Baker’s Dozen

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28
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #1

Befriended

Baker’s Dozen #1: “Befriended” by The Innocence Mission

Tomorrow On The Runway – The Innocence Mission


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As my favorite album of the decade (choosing between number one and number two was tough) you have to know that whatBefriended album means to me has more to do with my wife, my kids, my mortality, my family, and my Lord than it does the simple songs on the album. This album is not the most complex of the decade, not the most artistically experimental, not the most profound, not the most powerful, not the most perfect. But I think it is the most beautiful.

According to the story, Karen Peris wrote these songs in a year that saw the death of her mother and the birth of a child. It was a year of heavy loss and abundant happiness. That drips off every word of this album. It’s a context that the songs cannot live without. But Karen’s strong Christian faith is not absent in that context. She’s anchored and stable, fully confident in expressing life’s ebb and tide in the most subtle, crafted, poignant lyric.

Tomorrow On The Runway:
While my heart is sinking I do not want my voice to go out into the air. Did you leave the darkness without me? You’re always miles ahead.

I Never Knew You From the Sun:
Snow is on the ground but this is not my landscape now, where I find myself without you. Oh I never knew you from the sun.

Beautiful Change:
Flower forth, and soon, branch of Easter. I want to be here when he needs me, he will see a beautiful change. Oh and he wades into the yard. Nothing has been what I’d guessed so far. Unforeseen, this most sweet, beautiful change.

I wish I could post all the lyrics here for you. They are all so beautiful and consistently rich.

The low-key beauty of the music sets the songs exactly where they need to be. Intimately in your heart. Karen’s voice is that of a old friend whispering tenderly in your year words of consolation, comfort and joy. My first child was born the year this album came out. These songs melted themselves into my own experience in such a way, I don’t think I could separate my experience from the words and tones they express.

Songs don’t get more beautiful than that.

Speaking of Innocence Mission…

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27
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #2

Derek

Baker’s Dozen #2: “She Must and Shall Go Free” by Derek Webb

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She Must And Shall Go Free is an important record. It’s a monument in the Christian music industry. It’s a rare thing of honest, raw, tough passion. It should be a catalyst in many people’s lives in regard to how they see Christ and the Church. This record profoundly impacted me. There are four songs on this album that everyone following Christ needs to hear:

Lover:
Like a man comes to an altar I came into this town; with the world upon my shoulders and promises passed down. And I went into the water; my Father, he was pleased. I built it and I’ll tear it down so you will be set free.

Wedding Dress:
If you could love me as a wife and for my wedding gift, your life; should that be all I’d ever need? Or is there more I’m looking for? And should I read between the lines and look for blessings in disguise to make me handsome, rich, and wise? Is that really what you want?

Beloved:
Beloved these are dangerous times; you are weightless like a leaf from the vine. And the wind has blown you all over town. There is nothing holding you to the ground. Beloved listen to me: Don’t believe all that you see. And don’t you ever let anyone tell you that there’s anything that you need but me.

The Church:
I have come with one purpose: To capture for myself a bride. By my life she is lovely, and by my death she’s justified. So when you hear the sound of the water you will know you’re not alone. ‘Cause I haven’t come for only you, but for my people to pursue. And you cannot care for me with no regard for her. If you love Me you will love the church.

There’s not been another set of songs written by a Christian songwriter this decade that is as important as those four songs. I hope that this album is not buried in the years and forgotten. It will be sad if the Christian culture pass over this work for the sake of more superficial clichés about the Lord.

Speaking of Derek Webb…

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25
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #3

Van Occupanther

Baker’s Dozen #3: “The Trials of Van Occupanther” by Midlake

We’re down to my top three personal favorite albums of the decade. I wish I could express with the appropriate passion how much these three mean to me. They connected with me so deeply. First of all, Van Occupanther feels like the soundtrack to my thirties. It has a moderation to it that comes with age. That’s one of the things the thirties gain over the twenties. It’s reserved without being tamed. It’s fully in command and release of its mood and emotion, but it’s deliberate. Very deliberate. Like a great conversation. Midlake made an album that’s as much a great painting or short story as it is a great album. It’s this holistic thing.

Let me not be too consumed with this world. Sometimes I want to go home and stay out of sight for a long time.

Speaking of Midlake…

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24
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #4

Funeral

Baker’s Dozen #4: “Funeral” by Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire. This felt like a breath of life or fresh air or something. There’s so much power and emotion and gut and heart in Funeral that it feels like it’s going to just fall over, exhausted, at any moment. It’s infectious, desperate, yearning, aching. Dripping with emotion. Every note and word feels like it’s fighting to escape and the band is wrenching it from them. In the way that Peter Gabriel’s album connected to the part that’s aging, this album connected to the part that’s still young. This album is what it feels like to be young. Well, to me anyway. (And many others, you know who you are.)

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23
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #5

Ghosts

Baker’s Dozen #5: “Ghosts of the Great Highway” by Sun Kil Moon

As hard as it tries to be, Sun Kil Moon is not a band. It’s still a songwriter and his songs. Ghosts of the Great Highway is the album I feel like I could’ve made. The textures, melodies, mood, the voice, lyric… it all felt so familiar from the first listen. I knew it like the back of my hand. Like Mark Kozelek opened up the top of his head and pull out some stuff and it was like the same stuff in my head. Not simply, “he’s singing about what I think,” but like the texture and color of that matter was the same as mine. He turns the lyrics so naturally:

I put my feet up on the coffee table. I stay up late watching cable. I like old movies with Clark Gable just like my dad does.

And I don’t think that (since The Boxer) anyone’s written as gorgeous a song about boxing as the one here:

Salvador Sanchez arrived and vanished, only twenty-three, with so much speed owning the highway. Mexico City bred so many. But none quite like him, sweet warrior, pure magic matador.

Speaking of Mark Kozelek…

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22
Mar 10

Baker’s Dozen #6

Up

Baker’s Dozen #6: “Up” by Peter Gabriel

Walking through the undergrowth to the house in the woods. The deeper I go, the darker it gets. I peer through the window. Knock at the door. And the monster I was so afraid of lies curled-up on the floor.

Oh man! Peter Gabriel is the coolest of cool. And, much like Picasso, he gets better and better as an artist with age. Up is an album more experienced, knowing, and feeling than where I am in life. And it captivates me because of that. It’s not an expression of who I am, but an expression of a future that I can’t quite make out, but I’m drawing very close to. I love all of Peter Gabriel’s albums. Well, “love” might be too strong a word for 1 and 2. Anyway, in my opinion, this album has set itself above its predecessors. It has moments as strong as Mercy Street and Blood Of Eden, while holding on to the pop coolness in songs like this:

One dot: It’s on or off, defines what is and what is not. Two dot: A pair of eyes, a voice, a touch, complete surprise.

There’s a reason he takes ten years to make an album. When he’s done, it’s perfect.

Speaking of Peter Gabriel…

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20
Mar 10

Bakers Dozen #7

Alice

Baker’s Dozen #7: “Alice” by Tom Waits

Tom Waits is a master. He’s the kind of songwriter that songwriters work to be. So, what about this album? In short, Alice is a set of songs he wrote for a Robert Wilson play based on Lewis Carroll. The theatrical setting does come across in the songs, but it doesn’t overpower them or ruin the intimacy that you need. You still feel like Tom Waits is whispering in your ear, sobbing on your shoulder, screaming in your face, or pouring the dirtiest mix of woe and wonder into your soul. This album hit me. It’s got this character, this personality, to it. There’s tenderness and love, fear and obsession, and some great moments of lunacy. In that way it feels very much like spending an hour at the theatre. On top of it all sits the ever-brilliant lyric of Tom Waits:

Arithmetic, arithmetock, turn the hands back on the clock

and

I must be insane to go skating on your name. And in tracing it twice I fell through the ice of Alice.

Tom Waits – Alice by tchatski

Speaking of Tom Waits…

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