22 Songs for 2022

Welcome to my reflection on the year 2022, summarized in a playlist of 22 songs.
Or, as I like to think of it, my real 2022 Spotify Wrapped (cleansed of the songs I just had on mindless repeat).

(Link to Spotify playlist : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1xwwRsmYsKktoEcVUHoJuU?si=48838bf665ea4a11)

Chapter 1: Healing

1. I Wanna Get Better – ATC, The Ready Set
This is a cover of the Bleachers song, but a little more stripped-down and intimate with chillingly beautiful female vocals.
Anyways, in so many ways, this song represents where I was at the beginning of 2020, a bit numbed by loss and crisis, but at the same time committed to living and seeking help (therapy, counseling) to get “better.”

2. As It Was – Harry Styles
Harry. Styles. Between the emergence of his acting career, and the release of his album Harry’s House (which subsequently pervaded much of our soundspace), he’s been a fixture of 2022, in my book.
Beyond just its catchy opening riff, “As It Was” even made it into this NPR Planet Money Podcast, which asks “Is this song happy or sad?” Maybe we’ll never know. But to me, this song is a coming to terms with the fact that things are just different–not necessarily bad, just different. Whether in life circumstances or just even in who I am, choosing not to lament mourn what was, but to be thankful for it and for the life I have now, and the person I am now, recognizing God at work in both.

3. Moving Forward – Colony House
Despite missing Switchfoot on tour with NEEDTOBREATHE last year (we saw the one NEEDTOBREATHE show that Switchfoot skipped 😢), we caught them this year. Colony House, was playing right before Switchfoot, and they did this one live. I had heard this song before, but even getting to hear the bit of story behind it made it all the more rich with meaning.
It’s a beautiful song about moving forward (no duh), acknowledging the unkindness of life but not being defined by it.
When the pain is true, sometimes these troubles prove that I’m alive; …
Sometimes, Life can feel so unkind. Sorrow won’t define me, so just reminds my soul.

4. Don’t Be so Hard on Yourself – Jess Glynne
Not a new song by any means, but discovered it this year. It’s an anthem for sure, like Rachel Platten’s Fight Song but dancier.
It’s been a song for me trying to break free of perfectionism, my own high and possibly unrealistic expectations for myself, and learning to accept and live in God’s grace in all areas of my life, even the ones that aren’t explicitly spiritual.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, no
Learn to forgive, learn to let go
Everyone trips, everyone falls
So don’t be so hard on yourself, no
‘Cause I’m just tired of marching on my own

5. About Damn Time – Lizzo(ooooooooo)
As you can tell from the title, this song by no means passes the clean language test and certainly earns the “E” for explicit.
But I do love some Lizzo in my life. (Lizzo’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert is one of my all-time favorites.)
I originally put this song in the “joy” chapter, since it’s so fun and catchy, right down to the very Lizzo flute part.
But as I look back over these lyrics, it fits so well thematically with the journey of this year. (And because the next section is already packed 😂).
It’s been a minute tell me how you’re healing …
Oh, I’m not the girl I was or used to be

Chapter 2: Joy

6. Banks – NEEDTOBREATHE
“Terry loves Love!” – Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) in Brooklyn 99
One of the joys of this year has been getting to celebrate some friends getting married! This was an excellent choice for a first dance song for one of the couples. I already love NEEDTOBREATHE and this song, and them, so it was a perfect marriage of all three! (Pun intended)

7. Overpass Graffiti – Ed Sheeran
What would this playlist be without a song from my #4 artist on my 2022 Wrapped?
(I’m still going to somehow deny being a Swiftie despite her appearing at slot #1 on the list.
It’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me. It’s exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero 😉).
Anyways, this is yet another catchy pop song about love, but there’s an undertone of choosing commitment through the ups and downs of relationships.

8. Where I Belong – Simple Plan, State Champs, We The Kings
If I could choose two genres for the year, pop punk would be one of them. Three bands in one song? Sounds like a fun time.
This song sounds like the freedom and thriving in “life in a mostly post-COVID world,” as we’re finally catching up with friends, bands, and just life after what felt like an eternity away.
I’m finally breathing
Like I never could on my own
Start the countdown, let’s get it on
Scream our lungs out to our favorite song
‘Cause this is where I belong

9. Dear Maria, Count Me In – All Time Low
This is just a classic pop-punk banger. This one was actually in my Spotify Wrapped Top Songs of 2022.
I don’t need to say anymore. IYKYK.

10. I Ain’t Worried – OneRepublic (from Top Gun: Maverick)
Catchy. Fun. Summer vibes. This was the song from the movie of this summer. While most reboots pale in comparison to the originals, this one raised the stakes and was arguably better than the first. To top it off, we got to see OneRepublic live in concert (with NEEDTOBREATHE).
We also saw the Goo Goo Dolls, who unfortunately did not make it into this playlist (too many good ones to choose from!)
I think having all their songs on repeat in preparation for the concerts is what comprises at least 50% of my Spotify Wrapped.

11. The Big Bow-Wow – SNOOPY!! (The Musical)
This year, I learned of the existence of the Snoopy musical, and it has brought much amusement and mirth.
Snoopy is so silly. From his cackling laughter to his beagle antics, to this big musical number, he’s numero uno!
Class, yes! Style, yes!
Out front by a mile, yes! …
Pardon my beagle, but…WHOOPEE!
Now I’m The Big Bow Wow!
We may have even dressed up as Charlie Brown and Lucy for Halloween!

12. Dino Disco – Orange Guava Passion
Fun and funky song – about dinos just dancing it out.

That would be my second genre of the year: my foray into retro pop. I love the jazzy bass lines, the use of saxophone, and just the overall groovyness. This song and the next are the highlights of this genre for me.

13. Conjunction Junction – Couch
The language nerd in me likes this song. It’s about conjunctions! And, but, & or!
I am now realizing this is a cover of a Schoolhouse Rock song, but in a funky retro pop.

14. Blinding Lights – The Naked and Famous
Say hello to another cover! Again, I love the female vocal that adds dimension to the song, and I just like it more than the original by The Weeknd. Starts off slowly but powerfully and builds really well into a synth-driven banger.
I also really enjoy their other song, “Everybody Knows”, but their cover works as a representative sample given my self-imposed 22-song limit.

Chapter 3: Hope

15. The Road, The Rocks, The Weeds – John Mark McMillan
This song came out towards the end of 2019, but it remains a deep comfort and hope amidst the tragedies and sorrows of 2022, 2021, and 2022. Unlike the gods of Olympus, our Maker and Savior descended from heaven to enter into our suffering and feel every heartbreak with us.
When I’ve got no answers for hurt knees or cancers
But a Savior who suffers them with me
Singing goodbye, Olympus, the heart of my Maker
Is spread out on the road, the rocks, and the weeds

16. Kind – The Ben Potter
A struggle of this year has been to believe that God is good, not just on a cosmic scale, but on a personal level as well.
To know that He is for His glory and my good. This was a tender reminder of that.
(I’m in the middle of reading Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly, and this is like the song version of it!)
Your heart is kind
Your heart always beats kindly

17. Satisfy – Rivers & Robots
“jOggs.” Perhaps the master of Christian lofi chillhop. Meditative and atmospheric. Chill beats to be vibing out for Jesus.
This song has been on repeat — partly because it is first on my playlist, but also because it’s like Psalm 16 brought into the modern age.

18. Always Will Be – Jonathan Ogden
Your name alone has power to save the lost and broken
No force of hell can stop the things that you have spoken
You alone, You are worthy
Always were, always will be
I love this chorus–the reminder that He alone has power to save the lost and broken: both myself and the people around me.
In myself, I have no power to save, either myself from my own sins and habits, nor the power to fix the brokenness I see around me. But He does, and He has been and always be worthy of unending praises.

19. pink skies – LANY
I guess this is what the kids these days are listening to.
The Malibu beach vibe sounds rings with the youthful naivety of first love.

20. Look at the Sky – Porter Robinson
While I’m 90% sure that this is not a Christian song, it reminds me of the psalmist of Psalm 121, lifting his eyes to the Lord, for help, for hope. This song just exudes hope–and for me, it’s a hope in the God who has been “still here” throughout all the ups and downs of the year. As He wills, “I’ll be alive next year,” and he’ll do what He’s done in this year–made something good.
Look at the sky, I’m still here
I’ll be alive next year
I can make something good
Something good

Chapter 4: Christmas Songs

As a certified December baby, the Christmas season inherently encroaches on my experience of reflecting on the past year.
While there are plenty of serious Christmas songs that speak to the hope that Jesus offers at Christmas, (See my picks from 2020 and 2016) this year’s picks are new additions to my Christmas rotation, and they’re delightfully silly.

21. All I Want for Christmas is You – My Chemical Romance
Have you ever imagined the overplayed Mariah Carey single as an emo song? Well, wonder no more. This one opens beautifully with a “Welcome to the Black Parade”-esque piano, and breaks into that holiday pining in full emo glory.
MCR has been making a comeback this year, after all.

22. I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here) – The Old 97’s
Now imagine the cultural Christmas festivities viewed from the anthropological perspective of aliens. This gem, from the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is a hilarious mish-mash of all of the secular Christmas lore — Santa, elves, chestnuts, glowing deer, you name it. The version in the Disney+ television special has Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord interjecting every few seconds with “No!,” which is exactly how accurate the aliens’ understanding is, but it makes for a great holiday song.
It’s like Matt Thiesen of Relient K wondering “What’s a partridge, what’s a pear tree? I don’t know so please don’t ask me; But I can bet those are terrible gifts to get.” in their version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but even more misled.

Seven Songs For Christmas 2020

It’s “Christmas all over again.” Un-coincidentally the name of the title track off the Christmas album that the Goo Goo Dolls put out this year. But it’s been one of the strangest of years, filled with so much upheaval, tension, isolation, you name it. It was a year that warranted starting the Christmas music early. Because Lord knows, I needed it.

So, after many many hours of listening, I present to you my authoritative Christmas song picks for this year.
(YouTube links have graciously been provided for you heathens who don’t have Spotify 😊).

1. “Baby Son” – John Mark McMillan

John Mark McMillan – “Baby Son” – YouTube

We thought You’d come with a crown of gold
A string of pearls and a cashmere robe
We thought You’d clinch an iron fist
And rain like fire on politics

But without a sword, no armored guard
But common born in mother’s arms
The government now rests upon
The shoulders of this Baby Son

In a year marked by chaos and divisiveness in the realm of American politics, this song really makes me marvel at the meekness of Jesus. I love how this song pulls from Isaiah 9, that wonderful list of all the things that Jesus would be: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and that the government would be on His shoulders. It’s been a year that I’ve longed to see Jesus’s reign and rule now, but in this season I’m reminded that Jesus didn’t come to rule by force, but by coming in the weakness of a baby, and then laying down his life to bring us hope for an unshakeable kingdom to come.

2. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”
– For King & Country feat. NEEDTOBREATHE

for KING & COUNTRY- O Come, O Come Emmanuel – YouTube

In one word, EPIC. This rendition takes an already-fantastic song about anticipating the arrival of the savior, and you add in Bear Rineheart’s piercing vocals. Just wow. With the layered vocals and the percussion, it all builds into something that’s hauntingly beautiful. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

3. “Refugee King” – Liz Vice

Liz Vice – Refugee King – YouTube 

Absolutely beautiful song. It parallels the more popular “Away in a Manger” lyrics, but recounts the flight of Mary and Joseph to Egypt. May we remember the escape from Bethlehem that followed soon after the Christmas journey to Bethlehem. May we remember our Jesus who stands with the outcast, the harassed, and the hurting because He has walked in their shoes.

4. “Better Days” – The Goo Goo Dolls

Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days – YouTube

This is it. 2020 was the year I discovered The Goo Goo Dolls, and what a wonderful surprise to get a Christmas album from them this year! I didn’t think of “Better Days” as a Christmas song until they released this track, but it fits unimaginably well. Particularly for this year. It’s been a year that just keeps coming at us, when all we want is better days. If you know me, I have a special distaste for kids singing, (children’s choirs most specifically), but there’s something magical about this track that captures hopeful innocence.

So take these words
And sing out loud
‘Cause everyone is forgiven now
‘Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again

This song so wonderfully reminds me of the grand beauty of Christmas, that it was the night that “one poor child came to save this world,” to offer forgiveness to everyone. A night that the world was forever changed, a new beginning from our broken path as a human race.

5. “Far Away” – The National Parks

The National Parks || Far Away – YouTube

So I discovered this track in July, just casually listening to The National Parks as part of my indie repertoire, and after a few listens, I thought “wow, this sounds an awful lot like a Christmas song!”. And behold, it was.
I just love how it recounts the elements of the Christmas story, all of these things that feel so very “far away”. But with tender simplicity (and beautiful touches of strings!), this song makes all those things feel “a little closer today” in this Christmas season.

6. “Christmas Tree Farm” – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift – Christmas Tree Farm – YouTube

2020 has been THE YEAR of Taylor Swift. Gracing our pandemic-shaken world with not one, but two surprise albums that are both absolutely amazing…
Anyways, this song is so delightfully jingly, a nice escape from the really heavy stuff of this year.

7. “The Christmas Party”
– The Goo Goo Dolls feat. The Union Square 5

Goo Goo Dolls – The Christmas Party – YouTube

Have I, by any chance, mentioned The Goo Goo Dolls’ Christmas album?
Anyways, I’ll finish off with this fun little track. It’s the perfect jazzy medley for a Christmas party… (if we could have one this year…. But anyhow,) It evokes warm cozy Charlie Brown Christmas vibes and I love that.

So with that, Merry Christmas all! Happy listening!

Tunesday: Songs of Doubt (by The Collection)

What have you been listening to these days?
The Collection.  I’ve recommended this  band to friends at least three times in the past two or so weeks, and it’s been a prominent feature of my “New Hipster Things” playlist.  Surprisingly symphonic, thoughtfully arranged, musically rich and lyrically complex.

The Collection definitely has some fun songs—”You Taste Like Wine” has an enrapturing piano riff, and “Gown of Green” feels quite like a “stomp-and-holler” song—but for me, what The Collection does best is give voice to doubt in a way that is honest and poignant.

In “The Doubting One,” frontman David Wimbish asks

Brother Thomas, did you walk away from Jesus, wondering if it was all a dream
did all your doubts creep back and tell you that your fingers hadn’t ever touched a single thing?”

In this song, he addresses those times when vision is cloudy, when questions abound, and when “nothing ever seemed to grow except my lonely brother’s hurt.”  And it addresses wrestling with God over those who don’t know Him, asking God “all the friends I know have never ever met you, does that mean that they deserve to die?”  The response to this doubt is a plea that God would come and speak to his friends, because he has experienced God’s voice bringing life to him:

cause all the friends I know have never ever heard you speak
and I know when you speak it brings up life
so would you, pretty please, come speak to all of them and me,
growing us collectively into your wife.”

The song ends with a brief reflection on their sin and on the cross, how Jesus saved him and is able to save his friends:

All my friends and I, we have stolen, we have lied, and we have looked upon each other full of lust
but you carried your cross when you know that I was lost, so I know that you could carry all of us

In the midst of the doubt, there is hope.

In “Broken Tether,” a song that sounds much more upbeat, but still addresses doubt, Wimbish writes about the “days, sometimes even weeks when I can say I don’t believe.”
But he also writes of God’s pursuing, of faith that is growing, so that the days of doubt are “getting longer in between:”

I am hoping that you’re running down the road to me without your shoes on
I am binding every part that is left of me to a tiny mustard seed, and it is growing
…
I am roaming, and you are calling me back home. I have never felt that call so strong before
and though my feet walk very slow, and there is death between my bones, I’ll make it home!

In the midst of the doubt, God is pursuing.

But the song that has struck me most is this one called “To Dust.”  The last verse goes like this:

So even if my anger and my pain have all continued
it could quickly fade if I’d receive a touch from you
and I would be content to forget everything I’ve known
to fall asleep right now, for good before your throne

It’s a song that says that even if all of the anger and pain continues, just a touch from God would satisfy him.  In this encounter with his “Teacher” (Jesus, I assume),

peaceful words came out and silenced all my silence
and I realized that the knowledge that I thought that I had known
was nothing compared to you coming to my home.”

The presence of Jesus coming to his home and into his brokenness is enough to silence the doubt and answer the questions, at least until “maybe when I’m dead, you will answer all the questions/that all of us explained though we knew we didn’t know them.”
In the midst of the doubt, there is Jesus.

But that’s enough of me blathering on about these songs.  Take a listen for yourself!  Both “The Doubting One,” “Broken Tether,” and “To Dust” are on this one, Ars Morendi.

Another notable mention from their other album, Listen To The River, is “No Maps of the Past,” a song of “hoping to honor the past while accepting the present.”  “You Taste Like Wine” is also on this one.

Tunesday: Twelve songs of 2016

Welcome to the last ‪#Tunesday of 2016!
This is the soundtrack of my 2016, twelve theme songs that tell the story of my year, through the symphony of highs and lows.

1. “All Glory Be To Christ” – King’s Kaleidoscope

This year began with the refrains of “All Glory Be To Christ,” and it’s followed me throughout the year—from my college fellowship to the the church in my hometown that I’ve been checking out this month.  And this song is one which still rings now at the end of the year as I head into 2017.

2. “Good Good Father” – Chris Tomlin

This was the most overplayed song of my 2016.  It’s an earworm, albeit a very good earworm that testifies of the goodness of God, which has been so evident this year.

3. “Rise Up” – Andra Day

Because Andra Day is awesome.  A new discovery of this year.  This song represens this year with my family, we all love Andra Day’s powerful, unique voice.  And this is easily her best song.

4. “Happiness” – The Fray

The somber tone of this song, as it speaks to the fleeting nature of happiness, was the mood of many days of 2016.  This and a lot of Fray songs have this feel of beautiful melancholy.

5. Holding On To You – Twenty One Pilots

This was a battle cry this year.
Every part of this song resonated with me, especially this verse:
“Fight it, take the pain, ignite it
Tie a noose around your mind
Loose enough to breath fine and tie it
To a tree tell it, you belong to me, this ain’t a noose
This is a leash and I have news for you
You must obey me”
“Entertain my faith.”  Lord, entertain my little faith, in my efforts to keep holding on to You.

6.”Even Me” – I Am They

For every doubt of God’s love that plagued me this year, the truth of the simple chorus of “Yes, Jesus loves me, even me,” was such a sweet comfort.

7. “Air I Breathe” – Mat Kearney

A  dynamic, revitalizing song of surrender.  Truly a breath of fresh air for me this year.

8. “No Longer Slaves” – Jonathan David and Melissa Helser (Bethel Music)

Such a beautiful song of freedom.  An anthem for me as I faced many of the fears that I was enslaved to, and learned to live in the freedom of being a child of God.

9. “Multiplied” – NEEDTOBREATHE

The unofficial theme song of the “Multiply” fall conference this year.  A song of worship and surrender.  Yet wrapped up in this song, for me are many of the challenges and tears and frustrations of this year.  And still, God was working in all of it.  (Also, it sparked my head-first dive into NEEDTOBREATHE’s music.  Good stuff.)

10. “Farther Along” – Josh Garrels

It took a while, but I finally got into Josh Garrels.  To me, this song is peace in the unresolved, a promise that “farther along we’ll understand why” things happened the way they did.  A song of trusting God’s sovereignty.  Sort of like Ghost Ship’s “Where Were You.”  (That might be a Tunesday feature in the near future.)

11. “Hope Is The Anthem” – Switchfoot

“Sometimes what you need is what you fight/Like a wounded man out on the run/
Like shadows hiding from the light/But your love is what I was running from”
Hope was indeed the anthem of my soul this year, my battle march as I fought to not run from what I needed: the love of God and other people.  Even if the battle is a lifelong war, I have hope—that God is who He says He is, and that his promises to see me through are true.

12. “Live It Well” – Switchfoot

(Of course there are two Switchfoot songs on my soundtrack for this year.)
“Life is short; I wanna live it well.”  Enough said.
So good.  A sentiment I want to carry into 2017:
Life is short.  I want to live it well—by making God the one I’m living for.

Six Types of Holiday Songs (and why they’re awful)

I’ve was thinking about writing an exhaustive review of the top Christmas carols based on their depth of meaning.  As I began brainstorming and doing preliminary research, I realized it was a Herculean task to catalog and comment on over a hundred songs.  But as I mulled over it a bit more, my tired and cynical ears were able to boil it down to this:

All Christmas songs fall into a handful of basic categories.  

There are, of course, as with any broad categorizations, some exceptions and some songs that span categories.  But for the most part, name a holiday song, and it’ll fit right into one of these:

1. Songs about Jesus

The original holiday songs, Christmas carols are all about Jesus.  More modern songs such as “Mary, Did You Know,” also add beautifully to the canon of meaningful Christmas music.
I actually have very few gripes about songs in this category.  “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”  My only complaints are against songs like  “Silent Night” that idealize a night that was most likely noisy, dirty, and somewhat chaotic, but still so very Divine.  That’s an article for another day.  The CCM world has also added a good deal of songs to this category, with some good ones like Relient K’s “I Celebrate the Day,” but also muddied the water with many banal cliche originals and reworkings of old carols.  These would form a bonus seventh category: “Attempts by CCM”

2. Alternative Christmas Lore

Any songs about Santa, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman.  If Christmas isn’t about Christ, we needed a set of stories to tell, a set of characters to sing of at Christmastime.  Even if they distract us from the true meaning of Christmas, these songs are mostly harmless, innocent fun, tales full of cute, friendly characters that we grew up with.  (Much easier to explain Santa to kids than the miracle of the virgin birth.)   No one actually believes in Santa…right???
Other unconventional inclusions: “Christmas Shoes”  or Capital Lights’s “His Favorite Christmas Story,” both tear-jerking stories in song form.

3. Songs about Christmas Traditions

“O Christmas Tree” and its German cousin “O Tannenbaum” are the epitome of this.  It’s a whole song devoted to the adoration of a tree.  A tree.  A more modern take on this particular tradition is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”  At least it kind of involves people having fun.  Other Christmas traditions chronicled in song are “Deck[ing] the Halls,” “Jingle[ing] Bells,” and of course the infamous “Twelve Days of Christmas” with its list of terrible gifts to give.

4. Songs of Unjustified Festivity

Pure, undiluted sentiment.  Songs that are happy just because it’s Christmas time, no explanation of why Christmas is so great in any secular or sacred context.
Prime example:  Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time.”  I’ve heard this one too many times on whatever station my dad listens to in the car.
“Feliz Navidad” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” have the same underlying tone, except they’re directed to you, the listener.  Bah humbug.  Have yourself a merry little Christmas.  And get off my lawn.
Unjustified festivity.   Mostly worthless.  At their best, they’re fun and cheerful.   At their worst, they’re deeply insensitive to the pain and hardship that some people experience during the holidays, and they’re incapable of consoling with anything more than empty words.

5. Christmas Love Songs

Blech.  Either “All I Want for Christmas is You” or “Last Christmas”… I gave you my heart and the very next day, you gave it away.  All the sappiness of being in love or the blues of being out of love, except intensified for the holidays, because deep down we all dread being alone during the holidays.  *Cue existential crisis*

6. Songs About Winter Weather…for Some

As a resident of a Mediterranean climate zone, I’m tired of all the songs about a “White Christmas” or “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”  If you grew up at high altitude or far enough north, this might have been your experience over the holidays, but it sure wasn’t mine.  It doesn’t snow for my Christmas.  Nor do I think it snowed for baby Jesus in Bethlehem.  Sorry for the buzzkill, but Jesus was probably not born in winter, when shepherds and their sheep would have been freezing to death.  A truly silent night.
“Let It Snow”?  I think no.

Tunesday: Seven Christmas Songs for Those Already Tired of Christmas Music

Happy ‪#Tunesday!  And happy holidays!

It’s my guess that some of you, like me have had a tough time getting into the mood for Christmas.  This year, in particular, I haven’t been inundated with Christmas music in every store I enter.  With the exception of the times when I was trying to write spirited Christmas cards, I’ve mostly been listening to Switchfoot and Josh Garrels since Thanksgiving.  For me, the music of the holidays, whether the old familiar carols, or the banal secular “baby come home”-white winter songs all ring quite dull in my ears.

In my search for meaningful, soul-stirring Christmas music that has not been dulled by years of being overplayed, I found these gems, and I wanted to share them with you!
(Each of these songs has an artist in parentheses, who performs a version I quite like, although other versions may exist.)

1. Joy Has Dawned (Kings Kaleidoscope)

This one just sounds so…joyful.  The multi-instrument jamfest from Kings Kaleidoscope celebrates the joy that Christ’s arrival brings.

2. Child of Glory (The Sing Team)

A slow, heartfelt song of worship to the “child of glory, infant holy,” a celebration of what He brings us, and a pledge to live for Him.

3. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (Red Mountain Church)

I know I featured this one last year in my post about Advent, but it’s so good.  It’s a beautiful song of yearning for Jesus and the deliverance he brings.  Kings Kaleidoscope also does a very different rendition of this one.

4. Joyful Joyful (The Brilliance)

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy!  A tune many of us have heard before.  But now arranged with lyrics that perfectly to express the joy of Christmas in rhyme and meter.

5. God Is With Us (Sojourn)

A song that celebrates Immanuel, God With Us.  My favorite part is that our response is to “bring him more than our silver and gold.”

6. Lo How A Rose E’re Blooming (Derek Webb)

Wow, I was just looking up the lyrics to this one, and they’re intense, using a rose as a metaphor for Jesus.  It’s beautiful; it’s poetic and full of meaning.   Even though I just discovered this song this year, it’s actually quite a traditional song from the late 1800s/early 1900s; it’s just a bit more obscure than the other Christmas carols that have been overplayed throughout the years.

7.  All Glory Be To Christ (Kings Kaleidoscope)

I consider this more of a New Year’s song, but I suppose since Auld Lang Syne is also played during the Yuletide season, it’s also appropriate.  I really love this one.  It’s the melody of Auld Lang Syne reworked with lyrics that bear more than mere sentiments of friendship, but glory to Christ.  I’ve ranted about this before.

Honorable Mentions:

• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (The Modern Post/Red Mountain Church)
• Come and Stand Amazed (Citizens & Saints)
• Yahweh (The Brilliance)
• Many runners up from Sojourn: Glory Be, A Voice Is Sounding, Knocking At Your Door
  They really have a great collection of 0riginal Christmas songs.

All of the above mentioned songs, for your Christmas joy:

Tunesday: “Air I Breathe” – Mat Kearney

This week’s ‪#Tunesday song is an obscure B-side track on the deluxe edition of Mat Kearney’s Just Kids.  (EDIT: Actually, it’s not that obscure.  K-LOVE/AIR-1 have been playing it.  Props to them)
(Another awesome bonus track on this deluxe edition of the album is “Coming Home (Oregon).”  Really fun tune, and totally worth a listen, but not what I want to feature today.)

I’ve been playing “Air I Breathe” pretty compulsively lately.  Something about this song resonates deeply.    Acoustically, it has a moving piano riff that ties the whole song together.  The rhythm is a catchy clapping beat in the verses, that builds into a strong driving bass in the chorus.  Lyrically, it’s full of poetic imagery and metaphor, as Kearney sings about bringing “fists to a pistol war” or the “song I bleed.”  Thematically, it speaks about a constant struggle, the “same fight all over again,” and in it a surrender, a “white flag into the wind,” to God, who I assume is the audience of the song.  A surrender to the God to whom Kearney confesses that he needs now, as the air he breathes, the God who has “loved [him] more.”  All of this, with Kearney’s soft, yet strong, somber voice, creates a dynamic, heartfelt song of worship.

This week, it’s been the auditory equivalent of a mountain retreat, a place of peace combined with pulsating life, much like a breath of fresh air.  Inspiration—when we surrender and breathe in God’s sustaining life.

Tunesday: “Where the Light Shines Through” – Switchfoot

So this past Sunday, I watched the classic chick flick A Walk to Remember for either the second or third time in my life.  I was blown away by the thorough saturation of Switchfoot in that movie.  Based on that alone it has won a solid place in my heart as my second favorite chick flick of all time, topped only by She’s the Man, which wins on account of soccer and Shakespeare, but mostly Shakespeare.

All that to say, within the past year I’ve become a devoted Switchfoot fan.  And last Friday, they released their new album, Where the Light Shines Through.  It goes without saying that it’s been my soundtrack for the past few days.

And so it’s about time for me to jot down some thoughts and remark on what I consider the highlights of the new album.

Float – We’ll start with this one, the first single that they released off the album.  At first I didn’t appreciate it because it seemed pretty shallow, and the taste it gave me of the new album wasn’t one I liked.  But it grew on me.  It’s a fun song with a bouncy  California vibe that’s lighthearted, but not as devoid of depth as I first thought it was, since it includes a classic Switchfoot truth bomb “money gonna leave you broken hearted.”

Where The Light Shines Through – A fitting title track that speaks to the hard things in life, how “the wound is where the light shines through.”  Love the riffs in the beginning and really, the guitar work throughout the song.  Lyrically, also one of my favorites, beginning with the astronaut imagery, to the truth-filled encouragement, to the clear invitation to press into the hardship together.

I Won’t Let You Go – Slow and tender.  It speaks imagery into the pain that “feels like surgery” and “burns like third-degree,” and reiterates the promise that God won’t let go.  It picks up in the bridge, and echoes Romans 8:38-39, in its affirmation that nothing is strong enough to tear His love from us.  So good.

The Day That I Found God – Slow and meaningful.  I love that the singer asks the tough questions of God, asking where He is in the darkness, wondering whether “He made us and forgot us,” but ultimately, he clings to what he does know of God and trusts that “that ain’t you.”  It’s a poignant cry to God from the depths, and a song of finding God when you lose yourself.

Bull In A China Shop – Formerly my least favorite track on the album.  It seemed unnecessarily repetitive.  But, again, it grew on me.  It’s still repetitive, but in a catchy way that’s fun to sing along to.  A fun rocker of a song about living life “getting by with what I got right here.”

Looking For America – With Lecrae!  Wouldn’t have imagined a rapper in a Switchfoot song, but it works pretty well here.  I mean, what would Switchfoot be without a semi-political song every so often?  And it’s right up Lecrae’s alley with his “Welcome to America.”  Pretty well done.  It has a fitting tone of distress, as it admits the imperfections of America as it searches for an America it can call home.

Live It Well –  This is the song that’s been stuck in my head all day today.  Classic Switchfoot message about living this one life well, and living it for God, essentially Jon Foreman’s TED Talk  put into a song.  Some compare it with “Thrive” off of Vice Verses and declare it redunant, but I disagree.  “Live It Well” is more of an anthem, the sort of song to wave lighters to at a concert, swelling with hope and determination.

Hope Is The Anthem – This track feels like it would fit into Fading West with its background woahs and its moments of soaring vocals.  A great anthem, by any means.  Foreman echoes Psalm 18 in his declaration of God as heartbeat, oxygen, banner, home, future, and song, as he finds in Him the anthem of hope for fighting on through life.

If The House Burns Down Tonight – And finally, my favorite song off the album.  It has the vibrant energy, with the reckless hope that’s ready to drive down the highway and leave everything behind to chase after what’s truly important.  It’s half fun song of love, half attack on materialism.  Really cool piano riff, bass line, and just overall dynamics–it’s always changing, building.  Catchy and danceable.  You might find me jamming to this in my car or jumping around in my room to it.

I won’t say that Where the Light Shines Through is my favorite Switchfoot album, but all in all, it’s a solid album that’s Switchfoot through and through, explorative and familiar at the same time, from the slow and soulful to the grungy guitars, all laced with the same thoughtful lyrics that explore what it is to truly live.

Correction (a week later): This album is great.  I love it.

Tunesday: “Even Me” – I Am They

It may not be Tuesday, but it is most definitely ‪#Tunesday!

One of the worship songs that really stood out to me during Lent was I Am They’s “King of Love,” which by the end of Lent, I could not remember its name, and its lyrics were quickly slipping from my mind, save for some mention of a king, a shepherd, and a weird grammatical inversion.

All that to say, my soundtrack for the last few weeks has been I Am They’s self-titled record.  It’s stirring folk-pop worship, in the vein of Rend Collective, but with just a little more pop and a little less folk.  So many good songs on this record: the afore mentioned “King of Love,” the powerful anthems, “Over & Over Again” and “Make A Way,” and to the slow cry of “Here’s My Heart.”

But the one song that’s really stood out and touched my heart has been “Even Me.”  It’s a song that speaks to God’s complete knowledge of my thoughts, my brokenness, my past, my choices to wander and run from Him.  And in the midst of all of that, “I’m held by this one thing,” I rest secure in His perfect love for me, even me.  He loved me to the grave, and now I stand forgiven and free.  Nothing can separate me from His love.
It’s beautiful; It’s the gospel.  Take a listen.

I Am They explains the story behind the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-JJQkYFd6I&nohtml5=False

Resurrection Song: Christ Is Risen!

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!

In this joy, I would like to share with you all-time favorite Resurrection Day song:
A fantastic arrangement of Matt Maher’s Christ Is Risen, with some solid spoken word by David Bowden in the middle.  Enjoy!

P.S.  After all these years, I till can’t spell “resurrection” right on the first try.  It always comes out “ressurrection.”  At least I can spell “risen.”  Big words.  Bah humbug.