ccmlyrics.com’s sister domains ccmlyrics.net and ccmlyrics.org are for sale. I haven’t used them for ages (actually I got them for free when I bought ccmlyrics.com years ago), so they have just been sitting in my portfolio gathering dust. I would be happy to sell them to anyone who makes a reasonable offer via the current holding page at SEDO (just enter the domain name in your browser and it will take you to the holding page). Of course I would prefer it if you wanted to use the site for CCM related activities…
Yeah, I know it’s six months old, but I can’t always afford the latest and greatest right away, so I only got this one recently and it’s such a great album, I thought I should write about it.
Actually, “The Bird and the Bee Sides” isn’t an album – it’s two EPs combined in one CD. The first part are 13 new songs, some of them rather short, in a rather interesting combination of musical styles. The second part are “B-Sides” – songs that have been released previously, but are rather hard to come by. All in all it’s over 70 minutes of music for the price of a single CD, which is more than you get on most recordings these days.
Relient K’s excellent, often rather tongue-in-cheek lyrics, dominate this CD as much as the previous ones. I’m costantly amazed at their ability to build music around complicated and often funny, yet quite deep lyrics. The style mix in the first part of the CD is certainly an acquired taste… slower acoustic songs are immediately followed by fast, loud Ska-like arrangements, so it’s definitely not a CD to listen when you’re trying to fall asleep.
As with most of their albums, I find it hard to name a favorite… but this time, with 26 songs to choose from, it’s even more challenging. “The Lining is Silver” and “There was no Thief” are among my personal highlights in the first part – the acoustic versions of “Who I am hates who I’ve been” and “Hope for Every Fallen Man” stand out for me in the second part. If you have other favorites, let me know. It’s a fun album, well worth the investment. At least it was for me…
Am I writing about Casting Crowns songs too often? Oh well, considering that I haven’t written anything in a long time, I guess that’s OK. Besides, I love writing about them because they usually have something to say that really speaks to me. They may not be as variable and innovative musically, but their lyrics are usually spot on.
So I was casually listening to “The Altar and the Door” last year, when the CD was still new. Don’t ever try to just casually listen to Casting Crowns, you never know when they have something to say that really catches you off guard. “Somewhere in the middle” is one of these songs. It’s about that constant struggle between the old and the new creation in us. Yes, we have been born again. Yes, we are a new creation before God. And yes, we still often struggle with the same things as before.
The little pre-chorus line really wraps it into one so very true question: “Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control?”. As long as we try to stay in control, we will remain stuck somewhere in the middle. We’ll always try to do what we think is right and we’ll always risk as much as we think can be risked. But the truth is: God knows better. And we always need to risk more (and by that I don’t mean we need to be stupid, but that’s really taking it too far away from the lyrics). And what we think is right usually isn’t… or at least not as right as what God wants us to do. “Deep water faith in the shallow end” is what they call it… and that’s a really brilliant analogy.
The song encourages me again and again to let myself be challenged by the question: is God really in control of my life? Or am I in control of my life and God is an advisor that I choose to listen to as long as it seems convenient to me? More often than not, I’m afraid, the latter is the case. But it’s songs like this (besides many other influences) that help me be aware of my failures… and encourage me to try a little bit more. Maybe one day I will truly be the new creation God enables me to be… what a day that will be.
I found a press release in my mail this morning that I thought I’d share with you. It’s from Furious Records, announcing that Delirious?, one of the pioneering bands of the “modern worship” movement, are “taking a break” from recording and performing as a band at the end of 2009. In fact the rest of the press release makes it sound like a rather final “break”.
The Delirious? guys have been around for so many years and so incredibly busy during those years, it’s hard to imagine going to a major christian music festival and them not being there. But it was something that doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Stewart Smith (drums) left the band earlier this year to spend more time with his family and all the others have families as well – it must be hard to lead a normal family life when you’re touring for several months of the year.
I believe that no other band has influenced me more in my development as a christian, by showing that worshipping God through song doesn’t have to be dull and boring. Without their songs, I probably wouldn’t be a worship leader today. Many of the songs they wrote will still be sung many years from now, by people who probably won’t even know who Delirious? were. And I will always remember the countless times I saw them perform live, from one of their first appearances at the Christmas Rock Night here in Germany back in 1999 to the Frenzy Festival in Edinburgh just a couple of weeks ago. But although this website is about the lyrics more than about the music, the one truly unforgettable moment for me will always be the 20 minutes of instrumental worship during their Soul Survivor 2005 worship session.
It is with great respect that I report on what really is the end of an era – may we still enjoy their songs for a long time afterwards and give glory to God with words and melodies that they have written.
Technorati : Delirious, band, christian music, music, worship
Maybe I should review the entire album “five score and seven years ago” at some point, but today I’ll just focus on the one song that really means a lot to me. “Come right out and say it” is about honesty. It’s also about a friendship that’s breaking up. Could be the sad end to a romantic love story… but it doesn’t have to be. It could happen between friends… unfortunately I know what I’m talking about. So one of them “beats around the bush”, never quite saying what it is that’s going on. And the other one notices. People are that way. Sometimes it’s hard to even say what it is that’s bothering you. It can seem so insignificant that you’d feel strange even mentioning it. Or it can be that big, life-altering secret that is getting between you and the other person, but you don’t want them to know. You may want to keep the friendship going, but it’s the silence that destroys more than it preserves. “Thought you were being so kind by keeping your mouth sealed shut rather than just opening it up” – it often doesn’t work that way. When it last happened to me, it didn’t work. I knew that something was wrong, long before it even started getting close to the surface. I started to try and figure out what it was – if I had done something wrong, if it was anything that I could fix. “And I try to guess what goes on in your head. Cause in your mind I just might find all those things you left unsaid“.
Sometimes it’s better to just come out with the truth – I know I was hurt way more by the silence than by what came out many months later. At least now I knew… some things I could do something about, others were completely outside of my control. It really wasn’t my fault after all, but I spent months thinking it was. This song got me through some of that time… more than once I wanted to sing it out loud to the other person: “Why don’t you come right out and say it. Even if the words are going to hurt we’re better off this way. Why don’t you come right out and say what I know you’re thinking anyway“.
Song: Come right out and say it
Artist: Relient K
Album: Five score and seven years ago
Technorati : CCM, christian, friendship, honesty, lyrics, music, truth
