Day - Numb

This is a song that probably doesn't need much introduction -- one of the few songs in my library that other people would actually know. But I'm listening to it now and I'm dedicating this Music Day to the lovely but trapped M -- lover of performing and writing and rock music, victim of the hell that is perfectionism.

I loved her. I know her brain was sick and she couldn't receive it, but I loved her all the same, and I hate that I'll never see her light up a room again -- nobody could do it like she did and I daresay nobody ever will.

This is how I feel right now. My mind is screaming and clouded like the guitars, but my heart is numb.

Title: Numb
Artist: Linkin Park
Album: Meteora
Year: 2003
iTunes here; YouTube here.

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you...

Music Day - Sound Of Waves

I am seriously addicted to this song right now.

It rocks, it's fun, it's catchy, it's insanely danceable, and if that high harmony in the chorus doesn't carry you up into the stratosphere I really don't know what will.

It has kind of an Ultravox vibe actually, so if that's your thing, you definitely want to hear this song (personally I'm into Ultravox mostly because they sound like Daniel Amos circa 1986, so there's also that connection). It makes sense though -- both Ultravox and Steve Scott hail from the UK. (The harmony also has a touch of The Choir to it... have I dropped enough names to pique your interest yet?)

Steve Scott, from what I gather (and have heard), is quite uncategorisable. His output is a mix of spoken poetry over soundscapes sampled from real life and straight-up dance-y rock songs. But so far I've noticed a common thread of the melancholy thinker -- one of those artists who sees the brilliant breathtaking details of life, but also sees how much the world falls short of what it should be.

Title: Sound Of Waves
Artist: Steve Scott
Album: Lost Horizon
Year: 1989
Label: Alternative Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.
(In researching for this post I discovered there's a seven-minute version which you can hear on YouTube.)

As for the lyrics, they have an air of Mike Roe or Terry Scott Taylor's poetry about them, on the topic of feeling alone in a world continually concerned with 'progress.' (Admittedly, the subject matter is a bit incongruent with the upbeat music, but both are enjoyable on their own merits.)

They say it's asking far too much
To talk about the personal touch
Even if it was planned in advance...

These words resonate a lot with me. As you may have gathered in reading this blog, I tend to be fairly open and honest about pretty much everything (especially my feelings, depression, and the frustration of living in a world that's got its priorities messed up), and in recent years I've heard several people accuse me of being 'too personal' (which I don't understand, because if I'm sharing something from my life, of my own free will, who are you to determine it's 'too personal'? If I'm okay with talking about my own feelings, who are you to tell me that I shouldn't be comfortable with talking about my own life? How can you justifiably censor my life? It's not yours to censor. Anyway, stopping the rant now before it gets too out of hand...).
'Planned in advance?' Well -- as an example -- even at things like small-group Bible studies, where you're supposed to be able to 'share your struggles,' there are unspoken limits on what can and cannot be said. There's an unwritten list of 'acceptable sins to confess' (the more vague, the better) and if you dare step off that list and confess a genuine struggle with an actual sin (or, God forbid, actual pain), you'll be shunned.

And as a result, we are left alone -- each one an island unto himself. To struggle, alienated from fellow humans for... how long?

But right now the only thing I hear is the sound of waves
Crashing all around me where I stand
But right now the only thing I hear is the sound of waves
Now that you have found me, take my hand...