Episode 5: Andrew Peterson, “About Resurrection Letters, Vol. II”
POSTED BY Andrew Peterson
Hey, folks. I just published a new episode of the Rabbit Room Podcast. I don’t mean to hog the air time, but I wanted to share the stories behind the new songs on RL II with the folks who couldn’t make it out to one of the release shows. The whole album is on here, albeit in edited form, so if you have friends you want to pass the music on to, go for it. Thanks for listening!
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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.
Genius Barliman, pure genius.
Andrew seems to understand the fan’s perspective and to answer the desire of those who appreciate his art on a deeper level than mere background music. In fact, Andrew is one of those rare artists who draws listeners. Real listeners.
His music is not a distraction, or even a soundtrack. It is an investment. And you know you are getting something that has been an investment from him. Not of money only, nor of time only, and not only of talent. There is soul, and magic on the edges.
Thank God for AP and those very few artists like him. May God multiply them among us.
Thanks Andrew for this introspective on the new CD. I have not stopped listening to it for 2 weeks now. Mostly on the back porch while pipe smoking in the evenings.
SD- “Investment” is the perfect word for Andrew’s music.
Andrew - you’re explanation of Rocket brought a tear to my eye. That song has pulled me from the post-election funk and reminded me that the love of God is greater than politics or presidents, and that Love is in me.
Thank you so much for sharing these stories! I have so enjoyed the depth, beauty and truth of this CD, and this just intensifies all of that!
Andrew…thank you for being such an honest vessel!
Thanks for doing this podcast AP. I love hearing the stories behind your songs.
I had the privilege of hearing the stories behind these songs live and in person on the Columbus stop of the tour to promote the album. I drove from Cincinnati and got there hours before the show was to start to make sure I got a good seat. (and I did… front row!). It was a remarkable evening to say the least. As the night went on, Andrew revealed the inspirations behind these wonderful songs. However, I quickly became saddened at the thought of my friends, for whom I bought extra copies of the album, missing out on such an important aspect of this collection of songs. Thank you for posting this podcast. Now the stories behind the songs can be enjoyed by all!
Thank you so much for making this episode of the podcast! Your explanations of the songs brought me to tears more than once. I’ve been listening to (and loving) the album for weeks now, but there’s always deeper to go.
You probably already know this, but the Rabbit Room is featured as “New and Notable” under the Music Podcasts section of iTunes! I hope this will lead to more listeners enjoying the podcast.
April,
I didn’t know that. Cool! Thanks for pointing it out.
AP
“only God is man enough to do it”
nice.
Hey, if you can’t hog the air time on your own podcast….
I would love this CD no matter what. The music is amazing, and I love the layers of meaning in the lyrics. My friend was listening to the CD while she was on a roadtrip last week. She called me from the car to tell me that, even though she had listened to the CD a lot, she really listened to the lyrics of Window on the World for the first time, and she loves that song. My experience has been similar. I liked the songs the first time I heard them, and I like them more now after hearing many times, and letting them rattle around in my brain for a while.
One of the best things, though, is that I feel like I have seen the ideas behind the songs growing here in the R.R. Some of the posts have been extended versions of the songs, like a novel that started as a short story. That has made an already great CD even better. So thanks for the stories, thanks for the music, and thanks for the podcast.
AP,
Thank you for this podcast; it was really neat to understand more of the background behind the music on RLII.
Is there a place somewhere where you have written down similar stories / explanations of the songs on your prior albums, perchance?
Luke
I received RL II for Christmas, and like many people I’ve been listening to it non-stop. I’m concerned that I’m going to develop bad sectors on my hard drive from incessant reads :p
The parallels between Hosanna and Hosea are striking and cause for much contemplation. (I’m partial to Hosea the song anyway because Hosea is my favorite book of the OT- it’s the greatest single illustration of God’s unshakable love and His eagerness to forgive and restore us contrasted with the tragedy of our repeated rebellion).
Rocket is my favorite song right now. Such poetry! The comparison between a NASA launch and the soul’s journey into (an adequate preposition fails me) God is so perfectly executed that it tickles my sense of beauty every time I think about it.
Thanks for sharing your joy and genius with the world!