Last year, inspired by my brother-in-law's year-end tradition of composing a "Best of" playlist to musically reflect on the previous year, I decided to make a list of my own. Now, while standing in the doorway of 2019 while scratching my head in wonder as to where 2018 went, it's the perfect time to compile a new list. This list generally represents songs that I've encountered over the past year, although there are a few exceptions (rediscoveries, etc). As with last year, the songs on this list generally stand out to me due to one or a combination of the following:

• Groove
• Lyrical content
• Overall song craftsmanship
• Catchy hooks and melodies
• Unique story-telling
• Any other unexplainable quality that makes the song resonate

This years playlist contains 49 songs that meet the above criteria in some way. The 10 highlights below are extractions from that list and are a great place to start. Feel free to listen to the linked videos while you read and find links to the complete song list at the bottom of this post.

1. Another Man's Shoes - Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors

This song speaks for itself. Drew Holcomb manages to invite the listener to the porch rocking chair to humbly contemplate life's complexities while the groove drifts by like a lillypad on a lazy river. The lyrics simply yet precisely articulate a truth that I've felt for sometime now but haven't known how to convey; that everyone has "their own set of blues" and perhaps one of the greatest acts of lightening the load and bridging the differences that otherwise separate us is to "walk a mile in another man's shoes."

2. Glory - Bastille (Young Bombs remix)

Bastille made their debut (as far as I know) in 2013 with Pompeii, a driving, chanting, pounding epic. While I appreciated that song, I didn't do a deep dive into their other offerings. Along the way, I encountered Young Bombs, who seem to specialize in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) covers of pop songs. I'm very easily sold on catchy, dance-able hooks and this song has quite a few. By listening to this one, I've grown to appreciate the smooth and unique qualities of Bastille's lead singer's voice. He has a way of adding a relaxed quality to the vocals that pairs well with the contrasting, high-energy, danceability of this song.

3. Kings & Queens - Mat Kearney

Mat Kearney is an anomaly. I first discovered his music in college around 2008/09 and was struck by his cross-genre stylings of acoustic singer-songwriter meets low-key hip-hop ninja. His early songs like All I Need and Girl America adequately reflect his dual-citizenship on either end of this spectrum. To me, Kings & Queens is the result of a gradual and successful merge of both genres. The outcome is a beautiful blend of steady grooves, catchy hooks, and rhythmic flows.

4. Clouds - Cory Wong

Cory Wong is quite the character. His music seems to be the audible manifestation of his personality, both bursting with an infectious and vibrant passion. He has a history with the band Vulfpeck, a collaborative of super funky dudes, which seems to double as the launch-base for the solo careers of some of its past/present members. Cory's music is the work of an artist who loves his craft and is fearless to plunge its boundaries and explore what lies beyond. One of Cory's notable feats is harnessing the power of social media to gain a recording session with his smooth jazz hero, Dave Coz, on his song "The Optimist" (click here for the story and song). Clouds is a unique song that lives up to its name. Playful guitars dance through the atmospheric vocals and piano, at times swelling to orchestral proportions over the terra firma of a solid bass/drum groove. One of our favorite family past-times is to have spontaneous dance parties to a shuffling playlist. My toddler daughter, a great dance partner, has requested many times to listen to "the clouds", when referring to this track.

5. For the Cause - Keith & Kristyn Getty Kids

Keith and Kristyn Getty are a husband-wife duo whose worship songs are characterized by a multitude of unique qualities. Hailing from Ireland, their music bears the playful/yearning/partying melodies of uilleann pipes and tin whistles merged with a traditional, hymn-based songwriting style. Many other cross-cultural sounds are often found in their musical palette as well, as is the case with For the Cause. They also produce kids albums which contain updated versions of songs from their catalogue as a duo with a choir of children's voices and some revised instrumentation and arrangements. I admire these efforts for their validation of a child's capacity for musical appreciation and am thusly grateful that my daughter frequently requests to listen to them in the car. I highly prefer the kids' version of For the Cause to the original- there is something about a choir of children's voices that evokes the both the power and the innocence of a child-like faith that simply and humbly proclaims, "For the cause of Christ we go, with joy to reap, with faith to sow..."

6. Evergreen - YEBBA

One weekend in June, I took a bus to NYC to visit my very great friend, Marc. This trip to see an old friend in the middle of a hectic year nourished me in a manner reminiscent of Gandalf's anticipated retreat to see Tom Bombadil after the War of the Ring:

"I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil...I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending, and now we shall have much to say to one another"- JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

Though time, distance, and life demands have reduced our once-spontaneous college hangouts in Boston to sporadic phone calls and email exchanges, little has changed between Marc and I. Regardless of the verbal or digital format, our conversations have examined the heights and depths of anything under the sun from theology and philosophy to the benefits of mixing peanut butter with oatmeal (trust me, it's totally worth it). One staple we inevitably return to is new music that we've been listening to, and Evergreen was one such referral that I received from Marc during the trip. YEBBA ('Abbey' spelled backwards) weaves her powerful vocal finesse through a minimal yet technical groove that throws some slick time-signature changes into the mix. My two-day visit with Marc was brief but has been captured in the soundwaves of this and many other songs that served as the backing tracks to our journey through the close-quarters of Brooklyn and the furious, unceasing streets of Manhattan.

7. Holiday at Sea - Steve Moakler

With a rhythm that rocks and sways like the tossing of the waves, this song can serve as a lighthouse beacon for ships adrift in the lonely night and the tumultuous day-to-day. The song strikes a sweet balance between anthemic folk and lilting lullaby, leaving the listener to receive it in either manner for which they have need. His poetic lyrics are rich with imagery and convey ideas that are much larger than the minimal and precise words in which they are packaged:

When I get to Heaven, I won't say 'I love you',

I'll just look at you with my father's eyes and you'll know that I do

- Steve Moakler, Holiday at Sea

This is a song for the weary, those worn down by the burdens of this world and/or those fatigued from their own failures. It is an invitation to set our sights at what lays beyond the veil of this present life; to daydream about Heaven and all the Heavenly things those in Christ will do as well as all the Earthly things we can let go of when we are with Jesus face-to-face.

8. Old Friends - Ben Rector

Ben Rector has the distinction of having appeared on both of my "Best Of" lists so far. Ironically, I honestly haven't heard more than a handful of his songs. Yet every one of those few whets the palette with such rich musical nourishment as to leave a lingering thirst for more. Each of these samplings spring from a thoughtful songwriter who proves himself to be a conscious and grateful observer of the miraculous and remarkable buried wtihin the normalcy of everyday life. Last year, I added his song, "The Men That Drive Me Places" to my list for his endearing reflection on, quite literally, the men that drive him places. That song is a reminder to be thankful for the shoulders of the quiet giants who you stand on and an offering to sing for the unsung, everyday heroes in our lives. Similarly, "Old Friends" is a call to gratitude for those whose shoulders are on an equal plane with yours, walking side-by-side with you. Ben reminds us that "no one knows you like they know you and no one probably ever will...you can't make old friends." How privileged are those friends from long bygone days that know, for better or for worse, the person you once were at a time when you "weren't scared of getting older." It seems to me that this is a recurring cycle. We all change as we age. I marvel at how quickly my friends from college have already passed into old friend territory. forming a new layer of aged friendship over those previous. They too have privileged knowledge of a version of myself that existed for a time and has since changed thanks, in part, to their presence in my life. Be thankful for your old friends. As we've learned from Ben, you can't make them.

9. Good 2 B Back - Brian Reith

Brian Reith is another anomaly that has long held a corner in the hybrid space between the pop, hip-hop, and worship genres. His music waivers between all three, usually zested with humor, social consciousness, or contemplative reverence. Under his former moniker of "B.Reith", many of his former songs alluded to the inevitable mispronunciations of his name. Thus "Good 2 B Back" appears to be a sort of re-branding to utilize his full name (notice how intentionally he enunciates it at 1:15). I've always appreciated the production behind Reith's songs; great effort has been made in the quality of sound via real instruments and/or extremely authentic samples. In an era when digitized music rules the airwaves, it can be very refreshing to harken back to its archetypes.

10. We'll All Be Free - William Matthews, Lisa Gungor

This year has seen me both blessed and pressed; so much to be grateful for yet also a breadth of trials, some of which I have yet to fully comprehend. Furthermore, our social era is a bitter and divisive one and seems similarly confused. At a time when mankind boasts of such vast resourcefulness and global connectivity which no previous age has yet known, we still struggle so deeply to understand ourselves and one another, prone toward the trails of fear, bigotry, and war that haunted our predecessors. This song comes as salve on those old wounds, pleading with us "Oh God, grant us peace." May we remember, as Jesus taught us in Matthew 5:14 to be the light of the world that he made us to be and, as the song implores, to "let the light in, keep it shining, let it break into the darkness."

Full list: For the full, 49-song playlist, you can listen via Spotify (click here) or YouTube (click here). Enjoy and remember to stay tuned next week for details on the new home for this blog. Happy New Year!

For the past few years, my brother-in-law has been creating playlists of favorite songs that he's collected throughout the years. Inspired to do the same now that 2018 is in its infancy, I've created my own 'Best of 2017' playlist. I've always cherished the opportunity to share meaningful music with others although doing so comes with a dash of risk under the radar; sometimes the music drifting out of the speakers reveals much about the stirrings inside of the listener.

So with a moderate amount of further ado, I present to you a collection of favorites that I've collected over the past year. Songs on this list met at least one of my personal criteria for a replay-able song:

• Groove (typically the first thing that stands out to me)
• Lyrical content
• Overall song craftsmanship
• Catchy hooks and melodies
• Unique story-telling
• Any other unexplainable quality that makes a song resonate with me

Full list: You can listen to the entire 40+ song playlist via Spotify (click here) or YouTube (click here) at the links below. Note that a few songs existed on one platform and not the other, so there are minor discrepancies between the playlist versions below.

The playlist isn't ordered in any particular fashion so please feel free to enjoy them on shuffle. If you need a place to start, below are 10 of my highlights.

Note: Click on the title of the song to watch/listen directly on YouTube if the embedded player doesn't work.

1. Morning Nightcap - Lunasa

We spent Christmas and New Year's with my wife's side of the family, with whom an expansive variety of artistic interests and talents are represented. Among them is a multi-colored palette of musical tastes, including the Celtic stylings of Lunasa. Songs from one of their albums (The Story So Far) frequently danced throughout the house over the holidays and Morning Nightcap is the first track, whose heroic melodies caught my ears and would not let go.

2. Non-Stop - Lin-Manuel Miranda (from the "Hamilton" soundtrack)

There isn't much music from theater productions in my library but I've been blown away by the genius of songwriting throughout the Hamilton soundtrack. Non-Stop is sufficiently representative of the craftiness with which Lin-Manuel Miranda compiled multiple styles and musical motifs for each representative character into one song. The entire soundtrack is a mind-bogglingly interconnected web of songs, each containing subtle references to the others yet functioning independently (for example: check out Hamilton's soliloquy at the 1:42 mark in The World Was Wide Enough which stealthily incorporates titles and lyrics from many other songs in the soundtrack). Technical details aside, the song describes Hamilton's historically documented, fast-paced life-style of learning, composing, and developing ideas born out of high intellect and beliefs that would eventually shape and defend the US Constitution and lay the groundwork for the nation's financial system.

3. Chalk - Buddy Miller

My oh my...I often find myself considering whether this is the best song I've ever heard or not. This is neither a break-up song nor a love song. It seems to stem from that place in between, where both individuals have come to the end of themselves and with helpless glances to the losses behind and the uncertainty ahead, plead "Jesus come and save us from our sins". Buddy and Julie Miller have managed to craft a song whose lyrics and instrumental components are so accurately married to the overall emotional contour of the story; flickering embers that illuminate that devastatingly sacred place where the strength of humanity is emptied and can only depend upon the deliverance of God.

4. Hear My Heart - Andy Mineo

Andy Mineo is one of my favorite rappers who blends style, flow, and saavy story-telling in every song. Hear My Heart is a beautiful tribute and apology to his deaf sister Grace, with whom he had a distant relationship as a child. Having not bothered to learn sign language when he was younger, Andy and Grace could hardly communicate, resulting in the gap between them that Andy now seeks to bridge. Notice in the music video that Andy accompanies all of his lyrics with sign language and that all of the colorful images give visualization to the music; truly a thoughtful, intimate conveyance of love and reconciliation across the gap between the separate audible and visual languages he and his sister speak.

5. Ants Marching / Ode to Joy - The Piano Guys

Over the past year, my daughter and I have spent a lot of time dancing to music together. She sits on my shoulders while we bounce around to a wide variety of music. This song holds a special place for me as one of the earlier entries on a playlist my wife and I have created to feed her musical palette. The Piano Guys have been making their mark on the music scene for a while now with their creative piano and cello duet covers of pop songs and original compositions, often paired with beautiful music videos such as this one, shot on a spinning stage with a drone-mounted camera. The track itself is a beautiful combination of Dave Matthew's Ants Marching with segments of Beethoven's Ode to Joy; a counter-intuitive yet effective pairing.

6. Double Beat - Santa Clara Vanguard (composed by Murray Gusseck)

Ah, the drumline. Nothing packs a punch quite like a group of coordinated percussionists who wield the power of their instruments with flair, finesse, and musicality. I recently rediscovered this song and video but since first hearing it back in 2007, it's catchy rhythmic groove has never left me. I often find myself subconsciously tapping it out on my knees and tabletops. Give several listens to this song and try to listen to each of the three sections of the drumline individually: the snare drums, tenors (the multi-drum units), and the bass line. There's a lot going on there but it all works together so well. The bass line is particularly impressive with its low melodic movements underneath the snares and tenors. In my estimation, being a bass drum player on a drumline is one of the greatest challenges a percussionist can face. Check out the descending bass line from 0:17 - 0:19 to hear how each member of the bass line seamlessly passes the melody down to the next, requiring the utmost coordination. Also, watch out for the serious beat drop at 1:09.

7. Hound of Heaven - Brettan Cox

The groove is strong with this one. Particularly noteworthy are the drums, guitar-picking, and bass lines. They function as a singular voice, a great example of playing "in the pocket", and provide the overall song with its characteristically flowing vibe, as though cruising along the top of a rolling wave. My favorite moment is from 2:38 - 2:41 where the bass and guitar follow each other in a surprising melodic riff, ending in some percussive punctuation, to make the last chorus pop. Lyrically, Brettan has taken a rather odd image pairing (hound and heaven) and beautifully highlighted one of the enigmatic qualities of God who, with hound-like accuracy and love beyond reason, is never far from us even despite our best efforts to the contrary ("I could make my bed in the deepest sea, in a desert storm you'd find me - In the streets of New York, with a million people, you're always right behind me").

8. Pennies from Heaven - Louis Prima

This one's a lot of fun. Louis Prima and his band seem to have been a whirlwind of an entity in their day, taking classic jazz songs and wrangling them into a hootenanny of shouting, clapping, and conversant solos between the instruments. Louis also provided the voice of King Louie in the original Jungle Book movie as well as the well-known song I Wanna Be Like You. What I enjoy about Pennies from Heaven is it exemplifies much of what likely draws most folks to music in the first place: its fun! The background vocals make me smile (I mean come on now, it doesn't get any better than "shoobeedoobee") and the vocal/saxophone duel solos starting at 0:44 are hilarious. Whatever else this song may be, it's a reminder to enjoy what you do.

9. The Men That Drive Me Places - Ben Rector

There's a refreshing message to be heard here and you may want to read along with the lyrics while you listen (which you can find by clicking here). Ben Rector breaks the mold by writing a genuine song about the underdogs working behind the scenes in his career. With a unique mixture of both reason and humility, Ben acknowledges that he works hard in his publicly celebrated position yet is awed by the feats of those in the woodwork whose quiet and often thankless contributions are made in the midst of challenging circumstances. This is an endearing and practical reminder of many things: the importance of being grateful, working diligently, and going out of your way to thank the silent giants upon whose shoulders you stand.

10. When I Get There - Kirk FranklinMake sure you are in a safe, unobstructed place with close proximity to a chiropractor before listening to this one. Grooves as hard as this could prompt all sorts of involuntary limb flailings and neck gyrations (known as ‘dancing’ in some circles) that will surely require follow-up with a medical professional. Kirk Franklin is a seriously gifted composer and arranger whose masterful work on this track grounds us in the terra firma of a rock-solid groove while directing our thoughts Heaven-ward. Written after the death of a close friend, Kirk uses the song to remind us all that this life is not the end but that we have the assurance of salvation in Christ for life after death in Heaven. Far from removing us from the responsibility to engage with the troubles of our present times, we are to bring the news of this promise and invitation as a light into the darkness. Whatever 2018 holds for us, let us remember that Jesus told us: "You are the light of the world..." (Matthew 5:14) and "Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

Every now and then a song, book, poem or life event comes along and plunges the deep waters of a spiritual truth and returns to give you a sip of understanding and insight. "Oh Joe" by Flannel Graph is a retelling of the account of Joseph; a man from the book of Genesis who was greatly misunderstood by many in his life. Although a familiar Sunday-school character who has been ushered into pop-culture fame by a Broadway musical, perhaps we have misunderstood him as well.

Along with the other biblical titans, Joseph and his life of incomprehensible Old Testament turmoil and faith can seem distant and inaccessible to us; a toga-clad, Romanesque colossus, starting coldly down from the tall pillar of history to the cell-phone-thumbing populace of the 21st century milling around his feet. And given Joseph's remarkable life, such a pedestaled view might be understandable. Favored by his father and hated by his envious brothers who sold him into slavery, Joseph slogged through years of bondage, imprisonment, and obscurity before his God-given gift of interpreting dreams caught the eye of the Pharaoh who effectively gave him the vice-executive authority over all Egypt, arguably the greatest world power at the time.

Yet despite all of this, in the course of a three-and-a-half minute song, Flannel Graph manages to gently lift the grand statue of Joseph off his pedestal and chisel away the marble to reveal a flesh-and-bone man underneath. A man who dealt with jealous siblings, unfair circumstances, pendulum swings between bold strokes and self-doubt, and who was, at the core of a manically-contoured life, just like you and me.

Oh Joe, watch it all unfold

Oh Joe, you're not alone

We are all at the center of our own small story and the periphery of a much larger, collective epic. 'Joe' lived a day-to-day life; he woke up, went to work, ate food, went to the bathroom, slept, and did the same thing the next day. But he knew that God had given him this mysterious gift of interpreting dreams. Why? There were years in which his daily life had nothing to do with what he seemed gifted for, passionate for, destined for.

Sound familiar?

Ever had a job that seemed meaningless? Ever harnessed a passion that seemed entirely unappreciated or even invisible to the people around you? Ever felt that you were made for something greater? Joe did. And so have many others before and after him; a number that very likely includes yourself.

But there is more to Joe's story:

I was forgotten in my chains

But there was something greater running through my veins

At just the right moment, Joe's life intersected with those of two fellow prisoners who had strange dreams and needed help figuring them out. Joe saw the moment and went to work: "Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me" (Genesis 40:8). After the interpretations came to pass, word began to spread (albeit slowly) and Joe eventually had audience with the Pharaoh himself, similarly haunted by some strange dreams.

Oh Joe, pulled from jail below

Tell the King my words

Joe, be bold

Such are the words that God has spoken (or may yet speak) to all of us at certain spotlight moments in our lives. After hearing Pharaoh's dreams, Joe foretells a seven-year, multi-national famine that threatened to wither all of Egypt. Both frightened at this grim prospect and stunned at this glimpse into Joe's God-given potential, Pharaoh bestows managerial authority of Egypt's resources to his former prisoner. Joe blossoms fully in this new position, wisely storing up one-fifth of harvests during their abundance, a move that that sustains the nation throughout the famine and saves countless lives from starvation.

What a remarkable finish to an epic story. But before his rise to power, what kept him going when he was imprisoned and trudging through the trenches of obscurity? He knew that God made him for a greater narrative. He persistently framed his turning points through God's lens. When resisting the temptation to become involved in a scandal with his employer's wife, he reasoned "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9). When explaining to Pharaoh the source of his dream's interpretation, he said, "It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer" (Genesis 41:16). And in a beautiful moment of reconciliation with his long-lost brothers who helped kickstart his story with violence and force, he declared to them, "...do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you" (Genesis 45:5).

So what about us? Sure Joe's circumstances might not resemble our own but we, like him, are meant to live a great story. In many ways, he was a regular guy but his life left an irregular impact on the world. And all of us are meant to do so, from the kings and queens of our age with all of their grandeur down to the everyday average Joe.

Story and song are in love with each other. After all, they are a married couple. Look throughout history and you will scarce find a party or funeral that they haven't been invited to. These two romantics will use any available vessel to tell their love story, from ancient cave paintings, to the bards of medieval lore, to all forms of contemporary yarn-spinners. You will often find them together; lyrics and lullabies wrap around each other in a beautiful embrace. Else, where it seems there is only one, the other is hidden close at-hand; an epic tale will beckon his wife near, emerging as a song on the lips or in the mind of the listener. A distant melody will sing fondly of her husband, illuminating long-forgotten memories and inspiring pens to fill their blank paper canvases.

I was reminded of this love narrative at a cousin's wedding. Just outside of Philadelphia on an oasis of a beautiful day amid a soggy week, the bride and groom were married on the tracks of an old train station that had been transformed into a magnificent garden. With vows promised and rings mounted, the pair began their journey into married life, song leading them by the hand down the aisle in her dancing steps. The song she sang at this particular moment has no words. The melody lilts between a trio of string instruments and the vast soundscapes of their harmonies, as a kestrel dashing through valleys and mountains. The central theme, beginning with the rapid fire bowing of the fiddle, passes through several frames that speak of beauty, courage, humor, loss, and redemption. Give a listen to the song in the video above and you'll see what I mean. Relying purely on instrumental content absent of any disclosing lyrics, this particular song invites the listener to seek her partner, to figure out the story he is telling. And the story he tells you may be uniquely yours, spun just for you. Here is mine:

Early American settlers of the Appalachian region, whose music and culture inspired this album, are often held up as iconic pioneers. They are remembered for venturing the seas to an uncharted land and braving the untamed wilderness of the western world to lay the foundation for a new nation. Life was no prairie dance for these families. The sweeping beauty of the mountains and valleys they settled were starkly contrasted with disease, poverty, and hunger. Although history often paints a glamorous view of settlement and westward expansion, we must remember that it yielded the genocide of the Native American people, a new market for the slave trade, and countless other sins that still haunt the nation to this day. Nonetheless, this era and these people are remembered for chasing an enigmatic entity known as "The American Dream."

But what is it?

In writing, America is founded on noble principles. The Constitution outlines the lawful methods through which "We the people" would pursue a "more perfect union." The Declaration of Independence lays the foundational presumption that God created all men equal and gave them the right to strive for "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Ask any American to explain that title and you will be given countless definitions. However, it is highly likely that the vast majority can be traced back to those three end-goals: Life, liberty, and happiness. It's worth noting that these are not uniquely American ideas. You don't have to be a citizen to identify with these things. Everyone from every nation wants them and, in some way, orients their lives to strive toward them. But for various reasons, America has identified these pursuits as its principle cause. When anyone refers to "The American Dream", they are likely speaking of this trinity of timeless values.

Yet something is awry.

Life, liberty, and happiness seem beyond the grasp of so many. Death, captivity, and tragedy are still here. We still get caught in the ripples affects of our nation's historical vices. The American Revolution, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement; these changed the methods of tyranny, segregation, and poverty but did not end them. Any liberty that guarantees the life and happiness of the few while diminishing those of others is merely another form of oppression*.

I am not the greatest patriot so perhaps I am biased. Among the liberties that I receive with gratitude in this country, I find a measure of shame in the mix. Shame for our past crimes and the hesitant pace of our repentance. Though there is much to be thankful for in this country, we are still a far cry from the "more perfect union" that we strive to be.

But that's the point, isn't it?

A "more perfect union" is one that is not yet perfect but is trying to be. And though we are imperfect people, we the people (you and I) have a role to play in the outcome of this union. Moreover, this union has a role to play in the outcome of this world. And if we want our world to improve, then our own nation is the best place to start.

If want our three-fold dream for a perfect union, we must chase it as a unified people.

To strive toward a higher standard. To reorient when we are drifting off-course. To seek the life, liberty, and happiness of others, not just our own. And to invite the perfect God who created us all equally, in all races, all languages, all nations, to show us how to become more perfect.

Check out the song above while reading below. Thanks!

Punk rock. Or “punk rawk” as I used to spell it during the time when the genre frequented my ears. In those days of anger and questing betwixt 12-13 years of age, I had spiked hair, a skateboard, a thick chain necklace, and would have rallied around a ‘fight the system’ mentality without even being able to tell you what that meant or which system it was that I wanted to fight. At this stage, my developing sense of music appreciation resonated almost exclusively with the immediate sound of a song. My rave musical reviews probably consisted of statements like, “That drummer is awesome” or “When the guitars do that middly-middly thing at the end…it’s really good”. Nothing unusual there. There are many songs to this day that I appreciate for similar reasons. Essentially, if it gave me goosebumps, I was hooked.

It was only until later that I started noticing and weighing a song’s value based on its meaning. Although there are fabulous composers out there who can convey volumes of meaning through sound alone, lyrics are often a direct revelation of the songwriter’s intent.

Piebald’s “American Hearts” is one of those songs that I had heard a few times back in those early teen years. When I stumbled across this song via a Spotify rabbit-trail last week, listening to it was akin to plugging a pair of headphones into my 15-years-younger subconscious. I heard the anthemic voclas and the aggressive wall of guitars and drums. I saw my over-gelled and spiked hair, heard the calamity of my high school hallways, and felt the mysterious, unwieldy angst of youth in my chest. But I heard something new this time around: a message. My history was lecturing to me. It was as though a “you’ll-understand-this-when-you’re-older” concept from some long-forgotten lesson that fell on my youthfully deaf ears had decided I was ready to catch its meaning:

“Hey! You’re part of it.”

Who? Me?

“Yeah! You’re part of it.”

Part of what? I don’t understand.

“This country is unequal still”

Yes, I have heard that. It’s tragic. But why are you telling me?

“History continues itself…”

But surely our current problems are different than those of our ancestors? Haven’t we come such a long way as a society?

“History continues itself…”

OK maybe so. The human race continues to destroy itself while clambering for money, status, and power. Slavery is illegal but racism is still alive in midst. We remember the genocides of history but the hatred that fueled them still lingers in the shadows of our society. Someone should really do something about that and fix our community.

“Hey! You're part of it.”

And here's the rub: You’re part of it. I’m part of it. All of us are parts of a community, a country, and a global human race. There are problems and graces to be found at each level and to greater or lesser degrees, we’re part of those as well by our awareness and advocacy or lack thereof. The state of the whole is determined by the state of its component parts.

And so at this present age, when I have much to say about the conditions of my community, this relic from my youth returns to shake me by the collar to remind me that there is no convenient middle ground of detached neutrality. With its refraining question, I am called to account for how I have utilized my sphere of influence and whether I am satisfied with how my decisions, compounded with similar ones made by billions of others, have impacted society.

Be encouraged. You have far more influence than you think you do. Use it effectively and others will be notice. Eventually, you may be emulated and that influence will spread. May we never fail to include ourselves on the grand list of items that, if changed even just a little, could make the world a better place. After all, you’re part of it.

If a big change in the world is due, the world needs a little change in you

Quick preface: Every now and then you may discover a song, poem, image, movie, quote, or some form of media that speaks a message to you. I encourage you to listen to the song linked above while reading this post. You may be interested in the background of the composer and his monthly film-score album release project and more on The Endurance expedition.

"She's going, boys" is the alarm call that was proclaimed among Ernest Shackleton's crew as their ship, The Endurance, began to submerge into the depths of the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica after being crushed and splintered by pack ice. Can you imagine? You, as a crew member, are stranded on an ice floe in sub-zero temperatures, miles away from civilization, and the only thing visible through your cloud of frozen breath is your home, slipping away beneath the surface. And there isn't a thing you can do about it. What do you do now? This is the moment that inspired this song.

And what a song it is. How does it manage to convey such a tragedy so beautifully? And why does it seem so oddly relatable? Thankfully, I have never been involved in a shipwreck or been stranded anywhere where help wasn't readily available. So why have I mentally latched onto this song saying, "I know what you mean"? Here's my theory:

I feel that the chief purpose of a song is to tell a story. How this is done is a great mystery. Think about it: The right combination of sounds (they need not be lyrical) produced by wooden, metallic, nylon, and wind-based instruments will cause your mind to create images and emotions that perhaps you've never seen or felt before. The right song will even dust-off ancient memories of yours that have been tucked away for ages or elicit an emotion that you have felt come alive in a variety of other contexts. That is exactly what Adam Young has accomplished through this song. This is why we can relate to a story about a shipwreck.

None of us were there when the crew initially abandoned The Endurance when it became trapped in the ice and, later, when those jagged walls relented and she faded away into the sea. We don't know the extent of that story. But we have all experienced loss in some form; the drifting apart of friends, the death of a loved one, moving away from home. The loss of anything that represented security and familiarity. We do know that story quite well.

It is notable that The Endurance was held afloat by the pack ice for nearly a month after it was crushed and swamped. During that time, the crew camped and drifted on the ice floes, frequently returning to the site of the wreckage until she finally sank. How often have we camped and lingered near the shadows of things that are no longer there? Do we try so fervently to resurrect things from our past that we blind ourselves to the present and the future ahead?

But here is the beauty: Only after The Endurance sank did the crew truly abandon ship, forsake their navigation by incidental ice drifting, and begin their long and intentional journey home. Likewise for us, we must learn how to part well with the wreckage. Loss is a vast sea and the grief that comes with it is a ship that can carry us only so far until we are ready to set out on foot again. There are things in our past that we must make peace with so they can finally sink out of our waking lives without us onboard.

In a few days, 2017 will be here and we will embark on the journey of a brand new year. 2016 may have been a rough year for you. There was a lot of good to be found in the year but there was also some tragedy. My family and I welcomed a beautiful child into a conflicted and violent world. This past year found us celebrating at times and lamenting at others. I don't know what next year will hold for us. But I do know that remaining adrift on the ice floes of 2016 is not going to help us get our bearings for 2017.

As the song fades out to the hauntingly beautiful sounds of The Endurance descending to rest beneath the sea, may the debris of our past do the same. After all, we have a long journey ahead of us. It's a brand new year out there.

"But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

- Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV)

It seems that a folk-music revolution has been taking place in recent years. Elements of the genre have been showing up in various places, blending with other styles, and generally standing the test of time while moving more prominently into the spotlight of popular music. Such qualities of this musical melting pot phenomenon can be found in the song above, "The Valley" by The Oh Hellos (many thanks to my sister-in-law for introducing me to the group with this song). Before we talk about the song, let's talk a little about the what it represents.

I suppose one could challenge the term 'folk-music revolution' if they are well-versed in the history of the genre which has always been marked by the blending of many elements: poetry, eclectic groupings of instruments, improvisation, etc... Additionally, folk music has been around ever since the concept of music and the folks to write it have walked the earth. In the summarizing words of Louis Armstrong: "All music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song."

So whether we call it a 'revolution' or simply another entry in the archives of this broad and deeply historied genre, there are some interesting things happening in the wide world of folk-music.

In my observation, since the late 2000's, many pop songs have born many signatures of the genre, including foot-stomping bass drums, the inclusion of folk instruments like banjo or mandolin, and guitars that sing melodically and are strummed frantically. In the grand portrait of the music industry, much of what has recently populated the airwaves has been painted with the colors of a heritage that is at once familiar to anyone who has ever heard a classic folk song, and yet fresh because of its long hiatus from the radios of popular music.

Please don't misunderstand me; these artists are not plagiarizers perpetually under the shadow of the grandfathers and grandmothers of folk music Rather, they have further innovated on some recently rediscovered qualities of a music genre that reaches back into history like a good story.

The Oh Hellos are one such band that has done a phenomenal job of reinventing folk music in their own way. When I find a song that I enjoy, sometimes I pace how often I listen to it I don't accidentally get tired of it. But I've listened to this one on repeat many a time and still come back to it with deep appreciation. The song has me hooked for at least the following three elements:

Gang Vocals: I have always been struck by the powerful sound of the vocals in the song. The entire song (with the exception of one or two lines) is sung by what sounds like an auditorium filled with talented vocalists. This is an effective production technique because it pulls the listener into the story of the song. Rather than placing the listener in the audience in front of a soloist, gang vocals surround the listener with a crowd for a more participatory experience in which they are invited to sing along.

Massive Percussion: When you think of a classic folk song, it's likely that the percussion isn't very prominent (if it's even there at all). But the first thing you hear in "The Valley" is the huge thumping sound of drums and shakers. This percussive wave is maintained throughout the song as more instruments are brought into the mix, adding their own density to the overall sound. Moving the percussion to the forefront of the production is a fairly bold move but one indicative of a creative re-envisioning of folk song composition.

Lyrical Imagery: Out of all the folk song elements available to a writer, the lyrics of "The Valley" seem to be the most unaltered from their inspired heritage. Folk music is often characterized by lyrics that convey images and scenery. Think of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", Woodie Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land", or the classic "Wabash Cannonball". Each conveys a series of pictures and scenes to communicate their message. "The Valley" is no exception and communicates with artful mystery and poetry. I find the second verse to be a particularly beautiful sampling of the song's story, piquing my interest to know more:

We were young when we heard you

Call our names in the silence

Like a fire in the dark

Like a sword upon our hearts

We came down to the water

And we begged for forgiveness

Shadows lurking close behind

We were fleeing for our lives

Music changes. Like an ocean that ebbs, flows, roars, and stills with the winds, music forms around the people of its culture. But there are always those ancient currents under the surface that exert their influence in ways seen and unseen. Folk music is, and always has been, a unique expression of people and their stories. As long as there are people, there will be stories. And as long as there are stories, there will be folk music.

Every once in a while, I will stumble across a song that crashes onto the couch of my mind and stays there for days like an out-of-town house-guest. I first heard the song above just a few days ago on Monday and it's been fading in and out of my mental soundtrack ever since. As I've previously discussed, sometimes what makes a song standout is a single, subtle twist on an old familiar convention. This song contains several. Here are a couple:

Thematic Production: When the song begins, you might not expect it to venture beyond the borders of the pop-ballad formula. There's a guitar, some percussion, and a singer, all strummin', drummin', and hummin' up a great tune. Around 1:05, some violins dance their way into the mix and begin to recolor the song. This is now the chorus ("Where you gonna go, where you gonna go?") and the instrumentation is busier than before with additional percussion and other subtleties added to the track. Then, at 1:36, following a sweeping vocal glissando (the cool thing she does at the end of the word "again") we're suddenly in the midst of a soaring, ethnically-themed ballad that immerses the listener into the "Tokyo" imagery.

Melody: Part of how the song conveys this theme to the listener is the melody that is being sung by the vocals and played by the strings. They are playing around a series of five notes (with a few exceptions) that sound good pretty much anywhere at any time during the song. Many melodies are based on this scale and although it is common in countless folk tunes all over the world, it sounds characteristically Oriental if played in a certain manner. Technically speaking, the song is in the key of F#, so the melody is being played with the F# major pentatonic scale. Here's a quick visual:

Typical F# major scale: F# G# A# B C# D# E F#

Solfege ("do - a deer, a female deer..."): Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

F# major pentatonic scale: F# G# A# - C# D# - F#

Solfege: Do Re Mi - Sol La - Do

If you are near a keyboard, you can easily play it: Notice how all of the black-keys are in repeating pairs of two and three. For every group of three black keys, the F# is the first one on the left. Play only the black notes anywhere on the keyboard, and you are playing the notes of the F# pentatonic scale (F#, G#, A#, C#, D#). If you want to play along with the song, you're guaranteed to sound pretty good if you stick to these notes.

It is this smart use of the pentatonic scale that richly blends a new vibe into the track, uniquely distinguishing it from a standard, American pop radio song.

Meter: A songs meter describes part of the general format of the song. It determines how many beats (or 'counts') are in each measure (a repeating chunk of music). Regardless of genre, but especially in pop music, most songs tend to have four beats per measure. That means you could repeatedly and steadily count "1 - 2 -3 - 4" to the beat of the music. If you've ever seen a live performance, you may have noticed that the drummer (usually) will click their sticks and count these numbers out loud right before the band starts playing. By doing this, the drummer is counting each beat (the meter) so the band can get a sense of how fast (the tempo) they are about to play the song.

This song breaks that convention in a pretty major yet subtle way: It has seven beats per measure. Seven?!? Yes, seven. But the way it is played out in this song feels so natural that its almost unnoticeable at first.

To hear these beats, focus on the drums. They begin playing at the 0:10 mark, right when LP starts singing (on beat 1 of that particular measure). Notice that they are played in groups of two. They are playing on beats one, three, four, and seven of each measure throughout the song. See if you can count along. You may also notice that the general rhythm of the guitar and some other instruments follow this pattern (rewind to the beginning of the song and hear how the guitar is playing this rhythm even before the drums come in).

Songs with four beats per measure are usually pretty easy to dance or clap along with because four is a very even, rounded number. You would think that a song with seven beats would feel a little "wobbly." But not so here. There could be many reasons for this. I think the largest contributor is the singing. As listeners, our ears tend to be drawn to the vocalist in the band. The instruments play repeating sequences of music that ease into the background but the vocalist is singing words with specific definitions and those words change throughout the song, bringing them to the forefront of our attention. LP sings this song with a fairly relaxed vibe. Nothing about the singing communicates, "I'm singing over seven beats per measure and this is really difficult; I might lose count!" Coupled with the minimalistic rhythm of the drums, pounding out only every few beats, this musically mathematical anomaly is cleverly disguised.

Check out some of the songs that have recently found their way into your "favorites" playlist. Maybe you'll find some hidden gems within them too!

I found this song recently on a Spotify playlist. I like it because the lyrics capture the sometimes wordless phenomenon that seems to be fairly common among individuals trekking their way through the wide world of adulthood. It seems to be a popular subject for artistic expression as it has been portrayed from many different perspectives in media such as "Stop This Train" by John Mayer, "Cat's in the Cradle" by Henry Chapin, and the book "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, just to name a few.

This phenomenon, in a nutshell, is a feeling of loss in regards to childhood in the face of adulthood's challenges.

This theme is all over the lyrics of this particular song as it depicts the stress of adulthood and changing values:

"I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink

But now I'm insecure and I care what people think...

Wish we could turn back time, to the good ol' days

When our momma sang us to sleep but now we're stressed out"

Does this ever happen to you? Do you ever notice yourself being overly conscious about what someone (or a whole lot of someones) are thinking about you? Do you wonder why that stresses you out when you might not have been concerned about it when you were younger?

It sure happens to me at times.

How come? It's not like the world with all of its problems wasn't there when we were little. The end of the song seems to provide a theory:

"We used to play pretend, give each other different names

We would build a rocket ship and then we'd fly it far away

Used to dream of outer space but now they're laughing in our face

Saying, 'Wake up, you need to make money'"

Money. The turning of a child into a profitable cog in the economic machine. I think that's part of it. Perhaps money is a branch of a deeper root that feeds this nostalgic condition.

When people look back on childhood, different words may come to mind. From the descriptions and depictions of childhood that I've come across, it seems to me that "carefree" is a common characteristic that many would agree is part of the ideal childhood. To be carefree can be interpreted many ways: without responsibility, without anxiety, without fear. This isn't the same as being lazy or ignorant.

Think of how a child interacts with the world. They have a very small but growing library of knowledge, experience, and wisdom with which to operate. They haven't yet learned how to do things efficiently, gracefully, or professionally and haven't yet been taught the mechanics of qualities like greed, kindness, hatred, love, envy, or generosity. They're taking everything in and responding to it based on the basic elements of who they are. In other words, they're just being themselves and they're really good at it. The concept of "saving face" or "fake it 'till you make it" are as distant to them as stars in another galaxy.

As a child grows up, those distant concepts come closer as they learn them through direct instruction and practice or through indirect observation. As we grow, we understand that there is more to do in life than to just be. We start learning concepts in school, getting grades, being rewarded or punished for our performance, getting jobs, getting paid, getting promoted or demoted. We start to realize that there are certain people we want to impress; friends, family, a potential employer, date, or spouse. Winning their favor feels good. Losing it feels bad.

Here's a thought: Childhood is about learning to be, which provides the context for an adulthood of learning to do. When you were little, you didn't need the latest gadgets, cars, a fat paycheck, or be the popular prom king to be content. For the most part, you could probably keep yourself pretty well entertained by running around in the backyard, playing with sticks or drawing with chalk. As an adult, many people seek to build, learn, advance their careers, expand their circle of influence.

I think the tension arises when the culture around us isolates childhood and adulthood from each other, treating them as if they are two completely different and irrelevant worlds. Society doesn't currently have a great system for rewarding people for being. It's more focused on the doing. Students are pressured to choose the best colleges, to pursue a major that will land them a job in a secure and profitable field, to strive for a well-polished GPA. Not that good grades and career choices are bad goals but like most things, when they're taken out of proper context, things can get messy. People start to be valued not for who they are but for what they can do. The message that looms over children like an ominous storm-cloud is often something like, "Enjoy these years because these are the best years of your life." Does that mean it's all downhill afterwards and the fun stops? Is it any wonder that adulthood can be intimidating and overly complicated? And is it any wonder, still, that so many people seem dissatisfied with it?

I don't think that's the way it has to be though.

Rather than fostering a culture that segregates the wonder of childhood from the productivity of adulthood, we should be bridging them. The order should be something like: because of who you are, therefore do. That way, when the job falls through or you don't make as much money as everyone else around you, the world doesn't fall apart. You keep on truckin'. In other words, what you do, make, and produce should be qualities that grow like fruit from the rich soil of your identity. Not the other way around.

In the bible, a very well-educated and formerly highbrow man named Paul wrote something quite profound when he said "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." What is that secret? "I can do all this through [Jesus] who gives me strength" (Phillippians 4:12-13). Paul knew that his identity was secure in the God that created it. That's why, even though being hungry and "living in want" were still challenging, he didn't freak out when those times came. His identity didn't hinge on whether or not he was able to bring home the bacon. Not exactly the motivation that propel some folks up the rungs of the ol' corporate ladder.

So what about us? Do we treat ourselves (or others) as though we're worthless without a six-digit bank account to prove other-wise? Are the raw components of our identities, unmasked in childhood, a far-off blip in our memory that is preserved only in photo albums and fuzzy home-videos?

A lot of good can be done to change the world. But what we do to change it isn't everything.

Just a thought.

The song above is a great example of the kind of mellow, acoustic instrumentals you will find all throughout Justin King's album "Le Bleu". I don't know much about Justin King except that he is both a talented photographer and guitarist whose work is composed with a broad palette of technical skill and writing capability. This album has something to offer as both background music for the listeners who are busy working on other things or foreground music for the concentrated enthusiast.

Aside from the disarming and relaxing qualities of this particular song, and others like it, one aspect that I particularly enjoy is the imagery. There are no lyrics so the title is the only direct image we are given: August Train. After that, who knows what scenes or emotions the listener will experience? Some may interpret this song as joyful while others may not. Some may picture a city subway commute while others may imagine a locomotive slowly winding through vast country hills, an angular trail of white clouds billowing from the smokestack. Some may wonder about where the train is heading or where it is coming from, whether you as the listener are a passenger on this train or an outside observer, and what the significance of August is. Whatever the case, the song is as interactive as you would like it to be.

One interesting aspect about this song that I would like to ponder is the train. There are many common themes that show up in all sorts of songs throughout history: love, conflict, heart-break, resolution, victory, friendships, social commentary, etcetera. Within those themes the song-writers have a wealth of imagery with which to convey those themes. I find that trains have made an appearance in songs from a variety of genres and time-periods. From old-time folk songs like "The Wabash Cannonball", to the contemporary "Stop This Train" by pop-blues giant John Mayer, the analogy continues to stand the test of time.

What is it about trains that provide such potent, long-standing vessels for conveying meaning? It was an understandable metaphor back in the early 19th and 20th centuries when trains were the primary, relatively new and exciting mode of transportation. That's not so much the case today as cars and airplanes have taken over that arena, but trains are remain a familiar reference point for songwriters and their audiences.

Why?

There are a few things we can infer: The experience of being alive implies motion. Life chugs along the rails of time at a set pace that feels slow at times and alarmingly fast at others. Trains are also driven by an exclusive group of conductors and populated by a broad group of passengers. Generally speaking, the vast majority of the audience listening to writers that employ train devices in their work has had way more experience being a train passenger as opposed to a train conductor. While passengers can freely conduct themselves within the train, they can do nothing to control its speed or direction. They feel and respond the rumblings of the train as it climbs over the tracks, watching fellow passengers arriving and departing as well as the scenery that scrolls by the window.

Is the art of living not like that? Don't we, at times, feel the sharp contrast between the few things we can control and those that we cannot when we feel the jolts of life climbing through the rocky terrain of transitions, losses, and adjustments? Don't we sometimes wish we were the conductor so that we could change the pace, the scenery, the direction of things? On the other hand, what a ride this is. What a wonder it is to be taken to places you never would have imagined. What blessings are some of those special, unexpected details of life that enter as subtly as a passenger climbing aboard and sitting next to us yet leave us indelibly changed forever.

These are observations, emotions, and reflections that come to everyone in due time. These are the questions that are shrouded in story and mystery. In other words, these are the ingredients for great songs. Think of a song that is particularly meaningful to you. What makes it meaningful? The memories it stirs? Nameless emotions that are at once so hard to describe in words yet are perfectly framed by the music? The lyrical content that seems to have been written about your own personal experience?

I think it is safe to say that all writers want to connect with their audience to some degree.

It honestly doesn't take much.

Sometimes it is as simple as turning to your fellow passenger with a song, story, conversation, or even a simple smile that says, "What a ride."

Listening to Brooke Fraser's music is like listening to a masterfully written book. The author knows how to engage the senses of the audience that they may see, taste, and feel what is being described. Just about every song I've ever heard by Brooke is flowing with imagery, symbolism, and hidden meaning that might not reveal itself until the 20th time that I've listened to the song.

Listening to Brooke's music is a journey because you will never hear the same thing twice. Just check out her first album, What to do with Daylight. Listening to that album is like hearing the same singer on a set of different songs while you flip through the radio. The album is impossible to categorize because it transitions from pop to reggae to RnB seamlessly.

There are many details about Brooke's songwriting that stand out. For me, those qualities are the instrumental production (how the instruments and voices play their parts and are recorded) and the lyrics.

Let's start with the instruments: If you have ever aspired to play an instrument, sing, write songs, or become a music producer, you will find a worthy challenge and inspiration in this music. There are so many musical 'moments' throughout these songs that make seasoned musicians go "mmm" and wrinkle their face as though savoring a sophisticated hors d'oeuvre at a party where people wear monocles and handle-bar mustaches. Yet this musical intelligence is accessible; no degrees, special vocabulary, or monocles required (though a handle-bar mustache is helpful in every context). I may listen to a song and conclude only that I "like the guitar part," while a group of fancy-pants music students might describe their love for the "harmonic and stylistic interpretation by the guitarist," but we're both describing the same thing. Their is something for everybody here.

Lyrically, there is some serious stuff being written here and it is best to come prepared. You will not be given a gift-wrapped box labeled "contents: the meaning of this song." Rather, you will be shown the musical equivalent of a complex "Eye Spy" picture book (remember those?) that initially seems to be an artistic collage and nothing more. Yet with further study and examination, certain patterns or anomalies begin to stand out that direct your attention to other details you previously overlooked and soon the beautiful collage becomes only the framework for a deeper story and meaning. You may find that certain lyrics will get stuck with you for days, turning them over and over in your head, coming up with a list of possible interpretations. I love this kind of stuff. After all, that's what this blog is all about.

Now, what about the song posted on this page? Albertine. This song contains all of the elements described above: rich instrumentation, production, and lyrics. Yet as sweeping and beautiful as this artist's music is, this particular song makes me a little uncomfortable. The deep, rhythmic guitar and percussion play like the soundtrack to a solemn ritual, commanding your attention. Listen to the song a few times and you will start to get a sense of it's context:

On a thousandth hill, I think of Albertine

There in her eyes what I don't see with my own

Rwanda

Now that I have seen, I am responsible

Faith without deeds is dead

My goodness. Regardless of how familiar you may be with the genocide, you may be wondering (like me), "What did you see? What are you responsible for?" If you look up any interviews with Brooke about this very song, you may hear her describe how Albertine is a real person that she met when she traveled to Rwanda. The story is true.

The thing about this song that makes me uncomfortable are the phrases "Now that I have seen, I am responsible" and "faith without deeds is dead." These aren't thoughts that I like to dwell on. But look at it this way: Brooke is writing about a real person. We are not told much about her in the song itself but, given the context, it is likely that her world has been terrorized by forces beyond her control. Being in the presence of such oppression naturally evokes a response from the viewer. I believe this song is part of Brooke's response. She wanted to do something, maybe the best thing she could do was to write a song about it and share it with others:

...I am on a stage, a thousand eyes on me

I will tell them, Albertine.

I will tell them, Albertine.

Brooke did not set out to right the wrongs of an entire nation. She did something practical. She chose not to be numb to the pain of another and then she told someone about it: us. And she told it in the best way she knows how: through music. Like we talked about last week with Eric Bibb, sometimes it's the small things that pave the way for a major impact. What happens when millions of people (or "a thousand eyes") hears this story and it spreads like a fire following a trail of parched vines? Do you think it will be easier for someone to see the struggles and pain in the lives of their neighbors? Do you think it will be easier for that someone to recognize how their gifts, talents, and personality fit like a puzzle piece into the void of that neighbor's need? Do you think it will be easier for that someone to do something about it? I do.

I think we are far more equipped to change the world than we think we are. We've all been loved by somebody, we all know how to love somebody, and we're all gifted at something through which to express that love. It will make the difference.

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet"

- Frederick Buechner

What is your deep gladness?

Let me tell you how Eric Bibb stomped and clapped his way into my life. It was August of 2014 and I was driving around the twists and turns of Huntington Avenue in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. The crush of cramped apartment buildings, summer afternoon traffic, and the above-ground portion of the subway that shares the street with the cars was bumper-to-bumper and shoulder-to-shoulder. I was picking up my wife from work and had arrived a little early so I pulled into what was probably the only parking spot available in the city at the time. It must have been previously occupied by a clown car as it was two-feet wide by three-feet long. By some dimensional miracle, I was able to fit our blue Honda within its constraints.

I was flipping through the radio and landed on a college radio station. I've always appreciated the variety of non-mainstream music that those stations tend to play. In a way, college radio is the father of Pandora. As I sat in the car, boiling in the summer sun on a crowded city street, I was suddenly pulled into the speakers by a friendly yet commanding voice that heaved and growled with the huskiness of a trail boss singing to his cattle on the trail in the 19th-century western frontier. With a guitar that played like a rodeo with an attitude, Eric Bibb had wrangled me far away from the city and into his soundscape.

I find this song captivating for a couple of reasons. The first is that it makes me feel content. There's a certain excitement about it that makes me want to join in with his infectious invitation to "come on, clap ya hands"right around the 1:50 mark. I heard a quote once that went along the lines of, "People will forget what you did but they will never forget how you made them feel." I think the same is true of music. What does this song make you feel? It's probably a feeling you've felt before although in a different context. Our emotions are important to our life experience and music is a powerful vessel with which to contain and convey them.

But this song is deeper than emotions. There's something else I find captivating about this song that I believe ties in perfectly with Eric's declaration that he is "building a new home." This song is a bit of an anomaly in that it is built on the foundation of a familiar musical principle but with a subtle yet important difference.

There are many technical nuts and bolts to music that are often neatly hidden underneath the seemingly spontaneous creativity of the craft. Just like a painting, the canvas often starts out with sketched lines and shapes that get erased, redrawn, analyzed, only then to be covered with layers of life-giving paint. As the audience, we like to deal mostly with the finished product because its beautiful, pleasing, and complete. The prototypes, rough drafts, and sketch-ups don't usually get put on display. However, a great product is usually preceded by great preparation. And in the case of this song, I think Eric Bibb prepared marvelously.

This song has the form of a "12-bar blues." A song's form is a road-map that describes the order in which you will hear the different parts of a song. In a 12-bar blues, you will typically hear a section of music that lasts for 12 segments of time, then repeats. Within this form, there are certain chords that are usually played in the same place for almost every 12-bar blues you've ever heard (it's a very common form of blues music). Those chords are represented as "I", "IV", and "V" in written form. Chords are like the scenery you see while driving along a road that prompts you to say things like, "What a nice neighborhood"; they provide context for the rest of the music (the road in the case of this analogy) that allows the listener to emotionally interpret the musical content. Usually, the "V" chord is very pivotal in the 12-bar blues.

And this is exactly where Eric Bibb comes in and messes it all up...in the best way possible. Instead of the usual chord pattern, Mr. Bibb plays the following (chords are written in parentheses to show where they occur):

(I) I'm building a new home, 'cross the county line.

(IV) I'm building a new home, 'cross the county line. (I)

(vi) Up on a high hill, (IV) where the view's so fine. (I)

Right there, during "up on a high hill" is where the magic happens. Normally, at this point in the 12-bar blues, the chord that is commonly played is "V." However, Eric breaks with convention and plays a "vi" chord instead. I don't know why he did it. Maybe its because it fit better with the melody he was singing or maybe he just plain wanted to. In either case, this little moment changes the song for me. This would have been a fine song without this change, but it wouldn't have been this song.

One small change made all the difference. That's what it means to build a "new home." It's almost an oxymoron: A home is something that is familiar; something new is unfamiliar. When you take something that is "same-old, same-old" and tweak it ever-so-slightly, you might end up with something fresh.

I think there's an important life lesson here for all of us. Some of us may have the rare opportunity to make a big splash in life by performing some grand heroic gesture or taking an absurd leap of faith. But all of us will have the opportunity to change one small thing that will lead to a lasting change. I'm confident that we have those opportunities daily and that they are so abundant that they can be easy to miss.

I take the subway to and from work. All together, that's about an hour each day when I risk falling asleep on the shoulder of the commuter next to me, drooling all over their suit. Recently, I was inspired to do some reading with that time. I'm typically a slow reader. Starting a book is like laying the foundation for a house; it's gonna be a good while before it's done. I decided to bring a book with me on the train and see what would happen. Last month, I read through three books almost exclusively during my commuting time. I felt inspired and productive with that time. I was energized for what would come next in my day. As a result of what I had been reading (a few Donald Miller books), I started this blog. Most of what you read on this blog started out as scratchings in a notebook written on morning and afternoon trips through Boston in the subway. I'm not moving mountains, I'm just changing one small aspect of my life: instead of sleeping on the train, do something else. And it has made all the difference.

I once worked at a facility for troubled youth. The professionals there abided by a central philosophy to their work: These are normal youth responding to an abnormal amount of trauma. That's a game-changer. That changes how those youth are viewed, treated, and engaged with on a day-to-day basis.

How many other "perspective shifts" are pending in our lives? How many small details are just begging to be tweaked so that we can see and do things differently? They're out there. Go and find them. Build a new home.

If a big change in the world is due, the world needs a little change in you.

What small change have you made recently?

Like the wind, music is something that can only be detected by the effect it has on other things. You cannot see it but you can see other things being moved by it, you can feel it stirring around you, and sometimes it can even move you.

This song barged through the door of my life as a teenager. Its frothing swell of sounds evoked scenes, images, and emotions that seemed to have rained from the same typhoon that stormed within me. Teenagers are often full of angst that lives outside the realm of words and I was no exception. However, this was more than an emotional outlet of a song. This was a soundscape that seemed to have been written as though to say, "If you're out there and you're listening...wake up! You're alive for crying out loud!"

Some songs are able to capture, in minute detail, the intricacies of certain scenarios or experiences that we have all shared and can relate to. There are also books, poems, and movies that do a phenomenal job of doing so. But this song accomplishes what can only be done in the solemn absence of words and the quiet solidarity required when making or experiencing a grand observation about the majestic immensity of life. There are such details no words can summarize, no movie can adequately depict, and no song can capture.

But this one comes daringly close.

Take the title of the song: First Breath After Coma. Man, what a concept. What is it like to take that first whisper of air when you awaken into a world you may or may not remember? Maybe you know that feeling. I am willing to say the vast majority of us do not, at least in the physical sense. However, in its own way, this song provides a snapshot of what coming back to life might be like. Maybe you or someone you know has been through a coma. What if your coma is not the medical sort? What if yours is emotional? Spiritual? Have you ever felt like you were 'detached' somehow? Have you ever felt like you were living but not 'alive'? This song serves as a shaft of light to pierce through the haze and remind the listener that there is blood pumping through their veins. It had that effect on me as a teenager and still does as an adult.

Notice how the first sound to your ears is the slow and steady ping of a guitar; each note of the repeating cycle softer than those preceding. Soon there is more activity added in the gaps as layers of instruments are brought into the mix. When the bass drum fades in like a pulse, you may begin to realize that you are listening to a heart rate monitor reading the stirrings of an awakening heart.

What follows after this initial experience is like the reintroduction of life; the gradual remembrance of things gone by, seeing familiar faces shaped anew by age, and a coming-to-terms with the unknown elements, the things that have transpired in the absence of a coma.

There are moments that no amount of living can prepare you for. There are joys, tragedies, and wonders too vast to fit within the constraints of words. This song is a glimpse of what lies beyond the walls of those limitations. Enjoy.

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What song makes you see life differently?