Last year I was visiting my parents in Indiana, USA. The trip is usually a good chance to catch up and often I binge on cable television. There was a special on TV by Ripley’s Believe it or Not or something like that. The story was about the world’s tallest man. He’s not the guy in China anymore. Bao Xishun had that recognition for years, but recently, a gentlemen named Leonid Stadnyk was discovered in the Ukraine who stands an impressive 8 feet, 5 inches tall. That’s about 5 inches taller than most home ceilings.

The story explained that Bao received a lot of recognition when he was named tallest living man several years back. Consequently, he decided to use his fame to help find a wife. After sending marriage advertisements around the world, he took a bride from his hometown in China.

Fast forward to Mr. Stadnyk. In the TV show I was watching, they said that Leonid (unmarried at the time) was quite camera-shy and didn’t want any attention. But, for some reason, he decided to finally agree to an interview. I imagined that maybe Leonid has gotten lonely and maybe he felt like granting an interview might improve his odds of finding a companion.

I don’t want to be the subject of your TV show
A spectacle for all to see
But if by chance my one true love is watching now
She should know where to find me

The song is pretty upbeat and I’m really excited about the rough tracks we’ve put together in the studio recently. I’ll share a sneak preview when I’m able. I’m still planning to try to release my CD this winter. More details to come!

As a challenge to myself, I’ll often write with strong allegories to see if I can maintain the “cloak” the whole time. I also think it makes music more interesting when things are left a little up to the listeners’ imagination. After all, Carly Simon still hasn’t revealed who the subject of “You’re So Vain” is…

I used to work late on Saturdays producing a radio program. It would usually be 10 or 11pm before I’d get home and one particular night I stopped for Taco Bell (two Double Decker Tacos and a Bean Burrito (no onions)). As I settled in to enjoy my late night dinner, I popped in a DVD by a band called Mercy Me. I’m not a big Mercy Me fan. They have some good music and the guys in the band are nice. But it was a little unusual that I picked their live concert DVD to watch. In fact, I don’t watch very many live concert DVDs at all. And even more strangely, when it came to the one song that I could have easily skipped past, I Can Only Imagine, having heard it a million times already, I was mesmerized. And then I started to cry–really hard.

I have never longed and thirsted for the Eternal like I did in that moment. And it was a time in life when it was exactly what I needed. And the idea of a Holy Unexpected Visitor was something that had taken place a few times previously (at church, in the car, while a song played). So I decided to write a song about it. After about an hour, I had a really rough recording of the song.

I started to think perhaps you went away
Maybe you had some pressing thing to do or say
But here you are like the hero in the third act of some play
And I didn’t think I’d see you here today

Initially the bridge was just an instrumental section. I added the line about “crashing through all my doubt” later after reading a section from Brennen Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel.

As your reward for reading this far, here’s the original, late night recording. Be nice. It’s a newborn.

"Perhaps….,
originally uploaded by ohsleepless1.

When I wrote the song “The Ballad of Jon Turner” I had just attended a memorial service for a guy I had never met. He died of brain cancer the week prior and seeing as he sort of knew his demise was imminent, he took some measures to prepare for the service. He wrote some really nice letters to the members of his family. These letters were read in the service. It was a pretty emotional funeral but the thing that struck me most was that this was a guy I wish I had a chance to know. Now though, it was a little too late.

Jon Turner was a family man
He and his wife had a daughter and a son
And even though he finished pretty well
I got the feeling he wasn’t quite done

I think a lot of lessons are learned too late. I’m glad I learned this one that day. I immediately started to think about my own funeral and the impact I have had on people’s lives and what might be said about me at my memorial service. How will I be remembered?

These really aren’t thoughts that are extremely unique, I know, but I think I really began to try to see each day as an opportunity to shape that eventual finishing point.

I wish I could say that I tracked down Jon Turner’s wife and gave her a copy of the CD and the song. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet. Hopefully I’ll post a brief update here when I do. I assume she still lives here in Colorado.

Great for Phil Collins, you’re thinking. But it doesn’t do me any good. Really? You mean you never heard that (or another) song on the radio and wanted to turn it up and cry your eyes out because the one from high school that you knew was more than a friend told you she just wants to be friends? You didn’t secretly sing the words to yourself when your college sweetheart called things off? Or, sitting in your car, after another night of questioning life and trying to make sense of why you have to let go of all those memories, you didn’t wonder how Phil Collins could have found such insight into the nature of love and pain when he wrote that song? You could swap out any song about unrequited love in any genre and I’m willing to bet there’s an equally painful story behind it.

Mostly, the Phil Collins story is about redemption, to me. To be honest, I don’t know anything about Phil’s faith, but when I hear a pop song on the radio about love (or lost love, most often), I am instantly transported to the pain and hardship it required to pen those words. Words that transcend time and space and elicit memories and emotions and pain and joy in another person. Words that represented HOPE to the artist. I think about the divine process of art. Art, the Story, is something created by God and He uses whom He chooses to tell it. This process takes the pain, hope, tragedy, joy, shock and mundane of life and makes magic out of it. It shares an experience that heals both the artist and the recipient. But it’s not just about the finished product.

When Noah landed the ark, most people think it was just a few days before he and the animals walked down the ramp to a brand, spanking new earth. Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer for floodwaters to retreat than for the rain to fall. According to Genesis, they waited on the ship for several months before the bird returned with an olive branch. That’s a long time to hope. I imagine Noah and his family saved a plank from the ship, or maybe the original olive branch, as a testament to what they had been through. Something that lasted for generations to remind people of God’s faithfulness. A keepsake.

Some songs are like that.

But to me (and many other artists I’m sure), art born from pain is more than a keepsake. It represents Ground Zero–the starting point, not the ending point. The arrow that points back to an intricate, inexplicable process that has brought me to today. And if nothing else, it’s the buoy that subtly reminds me of an imminent, hope-filled shoreline just beyond the fog.

Flight,
originally uploaded by coloradocrim.

If there’s one thing that brings people together, it’s difficult circumstances. There’s a quote by BEN PEARSON (see EDIT) about Rich Mullins. I can’t locate it right now, but it’s in the foreword of one of his books, I believe. He said, “Rich knows the secret handshake of the broken.” It’s not a good club to be in, but if you’re in it, I sort of feel like I don’t have to explain this song.

Feel like a bird tied to a tether
Not quite how it’s meant to be
I’m looking around at all these feathers
That I don’t even need

In a word, this song is about hope. About the time I wrote this song, I remember my friend Matt saying, “Hope floats.” I asked him what he meant by that. “When everything is going down, we grab onto that thing that feels like it’s keeping us up and we hold on for dear life,” he told me. All it takes is one little blink of light and you think, “Could that be the light at the end of this tunnel? Is that the sound of a rescue boat I’ve been waiting on this deserted island so long to hear?” It’s the thing that gives you courage to finally get back up and sit in the saddle again after a painful ejection.

Don’t take away this harness yet
And I think I might still need this net and
Let me know if you’ve got some hope to spare

So, to most people, almost flying probably sounds like failure. To me, it represents possibility and hope.

I’m in China right now, but I have several friends all over the world who have been working on remixes of this song. You can visit my myspace page to listen to some of my faves. There are at least 3-4 excellent versions on the REMIX ME page and one more is still in process that I really like too.

EDIT: I just wanted to make a correction here. The quote was not by Brennen, but in fact, his photographer for The Raggamuffin Gospel, Ben Pearson. Ben wrote the 2nd Foreword for this book. I knew I read it in that book, but couldn’t find it last week when I wrote this post. Anyway, I’d like to post just an excerpt here of where the quote comes from, simply because it has meant a lot to me over these last 4 years and I’ve referred to it more than a dozen times. And to Ben, my apologies and sincere thanks for the way you put this. Your art is remarkable. Thank you.

… In these two photographs, Brennen Manning and Rich Mullins are sitting outside on the steps. Outside seems to be an appropriate place for them. Outside you can breathe. It’s not that being inside is necessarily bad; it’s just that it’s easier to hide there. Society as a whole has become expert at concealment–a word that doesn’t seem to be a part of Brennen or Rich’s vocabulary. These two have a certain bond–a brotherhood of the transparent. They know, all too well, the secret handshake of the broken and so embrace that much more fully the arms of grace extended.…

For me, the song “Perspective” is about trying to understand things from God’s point of view. We exist in a limited understand of what’s going on here. Whether we believe in God or not, a lot of us probably wonder if things would look differently to us now if we had a perspective of circumstances outside of time and space. We’ve all experienced things that seemed like they would kill us, but somehow we survive. It’s the difference between hopelessness and realizing things will be OKAY. This song is about attempting to see things from another point of view to gain some understanding and to grow.

Maybe it’s something like perspective
That’s making it seem like nothing’s right
Maybe there’s a larger story
But all I feel is pain tonight

The song was born as the result of a collaboration between me and a guy named Gavin Harrison, aka Gridlocked. He’s a production genius in the UK who contacted me through a web forum at kvraudio.com. We’ve since become good friends and he’s worked a couple remixes for me. I’m excited to do more with him. We have yet to meet in person or even talk on the phone, though.

Anyway, he sent me this loop.

perspective

I recorded some vocals and emailed them back to him. Then he produced the final track. You can hear the end result there in the “Amie Street” player to the right of this post. I think it’s an excellent song. I can say that because I didn’t do all the heavy lifting.

If you want it, check out last.fm. I have posted it as a freebie there for the next few weeks.

Oh, and the little breathy noises at the beginning and end, I’m told those are samples from Gavin’s iron. Enjoy!