Here’s one of my personal favorite albums of all time. It’s a somewhat thematic album, exploring the different paradoxes of the Christian faith. Musically speaking, it’s not like most Christian albums: ambient noise is used quite frequently (in fact, the album opens with it), and the songs are more meditative than sing-songy and catchy. In fact, I didn’t much like the album when I first heard it, and it took a long time to grow on me. Now, though, I find it quite brilliant and always interesting to listen to.
For Derek Webb’s second solo album, he decided to eschew the traditional folk style of music he built most of his career on and went with something more akin to Radiohead or latter-day Wilco in sound. Interestingly enough, each one of his albums has a completely different sound than any other, which makes the music at least seem fresh. The opening track, “I Want a Broken Heart,” is a confession of complacency and plea for brokenness; something we should ask for more often but tend to shy away from. The second song, “Better Than Wine,” is a love song written for his wife based almost solely on imagery from Song of Solomon.
“The Strong, The Tempted & The Weak” is akin to an old hymn (it very well may be), while “Reputation” and “I Repent” seem to me, at least, to be a cry for confession and the confession itself, respectively. “Medication” contains some of the heaviest imagery on the album, with the narrator desiring a true Christian life no matter what the cost.
“We Come to You,” my personal favorite track, is the closest the album gets to a worship song: it’s a meditation on Christ coming to save us and how, with the broken heart of the title track, we need to come to him. It also has a roughly six minute musical outro that seems off-putting, but goes well with the contemplative lyrics and also serves as a bit of an intermission for the album.
“T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)” is a somewhat sarcastic look at the state of the Church as a whole and what we are known for instead of what we should be known for, which is love.
“Ballad in Plain Red” is an honest but cynical look at how materialistic everything has become and how, instead of caring for the poor or speaking outright truth, carnivals are thrown and bumper stickers are displayed. Like I said, it’s cynical, but sadly accurate in many aspects.
“Nothing is Ever Enough,” from my understanding, is about his split with Caedmon’s Call, though it sounds almost like a ballad until you examine the lyrics. “Lover Pt. 2” is a sequel of sorts to “Lover” from She Must and Shall Go Free. Where the latter is a song of great hope and beauty and told from the perspective of Christ, “Pt. 2” is told from the sinner’s point of view and, like several songs before, is all about being broken and the need for salvation.
The album closes with “What is Not Love,” a track that fully explores the apparent paradoxes of Christianity. Where the world would see weakness and foolishness, faith in God brings strength and wisdom. It’s an apt ending to a sometimes bizarre but always interesting album, and along with “Medication” contains some of the most brutal yet hopeful imagery in any song he’s yet written.
Like Share the Well, the album isn’t for everyone: the open, almost jammed aspect to some of the songs can be off-putting to a casual listener, and the lyrics get pretty heavy and convicting, requiring introspection and study. Plus, as with “Ballad in Plain Red,” it can get quite cynical, but Webb doesn’t shy away from songs of hope and redemption. There’s nothing quite as strong as “Lover,” which is one of the best songs ever written about Christ, but as always, hope is always there.
Choice lyrics:
“I Want a Broken Heart”: I’ve got alibis for every crime, a substitute to do my time, ’cause Your heart breaks enough on both our parts
“Better Than Wine”: I tell you my beloved that you cannot be replaced, with my left hand beneath your head and my right arm around your waist. So take a deep breath, because I feel a little drunk, but I’m in my right mind, babe, I know your love is so much better than wine
“The Strong, The Tempted & The Weak”: When storms or tempests rise or sins your peace assail, your hope in Jesus never dies, ’tis cast within the veil
“Reputation”: I know you know me well enough by now and you’re loving me as well as you know how
“I Repent”: I repent, I repent of trading truth for false unity. I repent, I repent of confusing peace and idolatry. By caring more of what they think than what I know of what we need, by domesticating You until You look just like me
“Medication”: So I’d rather suffer my whole life and be this rich man’s wife if loving You means suffering
“We Come to You”: You came to show the way, not around but through, so through it all, we come to You
“T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)”: They’ll know us by the billboards that we raise, just turning God’s words to cheap cliches. It says “what art of murder don’t you understand?” but we hate our fellow man, and point a finger at his grave
“Ballad in Plain Red”: Don’t want the song, I want a jingle. I love you Lord, but don’t hear a single. And the truth is nearly impossible to rhyme.
“Nothing is Ever Enough”: And you’re a wreck because you suspect that she’ll never be who she was years ago
“Lover Pt. 2″: I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved’s mine, and I am as surprised as any man born blind. But it’s still coming in blurry, the images I see, but someday it will all come clear and I will be set free
“What Is Not Love”: What looks like torture is a time to rejoice. What sounds like thunder is a comforting voice. When what is beautiful looks broken and crushed. I say I don’t know You, but You say it’s finished.
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Great Christian Albums, part 3
i see things upside down by Derek Webb
Here’s one of my personal favorite albums of all time. It’s a somewhat thematic album, exploring the different paradoxes of the Christian faith. Musically speaking, it’s not like most Christian albums: ambient noise is used quite frequently (in fact, the album opens with it), and the songs are more meditative than sing-songy and catchy. In fact, I didn’t much like the album when I first heard it, and it took a long time to grow on me. Now, though, I find it quite brilliant and always interesting to listen to.
For Derek Webb’s second solo album, he decided to eschew the traditional folk style of music he built most of his career on and went with something more akin to Radiohead or latter-day Wilco in sound. Interestingly enough, each one of his albums has a completely different sound than any other, which makes the music at least seem fresh. The opening track, “I Want a Broken Heart,” is a confession of complacency and plea for brokenness; something we should ask for more often but tend to shy away from. The second song, “Better Than Wine,” is a love song written for his wife based almost solely on imagery from Song of Solomon.
“The Strong, The Tempted & The Weak” is akin to an old hymn (it very well may be), while “Reputation” and “I Repent” seem to me, at least, to be a cry for confession and the confession itself, respectively. “Medication” contains some of the heaviest imagery on the album, with the narrator desiring a true Christian life no matter what the cost.
“We Come to You,” my personal favorite track, is the closest the album gets to a worship song: it’s a meditation on Christ coming to save us and how, with the broken heart of the title track, we need to come to him. It also has a roughly six minute musical outro that seems off-putting, but goes well with the contemplative lyrics and also serves as a bit of an intermission for the album.
“T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)” is a somewhat sarcastic look at the state of the Church as a whole and what we are known for instead of what we should be known for, which is love.
“Ballad in Plain Red” is an honest but cynical look at how materialistic everything has become and how, instead of caring for the poor or speaking outright truth, carnivals are thrown and bumper stickers are displayed. Like I said, it’s cynical, but sadly accurate in many aspects.
“Nothing is Ever Enough,” from my understanding, is about his split with Caedmon’s Call, though it sounds almost like a ballad until you examine the lyrics. “Lover Pt. 2” is a sequel of sorts to “Lover” from She Must and Shall Go Free. Where the latter is a song of great hope and beauty and told from the perspective of Christ, “Pt. 2” is told from the sinner’s point of view and, like several songs before, is all about being broken and the need for salvation.
The album closes with “What is Not Love,” a track that fully explores the apparent paradoxes of Christianity. Where the world would see weakness and foolishness, faith in God brings strength and wisdom. It’s an apt ending to a sometimes bizarre but always interesting album, and along with “Medication” contains some of the most brutal yet hopeful imagery in any song he’s yet written.
Like Share the Well, the album isn’t for everyone: the open, almost jammed aspect to some of the songs can be off-putting to a casual listener, and the lyrics get pretty heavy and convicting, requiring introspection and study. Plus, as with “Ballad in Plain Red,” it can get quite cynical, but Webb doesn’t shy away from songs of hope and redemption. There’s nothing quite as strong as “Lover,” which is one of the best songs ever written about Christ, but as always, hope is always there.
Choice lyrics:
Like this:
~ by jayaws on July 22, 2010.
Posted in Analysis, Commentary, Music