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Happy New Music Tuesday! This week both Chris and James will be talking a little about the new songs. If you didn’t check out the music video for “We’ll Be The Light” yet, make sure you do here!
I wrote “Seeds on the Rise” one afternoon in the Fall of 2009 while I was visiting my family’s farm in Townsend, TN. This song is about the struggle of loss. Loss takes on a dual meaning in “Seeds”, and the listener is exposed to lyrics that address the loss of a relationship, as well as the struggle of losing faith. The loss of anything in my life usually forces me to deal with the issue of control, and this is where I started with “Seeds”. In my experience, we are all told from a very early age (over and over again) that our destiny lies in our ability to control it. We must take control of our relationships, take control of our financial security, take control of our direction, lest we lose that control and thus lose our ability to dictate our lives. This, of course, is a myth, and we’re reminded of that truth when we see our control disappear. Lives change, relationships, jobs, etc. all come to an end for reasons outside of our control, and we’re left silently asking ourselves the same question – what is the meaning of this? If we recognize the truth that we can’t control everything we desire to, is there something or somebody who does? Or is all of this just a random sequence of events that transpire without any real meaning or purpose? Are we like the seeds that float over a farm’s field in East Tennessee, thrown to a directionless wind to land wherever it blows us? Or is there something else outside of our control that cares about what happens here? Is there someone or something that guides us to places without catering to whether or not we can recognize or understand where we’re going? These are the questions I wanted to ask when I wrote “Seeds”. If we’re honest, I think we can agree that an unhealthy pursuit of control leads to bitter loneliness. If I spend too much time buying into the idea that “it’s all up to me”, I eventually find myself feeling like “It’s only me.” Life becomes very lonely and brief. But as I wrote the lyrics to “Seeds”, I was reminded of another truth – there is hope. The songs ends with this realization – there is hope for everyone plagued by the guilt of not mastering this illusion we’ve created called control. Our hope in part lies in the love that we have for one another, and more importantly, the love that exists for us by the “someone or something” that does care about what’s going on here.

I hope you enjoy it.

Chris

“Song for My Beloved” was written during one of the most tiring weeks of my life. It’s a story of one lover radically pursuing the other and reminding the other that it is impossible for her to run away from his love. Without explaining too much, I’ll just say that it was written a couple days after Thanksgiving 2009 and I had been reading Henri Nouwen’s “Life of the Beloved” while relaxing for a couple days at my parent’s home in middle Tennessee. I was really inspired by Nouwen’s musings about “resting in knowing that you are loved and then living out of that restful place.” This is one of those songs that just felt like a complete gift… like something that I didn’t create and didn’t have much control over. On November 29th I was dog tired, so I laid down to take a short nap… when I woke up from taking the nap, these are the words and the melody that came out.

James