You Against You: A Concert Review
Stephen Lamb, a regular here in the Rabbit Room, wrote a review of his recent concert experience with our own Eric Peters. You can check out Stephen’s blog here. –the Proprietor
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Around this time last year, Eric Peters played a concert in Murfreesboro, TN that I was planning on attending, but bad weather, a long work week, and sickness conspired against me and I wasn’t able to make it. So when Eric posted on his website a couple months back that he would be playing at the same church again this past Friday, I immediately added it to my calendar. I’d heard Eric play a good bit back when the Square Pegs were playing weekly in-the-round shows at the now defunct Radio Café here in Nashville, but hadn’t seen him play a full concert until now. It was well worth the drive over from Nashville. A neighbor of mine, Paul Eckberg, joined Eric on percussion for a twelve song set that included “Save Something for Grace”, “You Can Be Yourself”, “Long Road (to Nowhere)”, and “Bus 152″.
I was hoping to hear him play “Tomorrow”, my favorite song from Scarce:
angel of tomorrow
say a prayer tonight
when we find ourselves alone
afraid of being known
and holding on for life
But since the recorded version is accompanied by Ben Shive on piano, Eric doesn’t usually play it with just a guitar.
Last month, I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, and one of my favorite speakers I discovered was Kathleen Norris. Going into her sessions, I didn’t know anything about her. Not until I got home did I notice that Eric had a quote on his Facebook page from her book The Cloister Walk that is the central thought of his song “Save Something for Grace”: “We try to be holy without being human first.” I’ve heard Eric sing it many times, but listening to him on Friday, the first verse jumped out at me like I was hearing it for the first time:
midnight at the stroke of noon
when the lights go down
and it’s you against you
quiet eyes in a blaze of shame
like a beast of burden you could never tame
we try to be holy without being human first
In the chorus, he tells us that its okay to be human, that grace is real.
save something for grace /she’s raising the sky
save something for faith / there’s hope still in her eyes
save something for grace
And in the bridge, my favorite part of the song, he sings,
we live as though mercy were frail
and forgiveness merely a tale
we condemn ourselves to a fault
when we fail, when we fall
we find we’re human after all
Eric sang one new song that he wrote for his son, Ellis, “I Will Go With You”, that I hope makes its way onto his next recording. And speaking of his next recording, he is planning on heading back to the studio sometime this summer with the illustrious Ben Shive producing, which gives me great hope for the record. Stay tuned to Eric’s website for updates on what is happening on that front. If you don’t have any of Eric’s CDs yet, you can purchase them on this very site (after saying penance). And be sure to check out Curt’s review of another EP concert recently (with Randall Goodgame), and his review of Scarce here at the Rabbit Room.
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.
Thanks Andrew, You and all the Square Pegs. I don’t think I’m aware of another group of Christians who are doing what you do. We should all long for the community that is Square Pegs. And the best part is the music that I’ve been introduced to. My Square Peg catalog is slowly growing. I remember seeing Eric at a BTLOG concert for the first time. My wife and I were touched first by his humility and then by his music.
[...] This past Friday, I drove over to Murfreesboro to hear a friend of mine, Eric Peters, play a concert. He has a song called Save Something For Grace that I love. In the first verse, he sings, “midnight / at the stroke of noon / when the lights go down / and it’s you against you / quiet eyes in a blaze of shame / like a beast of burden / you could never tame // we try to be holy without being human first.” I wrote a review of the concert yesterday for Andrew over at the Rabbit Room, and quoted some more lyrics from that song. Check it out here. [...]
Seriously, I hope Eric can make the BtLoG tour next year! It seems he rarely makes it to Dallas.
Now I just need to set aside enough money to buy all these great albums as I discover them here…
Eric Peters is my hero.
I need to get Pappy back to the Carolina’s
Andrew,
Does seeking to be “human first” occasion grace? Is this the way to loving that which is holy? Perhaps something is missing.
Jack, sorry if my commentary on that line in Eric’s song is confusing. We should absolutely strive to love what is holy. It’s not that we “seek to be human first,”, it is that we acknowledge that we are human. Jill Phillips, in the title song from her CD Nobody’s Got It All Together, sings, “What good is it to say please Savior come / If there is nothing you need rescue from / Life is something no one has a corner on.” Grace exists because we can’t make it on our own, because we need something more. So Eric’s song reminds me that I cannot become holy on my own and that if I try I’ll only “find I’m human after all.” Thus, “save something for grace.”
Yes, thank you, Stephen, for the review and the clarification. My point - and, I suspect Mrs. Norris’ as well - is that we so often go through life trying to be perfect creatures, arranging all our ducks in a row, wearing the masks of pretending to have our proverbial acts together, and *trying* to get life right all the time, when in fact we do not get life right all the time; we screw up, we are knuckleheads (as AP calls us), we let people down and we are absolutely imperfect as humans, loved by a perfect God despite our weak and laughable attempts at “trying to be holy”. We/I, in reality, do not allow room for God’s rich and daily grace. This is not to say that holiness can’t and shouldn’t be our pursuit as believers, but that we acknowledge - MUST acknowledge - our utmost fallibility first and foremost as proud, clumsy, thickheaded and stubborn individuals before pursuing anything glorious and heavenward. Nor is this license to “sin”, as some might argue.
Thanks for asking about this, Jack. I hope this helps to clarify my intent (at least a little) for the song.
Stephen, I owe you a rendition of “Tomorrow”. I haven’t quite been able to figure out the bridge to that song on guitar, thus my chicken-like traits.
Eric, I’ve been curious since I first heard Tomorrow–did you write the song on piano? I try not to use the word “masterpiece” often, but in my way of thinking, this song is truly a masterpiece. I loved it the first time I heard it and haven’t grown weary of hearing it. I’d love to hear more about how you came to write it and any details about writing it that you care to share.
As many times as I’ve heard Eric live, I’ve only heard Tomorrow live once. It was in Norfolk, Nebraska. There was a large audience and Ben Shive was there and played the piano. What a great memory.
For those that don’t have Scarce, consider this another strong recommendation to partake.
Stephen, great review. Thanks for writing it. (I owe you a phone call … I’ll talk to you soon.)
Curt:
I - with head hanging sheepishly low - wrote “Tomorrow” on guitar in normal tuning. I’m not the most skilled or deft guitarist around (see, Andy Gullahorn as a better example), and when I first presented the song for possible inclusion on Scarce, I almost had to insist that producer Brent give it a shot, recommending highly that we bring in Ben Shive to lead the song with piano — since I wouldn’t know the first thing about playing piano if it walked up to me, bit me on the leg and invited me out for drinks, afterwards — since I had a sneaky suspicion Ben could pull it off no problem. He did. But I realized that recording a song on any of my albums that wasn’t guitar driven would mean that I’d have to improvise on guitar in a live setting. Hence, my conundrum with “Tomorrow”. I tried re-learning it in the normal tuning, but it just wasn’t even close to the same as the album version, my skills leaving too much lacking. I re-worked it in an open guitar tuning (C, capo 4) and managed to pull it off a few times live. Barely. I set the song on the backburner for several months and only very recently tried to play it at a show in Minneapolis (?) and completely butchered the bridge since I failed to recall the correct chords. [Stephen, this would explain my fear of playing it last Friday night in Murfreesboro.] Bridge-aphobia.
I really like the song and just need to (re)hammer out the bridge. I’m no expert, but I, too, like this song. It feels open and honest, almost like it’s communicating something. All of this reminds me that I have another half-finished song called “Quiet Man” that feels like a brother to “Tomorrow”. Makes me want to complete it once and for all.
Curt, I always love your questions. Sorry this was way more info than you probably wanted to know.
P.S. Have you ever noticed the record player on this song?
Eric wrote:
” … when I first presented the song for possible inclusion on Scarce, I almost had to insist that producer Brent give it a shot …”
I remember that you said something similar about “Wiseblood.” Your supporters are glad that you insisted (persisted?).
Eric wrote:
“Bridge-aphobia”
We fans have no idea of the horrid conditions you performing artists must endure.
Eric wrote:
P.S. Have you ever noticed the record player on this song?
Maybe. Do you mean record player, as in turntable? Is it at the end of the song leading to You Come Over Me, as if the next song were being played from a turntable?
By the way, I can’t wait to hear “Quiet Man!”
Yes, turntable, as in, vinyl records. The music playing in the background at the end of “Tomorrow” is a random Christmas album Brent had laying around. We recorded a short 5-second portion of one of the tunes and looped it backwards. Made for a nice effect.