In my first two posts, I unpacked the importance of Waterton Lakes National Park and how a visit there became a catalyst to my early artist journey. Feel free to go back to those and I’ll be here. Waiting with bated breath. Don’t go for too lung because my lung capacity ain’t what it used to be…
(Click on the song name if you want to open it up in the browser to see the lyrics.)
I wanted to start off this piece with a piece of scripture that became the general framework of this song. Italics are emphasis by me, not in the original text.
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the trurth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4: 17-24
Carrying on the themes of death and rebirth from “Fireweed”, this ancient text helped me to reconcile the past and step into the man that I am being called to be.
The leaving is hard. It takes a lot of unlearning the things that you have experienced; those nasty habits that come like a twitch from withdrawal, a wayward glance, or pausing a little longer on something that you know you shouldn’t be viewing. In many areas of the scriptures, a Christian is instructed to put aside their sinful life, and to put on a new life (Ephesians 4: 17-24, John 3- Jesus’s beautiful conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, Romans 8- life in the spirit; dead to sin, alive in Christ to name a few).
After many years of fighting a losing battle with my flesh, I saw the urgency in this, but also another strange dichotomy: without those experiences, I would not be the person who I am today, for better or worse. I figured that since I was professing myself as a Christian, and doing the “Christian things”, that I needed to make a significant change in my life.
Another one of Paul’s letters helped me with this transition; his letter to the Philippians. In chapter 4 he says this to the believers in Philippi after he encouraged them with the presence and peace of God:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
This helped me to set my mind right, and aid with the “putting on” after having set aside childish things. This could be as simple as changing the things that I watched or listened to that didn’t fit the above criteria.
“Let’s Play a Different Kind of Game”
I borrowed (and still have…oops) a copy of CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity from my friend, James. I appreciate his writing, as he is an unlikely convert that writes with a certain honesty and wisdom that connected with me. One such chapter near the end of the book is entitled “Let’s Pretend”, and there are so many striking images that jumped out to me:
wearing masks
man as a mirror reflecting the nature of the giver
playing pretend
putting on disguises; and
the idea of the tendencies of man like rats in the cellar
I wanted to use these themes as an illustration of putting off the old and putting on the new. I used a few specific frameworks to structure the song: a man divided, the putting on and taking off, and the exercise of contrast
Framework 1: “A Country that’s Divided Surely will not Stand”
I think about division and I think about the strength of the sentiment echoed by artists and scholars, from Dave Mustaine in “Holy Wars” to our meme culture stating that there are two wolves inside of you.
I’ll pick on two here: Jesus Christ and Bob Dylan. An unlikely pairing, I know.
Christ tells us that “no one can serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). Dylan echoes this in his “marbles in the mouth” delivery in the chorus of “Serve Somebody”:
You’re gunna have to serve someone
Well it might be the devil
or it might be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Where will I plant my flag? How’s this whole trying to serve myself been working? I remember a mentor telling me once that “my best thinking got me into this mess, and my best thinking can’t get me out of it!”
I just knew that I couldn’t keep living this way, in a constant state of sin and shame, some in plain sight and some of it in secret. Something’s gotta give.
Framework 2: Putting on and Taking off (and Putting on Again!)
The mask metaphor is a good one, and I’ve heard it in a couple of different contexts: masking your emotions or feelings and social masking in order to fit in. I appreciated what Lewis had to say about pretending. There’s a fancy church term for being more Christlike: sanctification. It’s a three step process: (1) justified by (2) faith and (3) sanctified by works. It’s a lot to unpack here, but I will say that it is a long, snail-like process and at times it feels like you’re missing the mark on an unachievable target. Here’s how Lewis puts it into perspective:
It is a living Man [Christ Jesus], still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when he created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self he has. At first only for moments, then for longer periods. Finally if all goes well, turning you permanentlu into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ*, a being which has the same kind of life as God; which shares in hope, joy, knowledge and eternity.
*not be confused with the “Little Christ” theology that states that you God is within you and therefore you are God, common in the “health and wealth” heretical teachings.
(TLDR: Jesus will replace your old habits with new habits)
Framework 3: An Exercise in Contrast
This was more of a production prompt, around the sonic framework of the song. But, it’s the age old battle between good and evil: Dark vs Light, Skywalker vs Vader, Hook vs Pan.
I remember asking mixing engineer Carl Bahner what gave him his sound, and he told me that he was big into contrast. This was my experiment in this: big and small, dark and bright, narrow and wide, atmospheric and tight-rhythmic. I took a lot of liberties in this song because I wanted it to be my version of Tool’s “Parabol/Parabola”, or my interpretation on the form of Leprous’s “Below”. Another major influence on the sound of this song was Swedish band Soen’s song “Lucidity”; that vocal melody in the chorus is beautiful, and I tipped my hat to it. (there’s something about those Scandinavian bands that just gets me fired up. Don’t even get me started on Opeth…)
Visually, I landed on a Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde meets Phantom of the Opera look for the first half of the “divided man”, but I took the appearance of the phantom and turned it on its head. His look was too tight; too clean. I needed something that was messy, so in the end it looks more like a mash up Meatloaf and Robert Smith. The other man was clean cut, and donned a suit jacket (a personal victory for me, as it was my wedding jacket still fitting ten years later! Boom!)
This song stands out to me as an interesting one on my EP, because it was experimental and goes through a number of different scene changes.
Thanks so much for reading and after all of that yakking about the song, here it is above. Click on the song name if you want to open it up in the browser to see the lyrics. There are many other influences that weren’t listed above, and many mixing decisions that tipped the hat to other artists. If anyone wants to nerd out about those sort of things, let me know, as I love talking about production and recording.
-Richie
