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The Word - Story Behind the Song
“The world did not know Him.” It is a phrase that has always captured my attention, but when my reflections turn inward my thoughts turn to self-examination. Do I know the Word?
I have always loved the phrasing of John 1:1-18, and how the writer has a deep focus on who Jesus is and humanity's reaction to their Saviour. It fascinates me how their reaction to the Word standing in their sphere is unfortunately too much like our own. We skite that we never would have disbelieved if we lived in the AD30s! But, would we? Would I? In saying that aren't we just like Thomas, who wanted to touch Jesus' scars for himself to believe. How often do we also need evidence to lead our faith when life’s horizons become dark and stormy? I know I have. I have this underlying want to know how situations in my life will happen. Yet, I don't need to know, because God know the beginning from the end and we can trust Him with our future.
This is the crux of our song, ’The Word’. It’s a song about the stark similarities between the world of John 1 & our own. How the Israelites didn’t recognise Jesus for who He truly was even though all the prophecies given in the Old Testament. We wrote the song with a duality that points also to how we also don’t really know God and so often humanity turns away from Jesus either overtly or internally, when we misunderstand the character of God.
Musically, we wanted there to be a reflection of the juxtaposition of utter joy and tragedy found in the Creator becoming like His created to save and yet, He was despised, rejected and misunderstood. There is a deliberate ramp up in the BPM at around 2:40-3:00 to symbolise how important it is for us to come back to the Word of God, Jesus, and seek with all our hearts to know Him. This represents the sense of immediacy and importance of knowing the Word, Jesus, because any day could be our last and because Jesus is coming soon.
Don't Miss the Boat - Story Behind the Song
There’s something epically awe-striking and reverent about organ music in a grand cathedral with acoustics that are out of this world. An organ reverberating with choral voices, bouncing around a cathedral's high ceiling gives me shivers. Without fail it always leads me to think about the absolute grand scale of who God is and how small we are. The transition from organ to piano in the beginning of 'Don't Miss the Boat' musically represents how the swirling morality of the world can sometimes co-exists in our minds with truth of God. This song really was written to represent an aspect of the struggle that exists in the world between Truth and error, especially in regards to post-modernism. The song was written during a time when Monique was a high school Bible teacher. She was teaching an Ethics and Morality unit to several classes, which led to a lot of discussions with her students about their views of truth, morals, ethics, and how it relates to God. The base lyrics of the song was written rather quickly one afternoon after work in response to the heartache and turmoil Monique felt about the lack of certainty a lot of her students had in what is truth within their worldview. The first verse reflects this heartache and the chorus’ lyrics and the song's title are inspired by Matthew 24:37-39, which likens the second coming to noah’s ark, when the doors one day did close. The second verse reflects the answer to the uncertainty in the world that 'To find the perfect peace. In the Word of God. The answers to the questions. What's right? What's wrong?' It's a beautiful thing that in a world full of uncertainty, God offers us peace.
Temporary - Story Behind the Song
I was hurrying down a Ukrainian riverside street with my friend, late for work, chatting non-stop. We were in our own world with our minds on one thing, our own lives. Then out of nowhere, a lady burst into our bubble. She was completely messed up and from face value something terrible had happened to her. And we froze. In terrified tones she spoke in Russian something that didn’t penetrate my shock. Because we were frozen. We just starred at her. As quickly as she appeared, she continued running skittishly down the street looking from side to side. In silence we continued walking. In a state of shock my brain tried to process the Russian that she spoke. As we were crossing over the river on a bridge the translation dawned on me like a ton of bricks. She had asked us for help to get away from her husband. I turned around to look for her, but she was gone. We stood there on the frozen bridge, frozen in deep regret of our inaction. We were in this country to help and yet when God had put a situation right in front of us we froze! Our minds were so focused on our own lives that we were not prepared for the life, hers, that God put in front of us. We froze. We could have helped, but we didn’t. All we had left was a prayer that next time we would be prepared.
'Temporary' is a song written about those moments when we are left with the questions, "Why don't I wake up? Why don't I walk faith? Why don't I live love?" As a songwriter, sometimes the inspiration for a song is rapid and flowing. 'Temporary' was not one of those songs. It started out as a semi-continuation of the cry of 'Laodicea' - the last song on our previous album, Pilgrim - with the thrice repeated cry of the line "Why don't I wake up?" The first verse and the chorus were written quickly rather like a journal entry, but to a slightly different melody at first. As the weeks or months progressed, can’t really remember, we added the second chorus as the answer to the questions posed in the first and additional lines to the bridge that were inspired by the practical living out 1 Corinthians 13:13. In pre-production we continued to change the overall sound to one we feel matches the theme of the song. Overall, 'Temporary' was written to express the struggle of wanting to follow God in this post-modern world and is inspired by Romans 7:15-25. The beauty is that in those moments of struggle and questioning we can turn to a Saviour who has shown us how to live love and walk faith. We have a God who wants to help us, One who we can rely on and in whose example we can follow.