Song of the Day - Don’t Give Up On Me
This song speaks to me. Andrew usually writes the blurbs for the song of the day. But rather than require him to explain how cool this love song to his wife is, I thought I’d take a shot.
“Don’t Give Up On Me” is not a safe song for married guys. A well written song will often speak of something that is at the same time specific and broadly applicable. When I first heard this song, I wondered if Andrew had bugged my living room or read my journals. And I’ll bet you married guys will too.
My wife and I are both committed to our marriage, and neither would simply give up. But I also know there are times when I look at myself in my sin, selfishness and general relational ineptitude, and I wonder if she might not have cause to give up on me. Even for those who say divorce is not an option for them, there are many couples who remain married but have long since given up. They’re married, but are done with each other.
This song, I’m sure, tells a deeply personal story—the details of which we are not privy to. But it is presented in such a way that we don’t need the details to understand. The desperation of the chorus tells us what we need to know. This is a great love song because this business of not giving up on each other is so much the essence of deep, prevailing love. For better or for worse, we promise. And we will be both. That’s why we take the vows we do.
This is a helpful song.
-Also-
ATTENTION MUSIC NERDS: For fun, see if you can pick up on Ben Shive and Andy Gullahorn layering in some melodic themes from a couple of older AP songs in this track. Hint, there are two. One is a piano melody, the other an acoustic guitar.
Don’t Give Up On Me
The road is long that leads me home tonight
It disappears into the distant light, my love
Don’t give up on me.
You know I love you but I’m just a man
Don’t always love you the best that I can, my love
Just don’t give up on me.
Don’t give up on me.
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you
I’ve got all these letters I never did write
All this affection I kept inside my heart
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you
You were there when I shook my fist at the sky
You were there when I fell to the earth and cried
Do you remember how it felt just like we died
And rose again?
And the storm inside was raging
It was howling like the wind at the Pentecost
And His love was teaching us a language
We thought was lost
I have felt the holy fire of love
Been burned by the holy fire of love
Made clean by the holy fire of love
I walked beside you in the canyon flames
Deep as an ocean and hot as a thousand suns
We barely survived
Now I wake up in a golden dream
Angel voices in the rooms where the children run
All covered in light
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you
Don’t give up on me
I’m begging you, please
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Sounds like the message Jesus has told us all time and time again- “Don’t give up on Me. I won’t give up on you.”
Holy cow, what a song. Beautiful. This music nerd, though, didn’t really pick up on those hidden melodies. I’ll have to take another listen… or two… or ten…
Ooo! A challenge for music nerds! I love it! I love finding those little gems!
AP does U2. Chills. Must buy.
This song rivals “All You’ll Ever Need” as my favorite song on this soon to be released CD. They seem to be two sides of the same coin. I have the perfect “all [I could] ever need” Lover in Jesus and yet I run after lesser lovers with regularity which causes me to confess to Him “don’t give up on me.”
My wife and I just saw the movie “Fireproof” and it definitely echoes the sentiment of this song. Russ, I like the last few lines of your post: “For better or for worse, we promise. And we will be both. That’s why we take the vows we do.”
I’ve walked through the fire in my own marriage and have had the humbling privilege to be brought into the lives of hurting couples in order to shepherd them back to Jesus and hopefully to each other. Sometimes the fire is put out and sometimes the house burns to the ground. It is tough sledding for all parties involved, but worth the fight every time.
Here’s how Barliman (AKA “The Proprietor) put it when describing this tune: ““Marriage is a crucible; it forces you to lay down your life for another a little bit at a time, which is good for those of us too cowardly to do it all at once.”
I’d say our relationship with the local church is a crucible too. Jesus calls us to pick up our crosses and follow after Him. To die to self, or to kill the flesh is our greatest challenge in life because we love ourselves….a lot. We want things our way and sometimes are ready to jettison the whole institution, whether it’s marriage or church, when things don’t fit our way of thinking.
We might feel like one of the greatest thinkers ever—C.S. Lewis. Lewis had this to say about church:
“[When I first became a Christian] I wouldn’t go to churches and Gospel Halls;…I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were nonetheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.”
These two wonderful institutions, marriage and the church, peel off our conceit and force us to lay down our lives in honor of our King. Let us not abandon either and encourage and pray for both to flourish in our generation and the generations to come.
If you haven’t seen Fireproof, check it out. The raw emotion of martial discord is there and the love of Jesus is what puts out one fire and stokes another. Stories like this one remind us of the wonderful love the Father has lavished upon us that we in turn can lavish on others.
One of newest favorite AP lyrics:
“I have felt the holy fire of love
Been burned by the holy fire of love
Made clean by the holy fire of love”
Wow.
amazing. pure. wonderful. and well-recorded and performed … can life get any better? i submit that it cannot.
I love it!!!!!
Tony, I was also thinking of Fireproof when I heard this song. I thought it was a great movie!
Julie…cool! We caught an evening showing on Wednesday. It was a make up double date that a buddy of mine and I messed up on Sunday night. So, I’m thinking we’ll also be going through that Love Dare book when it comes out.
OK so what are the two songs? I can’t come up with anything…
is one of the songs Mountains On the Ocean Floor?
what about Come Lord Jesus?
Tee hee. I’ll give you a hint. Both of the moments happen in the last verse. The first is a piano bit, the second is on the guitar.
Okay. This is hard work, but I’m fairly sure I’ve identified the acoustic guitar bit, which actually occurs intermittently through the entire song, but most explicitely right after the bridge. My friend Tim (sevenmiles) draws attention to the lyrics that precede this guitar bit in his post above. As a sidebar, AP nerds should also be reminded that Tim is also the person that conceived the phrase Resurrection Letters from which AP drew inspiration for title of this project. Anyway, once you hear which song it’s from, if you are anything like me, you will get a little lump in the throat. And I’ll give you a hint. It’s from The Far Country record.
DISCLAIMER: This Rabbit Room writer has not received any inside information on this issue. I’m in the same boat as the rest of you nerds. I don’t want to post it yet, because I don’t want to take take the fun out of it for any of the rest of you that are still working on it. (And let’s face it, Easter egg hunts are fun!)
I have also identified the familiar piano part, but haven’t been able to match it with the right song yet, though I’m thinking it may be another song from the same project (a song that appears earlier in the record than the song from which the guitar segment is taken).
Whooo. I’m sweating. Oh, and by the way, as always, I may be wrong (but I don’t think so). I’ll be back when/if I figure out the piano segment.
Ginny, “Mountains On the Ocean Floor” is a good guess. I hear that lick too (it’s close to the same note progression as the other song I’m hearing). The piano part, if it’s the one I think it might be, is hard to identify because I can only hear about two notes before the rest of it is covered by the rest of the mix. I think I’m going to bed. The rest of you can take it from here. When I get back from the Nebraska football game tomorrow night, if nobody has identified the guitar part, I’ll reveal which song I think it is.
I beleive I hear “Nothing to Say”
ya’ know, I just let my wife listen to this and we both agree, this sure would have been great for the movie Fireproof soundtrack. It sure has that same feeling of fighting desperation for your marriage.
I’ve had my own experience of Jesus making all things new in my marriage, but that happened after a period of growing apart and such suffering, it indeed did feel as if “we died”. There was so much that had to fall away. Going through the motions of committed love can never compare to living out of transformed hearts - I think it is almost impossible to stay committed to that kind of love. When our hearts are transformed, we are bathed in light, and that makes all the difference.
You captured all that is unseen in the battles that are raging all around us, Andrew, and the glorious hope of resurrection.
I’ll throw my hat into this ring…i’m thinking the Piano part is from Mountains and the guitar part from For the Love of God. if i am wrong, i can always blame this on my cheap earbuds, right? ; )
Could the acoustic guitar part Andy G. is playing be from “The Love of God”, and could the piano maybe be from “Venus”? Just wondering. It seems like there are some familiar chord progressions in there…
guitar- “More”
piano- “Far Country”
I am beside my self with joy over all things new –i can’t describe the joy in my soul when i listen it it—I only have carried away but AP I :LOVE you!!
I admit Andrew had to point this out to me. Both musical layers in question come from Love and Thunder- and if memory serves, the last half. Oh, and they’re in this song because they go well with it.
Well, in the spirit of diversity (and the fact that everyone seems to hear something different in there), here are two more possibilities.
Piano: All Shall Be Well
Guitar: Hold Up My Arms (C’mon! That’s an obvious guess anyway, just looking at the lyrics.)
I’ll not be more specific about which bits in the song I’m talking about, or from where precisely. Just to preserve some vague semblance of unspoilerness.
(Or if I’m totally wrong. Who knows, this is way too much fun. I can’t believe how much time I just spent listening to bits of other AP tracks to try to find the quotes.)
ok, this is bordering on obsession-it’s The Silence of God for the acoustic guitar part-yes yes yes! It’s almost midnight and I should go to bed - is anybody out there?
I still think one song is The Silence of God but it’s not guitar, it’s piano on that one.
the other song is After The Last Tear Falls for the acoustic guitar part-that’s all I have to say about that
is it, is it?
It’s been great fun watching this unfold.
I’ll tell you this. Of the two songs, one has been correctly guessed, but I don’t think the guesser is certain–and the other song hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Another hint: both of the nods happen in the last verse of the song.
Ok AP….tell us already!!!!! The good thing about trying to guess these songs is that listening to all the music is so much fun and enjoyable. IT’S TORTURE THOUGH!!!! So…please, please tell us already! =)
Piano: After the Last Tear Falls
Guitar: Family Man
Eh?
The Silence of God-piano
High Noon or Pillar of Fire-guitar
I’ve guessed so many times that I should have used a life-line and phoned a friend by now. Eventually, I will win by process of elimination. I have a feeling that Andrew is taking great delight in this. Let’s see how many more tunes could it be…hmmm…this could go on for days, weeks…
I think the guitar is from Hold Up My Arms, not an original idea, but a second by me.
My husband is away for four weeks working catastrophe duty with the insurance company he works for. I was missing him so much this morning and this song allowed brought shape to the emotions I was holding down. Even in the frustration of being separated for a time, our love is strong because we work hard to love each other well. My husband Darrin is such a great dad to our kids and his spiritual leadership impacts our home even when he needs to be away to be Christ’s hands and feet to those who are hurting.
Thanks, Andrew, for your songs. I hope someday to write a love song so tender and powerfully moving. What a gift from God!
The Silence of God-piano
Family Man-guitar…I am pretty certain about Family Man, but not the other.
I think we have a winner here. RM Peters, from out of nowhere, swoops in and nails it like the last bidder on eBay. Well done! Special shout out to Ginny and Melinda, who together got it right. Nice team work, ladies.
I’m imagining “Don’t Give Up On Me” and “Love and Thunder” got a lot of airtime this week from those of you trying to crack the code. The cool thing about this little easter egg hunt was that no one’s time got wasted. AP’s work has a way of giving a little more each time I listen. Anyone out there think they listened to “Don’t Give Up On Me” over 50 times?
I’m sure I did. I was ready to say Free Bird and let that be my final answer. The mystery is solved - exhale - and now we can go back to our lives.
Russ, will you be challenging us with future musical conundrums?
I guess I do have the musical ear?
Or maybe I listen to AP a little too much? Nahhh…never! Besides Love and Thunder is probably my favorite record. I probably listen to it once a week, at least.
I really struggle with some of the words to the worship songs we sing at church because I feel that I’m committing to something I’m not sure I can/will do. For example, “I will give you all my worship, I will give you all my praise” or “I surrender all”. I usually change the words when I sing them to “help me give you all my worship” or “help me surrender all”.
I love the honesty of this song. Reminds me of Rich Mullins singing “we are not as strong as we think we are” and Psalm 103:14.
I wonder if Andrew is singing “don’t give up on me” to his wife or to God. I suppose it is a bit of both.
Mark wrote: “I wonder if Andrew is singing “don’t give up on me” to his wife or to God. I suppose it is a bit of both.”
I wonder if Solomon was writing “Song of Solomon” about his wife or about God? Isn’t marriage one of the most poignant examples of our relationship to Christ?
I’m pretty sure the piano part is from “far country”
however the guitar part i’m less certain
Love. This. Song.
Tomorrow makes ten years for my wife and I.
[...] Go here to listen to Andrew Peterson’s “Don’t Give Up On Me.” A good song for married people with history. [...]