One of the most heartbreaking commentaries on life, maturation, and time that I have ever heard. This song embodies the monotony that I have spent my life thus far striving against. Listen to these lyrics and see if something deep within doesn't whisper (or scream) there has to be more to life than this. It can't just be plodding on from birth to death with little to nothing in between.
But the longer I flounder in this thing called life, the more I fear that this song is right -- this is all there is.
Title: We Walk On
Artist: Tonio K.
Album: Olé
Year: 1997
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Even the guitar seems melancholy.
The song's musical simplicity -- acoustic guitar with the very lightest of organ touches -- highlights a seemingly effortless but nimble and haunting lyric (in the style of Mark Heard, perhaps, or a pensive Rich Mullins). As the hopeless, fruitless tale is spun an electric guitar (very much akin to early Michael Roe/77s) comes in, strident and jagged, moving in fits and starts as if sobbing.
I don't know where the days go
They turn into weeks
They turn into years
Summers turn into Christmas, and they all disappear...
Showing posts with label Rich Mullins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rich Mullins. Show all posts
28 July 2017
25 November 2016
Music Day - Sometimes By Step
I first heard the full version of this song when my dear friend asked me to sing it with her in church. To this day I still like her take better than the original. But that's not to say the original is to be sneezed at.
I was listening to it the other day because lately I've been on a Rich Mullins kick and suddenly... well, you know that moment when you're listening to a song you're heard many times before but all of the sudden EVERY SINGLE WORD of it hits you right in the soul? Yeah. Me too. It's what I live for. It's why I ingest copious amounts of music and am always looking for more. I'm always looking for that moment. And that's why I'm in the arts. I want to give that moment to other people. There's just nothing like it.
Rich Mullins was one of those guys who knew how to write a lyric. He's up there with guys like Mark Heard, Terry Scott Taylor, and Michael Roe. These people can paint feelings with words. That's a very rare gift, and we are so lucky that they had the tenacity to hold onto that vision in a world where depth is 'too depressing' and 'not Christian enough.'
Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hard
There was so much work left to do
But so much You'd already done...
Title: Sometimes By Step
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume Two
Year: 1991
Label: Reunion Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.
If you were affiliated with the average evangelical church in the '90s and early 2000s, you probably recognise the chorus. Rich Mullins is primarily known for short repetitive choruses that congregations bludgeon to death, which is a shame because there is so much depth and richness to his poetry. However -- it does create a bridge from the average evangelical to actual creative art if said average evangelical does happen to research the history of it.
Nobody talks about heartbreak in Christianity. Nobody talks about days being hard. And even fewer people contrast that with the work God has done without getting stuck in a thin, cheesy water analogy that they can't seem to get out of (looking at you, Hillsong's Oceans). I'll refrain from the Christian-music-is-fluff rant here. But a lyric like this is real, refreshing, and hopeful. This is everything Christian music should strive to be. Poets and lyricists of the next generation, please take note. The future of songwriting may depend on it.
I was listening to it the other day because lately I've been on a Rich Mullins kick and suddenly... well, you know that moment when you're listening to a song you're heard many times before but all of the sudden EVERY SINGLE WORD of it hits you right in the soul? Yeah. Me too. It's what I live for. It's why I ingest copious amounts of music and am always looking for more. I'm always looking for that moment. And that's why I'm in the arts. I want to give that moment to other people. There's just nothing like it.
Rich Mullins was one of those guys who knew how to write a lyric. He's up there with guys like Mark Heard, Terry Scott Taylor, and Michael Roe. These people can paint feelings with words. That's a very rare gift, and we are so lucky that they had the tenacity to hold onto that vision in a world where depth is 'too depressing' and 'not Christian enough.'
Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hard
There was so much work left to do
But so much You'd already done...
Title: Sometimes By Step
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume Two
Year: 1991
Label: Reunion Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.
If you were affiliated with the average evangelical church in the '90s and early 2000s, you probably recognise the chorus. Rich Mullins is primarily known for short repetitive choruses that congregations bludgeon to death, which is a shame because there is so much depth and richness to his poetry. However -- it does create a bridge from the average evangelical to actual creative art if said average evangelical does happen to research the history of it.
Nobody talks about heartbreak in Christianity. Nobody talks about days being hard. And even fewer people contrast that with the work God has done without getting stuck in a thin, cheesy water analogy that they can't seem to get out of (looking at you, Hillsong's Oceans). I'll refrain from the Christian-music-is-fluff rant here. But a lyric like this is real, refreshing, and hopeful. This is everything Christian music should strive to be. Poets and lyricists of the next generation, please take note. The future of songwriting may depend on it.
06 February 2015
Music Day - Hold Me Jesus
To all of those whose lives have changed irrevocably.
To those who have been shell-shocked by a sudden death.
To those who look at the future and see only fog.
To those who lie awake at night, heart racing.
Title: Hold Me Jesus
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: A Liturgy, A Legacy, And A Ragamuffin Band
Year: 1993
21 October 2011
Music Day
I was listening to this album the other day, and as I was staring out the window at the blue sky and the yellow and red leaves popping out against it, this song caught my attention.
It's beautiful.
It's charming -- the analog hiss makes it feel a little more intimate. The one-take recording adds to it -- no autotune, no computers; just a regular guy and an old piano, singing for the God who gives him breath.
It's beautiful.
It's charming -- the analog hiss makes it feel a little more intimate. The one-take recording adds to it -- no autotune, no computers; just a regular guy and an old piano, singing for the God who gives him breath.
Title: Nothing Is Beyond You (Demo Version)
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: The Jesus Record
Year: 1997
Label: Word Records
iTunes here.
The heavens stretch to hold You
And deep cries out to deep...
Time does not contain You
And deep cries out to deep...
Time does not contain You
You fill eternity...
05 July 2011
Why Wikipedia Should Be Blocked After 9.30pm
I have come to a conclusion.
There should be a plugin built into every web browser on the market that blocks all access to Wikipedia after 9.30pm local time.
It's not that I'm addicted to Wikipedia. If I have a question about something, I usually go to the library and borrow a half-dozen books on the topic. If I need something right this minute I'll ask a friend who I think is likely to know the answer. Rarely do I turn to Google and by extension, Wikipedia.
However, on the rare occasion I do Google something, I tend to end up on Wikipedia, because it's the first link on the page and it generally doesn't have viruses that screw up people's computers (I'm a bit paranoid that way about Google searching).
And let's face it, it is informative... too informative. I looked up Rich Mullins once and I learned everything I could possibly have ever wanted to know and then some about microcassettes, analog generation loss, and Space Cadet Pinball for Windows 98 (plus, of course, Rich Mullins).
And that's the whole problem. If they didn't link to other interesting and informative Wikipedia pages, I wouldn't be writing this post. It wouldn't eat five irretrievable hours of my life at a time.
And I wouldn't end up terrifying the living daylights out of myself for a few days.
Have you ever looked up the Wikipedia page for Elvis Presley?
I swear you could print it out on regular paper 8.5 inches wide and lay it across Canada and it would reach from Vancouver at least to Winnipeg. It's insanely long. I'm a fast reader (the fastest I know), and it took me and hour and a half to read it. An hour and a half! And I didn't even read it all... I skimmed quite a bit (mostly the bits about his, ahem, very private life).
A quick subpoint here -- there should seriously be an adult content warning label on that page. Mostly it talked about his songs and movies and maybe a bit about his family life (especially in the earlier years), but I saw -- even though I started skimming -- far more about his, er... intimate life than anybody needs to know. I know the Internet is kind of a free-for-all, but seriously, what if it was your eight-year-old doing a report on Elvis and decided to look at the Wikipedia page? Have a little consideration here, people. No, a warning label is not going to prevent you (or your child) from continuing to read it anyway, but at least then you have a heads-up and if you've trained your kid well they'll at least come ask you if they should continue reading.
Back to Elvis.
I don't even know what possessed me to start reading the Elvis Presley Wikipedia page at eleven pm, knowing the chain reaction Wikipedia lays down for you.
I had been looking for album artwork for my iTunes library and randomly decided to check out the Imperials Wikipedia page that appeared in the list. Why, I don't know -- I could ask my dad about the Imperials and he could tell me more than the Wikipedia page did. And why I opened the link to the Elvis page from there I don't really know either.
I mean, I knew all I really cared about -- singer, started his career in 1950s sometime, acted a bit, served in the US Army, died of some kind of overdose in 1977. Sure there's more than that, but I didn't really care about any of it... except for the question 'what did he actually die of?'
From laypeople (most of them aged four or younger when he died) I'd heard it was drugs, I'd heard alcohol, I'd heard he starved himself to death trying to lose weight but I'd never heard from a slightly more reputable source. And since I apparently have some kind of morbid fascination with how famous people die (especially if they die young), I decided to check it out.
I know, I know, they have that neat little box at the top of the page that links to certain segments of the article, but as the page was loading I suddenly thought, I wonder how he even got started in the first place.
So I read that part. But you know how it is -- as soon as you start reading something, anything, you have to continue; you can't just stop.
So I continued.
Finally, at about 12.30am I reached the part with a heading about the decline of his health.
Now put yourself in my place.
It's 12.30 in the morning.
You're fighting to keep from falling asleep over your keyboard.
It is completely silent save the very, very soft whirring of your laptop (city people may struggle with this one).
Aside from the computer's screen and one fluorescent bulb, it is completely dark.
You've just spent more than an hour with your (very vivid) imagination firmly locked, no distraction, in the world of Elvis or at least his fans.
And you have an irrational terror of music being garbled or messed up.
I'm not kidding about that last point. As far back as I can remember, the drone of a cassette tape in a faulty player would give me nightmares for weeks. I hated that sound -- the slow, painful, mournful death of music. I would hear a song droning like that in the daytime and then in the dead of night I would close my eyes and the song would suddenly be in my head, warped and moaning, almost melting slowly in a flame as the proverbial ghost was wrenched from its being. And I would be too terrified by the awful sound in my head to even consider seeking reassuring company in my parents' room at the other end of the dark house.
I still hate that sound.
And as you sit there in silence, only half-awake and barely aware of your surroundings as the darkness presses against the window just above your head; like the beginning of a horror show -- creepy music in your head and all -- it's as if the light takes on an eerie reddish cast, turning everything that isn't in tar-black shadow into an hazy, choppy scene the colour of blood.
Your eyes become stuck on a paragraph which, coupled with your very focused, very vivid, half-dreaming imagination, becomes a nightmare as your brain invents the sound... like watching a horrific accident that's too terrible to look away from... the account of one of Presley's musicians about a concert on what I gather was his last tour, describing how Elvis had to hold onto the microphone stand for support, how he was so drugged and listless he couldn't even sing the words to his own songs...
And your primed imagination pulls together a shaky, unfocused hand-held video recording of a rock star clinging to a microphone stand with the band thumping and crashing along behind him as if all's right with their world and yet it's so obvious something is very wrong... the singer tries to form the words of his own songs and he can't make them work, he can't keep up with the band, his eyes are half-closed as he channels all his strength into clinging to that microphone stand... the band continues to play along behind him but all that comes through the lead microphone is irregular mumbling... droning and patchy against a much stronger and steadier beat...
You blink and return to your bedroom thirty-five years later but only momentarily as you're suddenly thrown back in time again, a child standing in the doorway to her bedroom, swaying, the sound of a badly dragging music tape looping through her head, echoing through the pitch darkness as she tries to gather enough courage to make the sprint across the house to her parents' room through the sound of the dying cassette tape coming from all around.
There should be a plugin built into every web browser on the market that blocks all access to Wikipedia after 9.30pm local time.
It's not that I'm addicted to Wikipedia. If I have a question about something, I usually go to the library and borrow a half-dozen books on the topic. If I need something right this minute I'll ask a friend who I think is likely to know the answer. Rarely do I turn to Google and by extension, Wikipedia.
However, on the rare occasion I do Google something, I tend to end up on Wikipedia, because it's the first link on the page and it generally doesn't have viruses that screw up people's computers (I'm a bit paranoid that way about Google searching).
And let's face it, it is informative... too informative. I looked up Rich Mullins once and I learned everything I could possibly have ever wanted to know and then some about microcassettes, analog generation loss, and Space Cadet Pinball for Windows 98 (plus, of course, Rich Mullins).
And that's the whole problem. If they didn't link to other interesting and informative Wikipedia pages, I wouldn't be writing this post. It wouldn't eat five irretrievable hours of my life at a time.
And I wouldn't end up terrifying the living daylights out of myself for a few days.
Have you ever looked up the Wikipedia page for Elvis Presley?
I swear you could print it out on regular paper 8.5 inches wide and lay it across Canada and it would reach from Vancouver at least to Winnipeg. It's insanely long. I'm a fast reader (the fastest I know), and it took me and hour and a half to read it. An hour and a half! And I didn't even read it all... I skimmed quite a bit (mostly the bits about his, ahem, very private life).
A quick subpoint here -- there should seriously be an adult content warning label on that page. Mostly it talked about his songs and movies and maybe a bit about his family life (especially in the earlier years), but I saw -- even though I started skimming -- far more about his, er... intimate life than anybody needs to know. I know the Internet is kind of a free-for-all, but seriously, what if it was your eight-year-old doing a report on Elvis and decided to look at the Wikipedia page? Have a little consideration here, people. No, a warning label is not going to prevent you (or your child) from continuing to read it anyway, but at least then you have a heads-up and if you've trained your kid well they'll at least come ask you if they should continue reading.
Back to Elvis.
I don't even know what possessed me to start reading the Elvis Presley Wikipedia page at eleven pm, knowing the chain reaction Wikipedia lays down for you.
I had been looking for album artwork for my iTunes library and randomly decided to check out the Imperials Wikipedia page that appeared in the list. Why, I don't know -- I could ask my dad about the Imperials and he could tell me more than the Wikipedia page did. And why I opened the link to the Elvis page from there I don't really know either.
I mean, I knew all I really cared about -- singer, started his career in 1950s sometime, acted a bit, served in the US Army, died of some kind of overdose in 1977. Sure there's more than that, but I didn't really care about any of it... except for the question 'what did he actually die of?'
From laypeople (most of them aged four or younger when he died) I'd heard it was drugs, I'd heard alcohol, I'd heard he starved himself to death trying to lose weight but I'd never heard from a slightly more reputable source. And since I apparently have some kind of morbid fascination with how famous people die (especially if they die young), I decided to check it out.
I know, I know, they have that neat little box at the top of the page that links to certain segments of the article, but as the page was loading I suddenly thought, I wonder how he even got started in the first place.
So I read that part. But you know how it is -- as soon as you start reading something, anything, you have to continue; you can't just stop.
So I continued.
Finally, at about 12.30am I reached the part with a heading about the decline of his health.
Now put yourself in my place.
It's 12.30 in the morning.
You're fighting to keep from falling asleep over your keyboard.
It is completely silent save the very, very soft whirring of your laptop (city people may struggle with this one).
Aside from the computer's screen and one fluorescent bulb, it is completely dark.
You've just spent more than an hour with your (very vivid) imagination firmly locked, no distraction, in the world of Elvis or at least his fans.
And you have an irrational terror of music being garbled or messed up.
I'm not kidding about that last point. As far back as I can remember, the drone of a cassette tape in a faulty player would give me nightmares for weeks. I hated that sound -- the slow, painful, mournful death of music. I would hear a song droning like that in the daytime and then in the dead of night I would close my eyes and the song would suddenly be in my head, warped and moaning, almost melting slowly in a flame as the proverbial ghost was wrenched from its being. And I would be too terrified by the awful sound in my head to even consider seeking reassuring company in my parents' room at the other end of the dark house.
I still hate that sound.
And as you sit there in silence, only half-awake and barely aware of your surroundings as the darkness presses against the window just above your head; like the beginning of a horror show -- creepy music in your head and all -- it's as if the light takes on an eerie reddish cast, turning everything that isn't in tar-black shadow into an hazy, choppy scene the colour of blood.
Your eyes become stuck on a paragraph which, coupled with your very focused, very vivid, half-dreaming imagination, becomes a nightmare as your brain invents the sound... like watching a horrific accident that's too terrible to look away from... the account of one of Presley's musicians about a concert on what I gather was his last tour, describing how Elvis had to hold onto the microphone stand for support, how he was so drugged and listless he couldn't even sing the words to his own songs...
And your primed imagination pulls together a shaky, unfocused hand-held video recording of a rock star clinging to a microphone stand with the band thumping and crashing along behind him as if all's right with their world and yet it's so obvious something is very wrong... the singer tries to form the words of his own songs and he can't make them work, he can't keep up with the band, his eyes are half-closed as he channels all his strength into clinging to that microphone stand... the band continues to play along behind him but all that comes through the lead microphone is irregular mumbling... droning and patchy against a much stronger and steadier beat...
You blink and return to your bedroom thirty-five years later but only momentarily as you're suddenly thrown back in time again, a child standing in the doorway to her bedroom, swaying, the sound of a badly dragging music tape looping through her head, echoing through the pitch darkness as she tries to gather enough courage to make the sprint across the house to her parents' room through the sound of the dying cassette tape coming from all around.
29 April 2011
Music Day
I loved this CD to death when I first got it only a few months after it was released. I must have listened to it almost every day for two or three straight years. David Meece is a unique artist that way -- no matter how many times you listen to his music it never ever seems to get old. I still love this album.
Title: I'll Be Waiting For You
Artist: David Meece
Album: There I Go Again
Year: 2002
Record Label: Aluminum Records
Here it is on iTunes and here it is on YouTube.
And while we're on the topic of music, it might interest you to know that I have now added YouTube links to the following Music Day posts:
Group 1 Crew -- Transcend
Petra -- I Will Celebrate/When The Spirit Of The Lord
PFR -- Pour Me Out
Rich Mullins -- My Deliverer
Title: I'll Be Waiting For You
Artist: David Meece
Album: There I Go Again
Year: 2002
Record Label: Aluminum Records
Here it is on iTunes and here it is on YouTube.
And while we're on the topic of music, it might interest you to know that I have now added YouTube links to the following Music Day posts:
Group 1 Crew -- Transcend
Petra -- I Will Celebrate/When The Spirit Of The Lord
PFR -- Pour Me Out
Rich Mullins -- My Deliverer
04 March 2011
Music Day
Anyone who listened to Christian radio in the late '90s will know this song word-for-word. Well, most of the song anyway... In the interest of depraving us of any music that might actually be inspiring and beautiful, the last two minutes of this song never saw the light of day (thanks to Christian radio) unless you managed to catch a copy of the album before it disappeared into the tobyMac abyss.
This is why I like the iTunes Store.
In 1998 I was too young to understand whose song this was supposed to be and what happened to him. It was all over the radio, but I don't remember it. All I remember is hearing the flute and the children's voices -- 'My Deliverer is coming; My Deliverer is standing by; My Deliverer is coming; My Deliverer is standing by...'
After a while though, the song faded, ousted by the likes of tobyMac, Newsboys, and, of course, Phillips, Craig and Dean. Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against the Newsboys (tobyMac and PCD are a different matter), but aside from a completely chance occurrence I would have lost this song entirely to the fog of my childhood.
It was some years later -- at least ten -- and I distinctly remember being in a rush. My mother had errands to run and was already waiting outside in the minivan for me. I hurried to get my coat and began to put it on when suddenly my ear caught something so beautiful it froze me.
I turned to look at the radio. Flute music, mingled with piano -- so familiar.
I continued to get ready to leave, but I moved more slowly so I could hear the radio. I hoped to catch the name of the song, but since telling us the title and artist of the song seems to be a go-to-jail-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 infraction in radio these days, I knew my only real hope of identifying the song lay in memorising as many of the lyrics as I could and preferably the basic tune as well.
I could only identify the chorus lyrics (and how couldn't I; they only repeat it thirty-seven times or so); but the uncommon use of the flute seared itself across the almost-faded childhood memory. The song finished and I rushed out to my waiting mother, but I made sure to keep singing to words to myself throughout the day. When I finally got hold of a piece of paper and a pen I wrote them down and tucked it away for safekeeping; but continued to sing the fragment to myself periodically to keep the tune in my head.
Some time later -- a few weeks maybe, or perhaps a few months -- I heard the same song again. This time my mother was with me and I asked her, "Do you know who did this song?"
"Rich Mullins and a Ragamuffin Band."
I had been expecting to hear "I don't know. Michael W. Smith maybe?" or something of the sort, so I was rather taken aback when she gave me such a confident answer. Still, I was relieved. Now I had a very good chance of finding the song someday.
It was year later, maybe more, when I finally got an iTunes Store account. I bought two songs (I've always been a rather 'conservative spender'). One was PFR's Great Lengths. The other was this one:
Title: My Deliverer
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: The Jesus Record
Year: 1998
(You can hear it on YouTube here.)
Although Rich Mullins is listed as the artist; that's not entirely true. He had made a few low-quality demos for a new album with intent to start working on it before the end of 1997.
However, only days (I heard once that it was nine days) later, he was killed in a motor accident. His recording friends took the demos and expanded them into a proper album, which was released in a 2-disc format -- one disc with the original demos, one with the full-blown versions his friends created.
This is why I like the iTunes Store.
In 1998 I was too young to understand whose song this was supposed to be and what happened to him. It was all over the radio, but I don't remember it. All I remember is hearing the flute and the children's voices -- 'My Deliverer is coming; My Deliverer is standing by; My Deliverer is coming; My Deliverer is standing by...'
After a while though, the song faded, ousted by the likes of tobyMac, Newsboys, and, of course, Phillips, Craig and Dean. Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against the Newsboys (tobyMac and PCD are a different matter), but aside from a completely chance occurrence I would have lost this song entirely to the fog of my childhood.
It was some years later -- at least ten -- and I distinctly remember being in a rush. My mother had errands to run and was already waiting outside in the minivan for me. I hurried to get my coat and began to put it on when suddenly my ear caught something so beautiful it froze me.
I turned to look at the radio. Flute music, mingled with piano -- so familiar.
I continued to get ready to leave, but I moved more slowly so I could hear the radio. I hoped to catch the name of the song, but since telling us the title and artist of the song seems to be a go-to-jail-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 infraction in radio these days, I knew my only real hope of identifying the song lay in memorising as many of the lyrics as I could and preferably the basic tune as well.
I could only identify the chorus lyrics (and how couldn't I; they only repeat it thirty-seven times or so); but the uncommon use of the flute seared itself across the almost-faded childhood memory. The song finished and I rushed out to my waiting mother, but I made sure to keep singing to words to myself throughout the day. When I finally got hold of a piece of paper and a pen I wrote them down and tucked it away for safekeeping; but continued to sing the fragment to myself periodically to keep the tune in my head.
Some time later -- a few weeks maybe, or perhaps a few months -- I heard the same song again. This time my mother was with me and I asked her, "Do you know who did this song?"
"Rich Mullins and a Ragamuffin Band."
I had been expecting to hear "I don't know. Michael W. Smith maybe?" or something of the sort, so I was rather taken aback when she gave me such a confident answer. Still, I was relieved. Now I had a very good chance of finding the song someday.
It was year later, maybe more, when I finally got an iTunes Store account. I bought two songs (I've always been a rather 'conservative spender'). One was PFR's Great Lengths. The other was this one:
Title: My Deliverer
Artist: Rich Mullins
Album: The Jesus Record
Year: 1998
(You can hear it on YouTube here.)
Although Rich Mullins is listed as the artist; that's not entirely true. He had made a few low-quality demos for a new album with intent to start working on it before the end of 1997.
However, only days (I heard once that it was nine days) later, he was killed in a motor accident. His recording friends took the demos and expanded them into a proper album, which was released in a 2-disc format -- one disc with the original demos, one with the full-blown versions his friends created.
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