The Rabbit Room

Our 2011 favorites

by Jason Gray

I was sitting backstage with Jill Phillips on the Behold The Lamb of God tour when she said, “Well, it’s about that time–time for the end of the year ‘best of’ lists to start popping up.”

And since Jill brought it up, I thought it might be fun to ask my Rabbit Roommates to submit their favorite movies, music, and books lists. To ring in the new year we look back for a moment (so I can make a list of movies, books, and music to buy with all my Christmas loot):

“Yes, and…”, Marc Martel, and Queen

by Jason Gray

The first rule of improvisational comedy, as I understand it, is as simple as it is profound. The rule is summed up in two modest words—three letters each–that together form a key that can open a door between heaven and earth. The words?

“Yes, and . . .”

Here is the basic gist paraphrased from wikipedia:

In order for an improvised scene to work, the performers involved must work together responsively in a process of co-creation. It begins when the first performer makes what’s called an offer, throwing out a word or phrase that defines some element of the reality of the scene. It is the responsibility of the next performer then to accept the offer that their fellow performer makes; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing.

Track 12 – Jesus, We Are Grateful

by Jason Gray

This is another song written at the songwriter’s retreat in Winthrop, WA in June 2010 (along with “The Sound Of Our Breathing” and “The Angel Of Your Presence” from the Special Edition). It’s kind of like an adventure in cross-referencing.

From the moment we finished it, this was always going to be the album closer, but I never imagined how appropriate it would be. The last verse is an assurance of who we are to Jesus and an affirmation of the place we hold in the heart of God. It ends with a family seated at a table. The feast? The love of God that fills, strengthens, sustains, and satisfies.

If you listen to the record on a CD player (does anybody do that anymore?), as soon as this song closes, the record starts over with track one and we begin again where we ended, with the desire to be reminded of who we are. And that will be enough.

Track 11 – I Will Find A Way

by Jason Gray

This is a song I worked on for about six years before I brought it to Andy Gullahorn who helped me finish it. It wouldn’t be the song that it is without him. He and Jill Phillips recorded it for their Christmas record and I hope you’ll check it out if you haven’t already. You can get it in the Rabbit Room store.

Of all the songs that I’ve ever been a part of, this is my favorite. It was inspired by “An Advent Monologue” written by Rabbit Room favorite, Walt Wangerin Jr. It’s one of the most beautiful meditations on the incarnation that I’ve ever read and you can read it below.

Track 10 – The Other Side

by Jason Gray

I wrote this with another one of my favorite songwriters, my good friend Andy Osenga. I’m a big fan of his and I hope you’ll check out his work (“Swing Wide The Glimmering Gates” is one of my favorite tracks, check it out here).

This is a song idea that began with a visit to my grade school. Here’s what I wrote about it in the extended booklet of the Special Edition:

I grew up in the small town of Lynd, Minnesota, population three hundred when I was finding my way in the world there. There were few strangers and even fewer secrets in our little community, so much so that as a kid I could walk uptown to Corky’s – our lone convenience store – where Corky himself, with his coke bottle glasses, would sell me the cigarettes my grandpa sent me to buy. Though I never abused that particular trust, I guess the times have changed anyway so that it’s hard to imagine a thing like that happening today.

I loved growing up in a small town.

It seems even smaller to me now when I return as an adult.  The trees I climbed, the length of the road I walked to school, the fears I faced as a child – everything is smaller.

My school was perched atop a steep hill, the playground at the bottom of it. Every recess hour this hill became an occasion for all kinds of scrapes, bruises, and abuses as we’d try to run down it without falling, only to have momentum and gravity overtake us in the end and deliver us at the bottom in a heap of dirt, limbs, and tears. In the winter we’d throw each other down it in that gladiatorial game called “King Of The Hill”.  In the autumn and spring we’d dare each other to ride our bikes down it, usually with dramatic results. I still have scars on my right knee, hip, and elbow.

The hill loomed large, like a mountain, in my youth. It tried us, broke our will, mocked our courage, and made men of us. Even if you were a girl.

The imposing mountain of my youth looks little more than a quaint hill to me all these years later.  But it reminds me that I’m a survivor. It assures me that not all mountains – especially the metaphorical mountains of hardship, loss, or heartbreak – will always crush our spirit. We will outgrow and overcome them and they will not bully us forever.

It gives me strength to measure this hill now – to look back, like King David remembering past victories, and be reminded of God’s faithfulness. I have faced even more imposing mountains since that have threatened but failed to overwhelm me. By God’s grace I’m still here. I’m encouraged to believe that God’s grace will carry me through the mountains I face today.

Track 9 – A Way To See In The Dark

by Jason Gray

I had this song title for a few years and thought would make for a cool album title as the rest of the songs began to take shape – it was an idea that held all the other themes together. But this was a hard one for me to bring across home plate. In fact I robbed the bone yard, cannibalizing a lyric from a song called “Certainty and Trust” that I started writing seven years ago.

It seemed like an idea that could be radio friendly–a song affirming the simple and complicated act of faith. So I brought it to Seth Mosely (a pop wunderkind who at 22 years old was asked to produce the last Newsboys record) and Doug McKelvey when we were teamed up at a songwriter’s retreat.

The question for me is always: How do I write for radio in a way that honors the audience but also gives them a little more than they expect. Lyrically, I think the song may have ended up a little darker than your average Christian radio single, so it may not work after all, but we enjoyed writing it.

I wondered if the act of closing our eyes when we pray might be more meaningful than I imagined–a willing surrender of our own vision in submission to another way of seeing: trust.

Amy, a Rabbit Room reader, left this beautiful comment on my recent post, “Little Faith.” It demonstrates the kind of seeing in the dark that the song is speaking of:

“Today is my son’s 15th birthday, except my family will gratefully remember his life in his absence because he went to glory at the tender age of five. He had a rare genetic illness that caused his bone marrow to fail and oh how we prayed for his healing. And God answered with an achingly, severe mercy. And my faith in Christ has sustained me, not my faith in faith. I have tried to wrap my brain around the Believers need to see evidence (as in healing) when faith is believing when we do not see. We saw the Lord’s miraculous hand in so many other ways than the way we hoped and asked for. Will I then trust that all things work together for good –by faith? Will I persevere in faith? Does this not bring God equal glory as the times that He chooses to heal (and I do believe He does). Jason, your voice here is so necessary and true! Thank you for articulating it so beautifully. On this day, I am blessed.”

Thank you, Amy, for articulating it better than a song could and by living it so beautifully.

Track 8 – Nothing Is Wasted

by Jason Gray

To me, this song represents an important idea during this season of my life.  It’s something I’ve been trying to say ever since I read Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim At Tinker Creek where she wrote that nature’s is “a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent.”

When I first read that, I felt like it gave my life back to me. It was an assurance that the worst we’ve known, experienced, and even given out is, at the very least, not wasted. I suppose it’s a furthering of the idea that everything sad may yet come untrue. It’s the hope that loss does not have the final say. Love will have the last word. As we continually bring to the Lord the worst that would otherwise turn our hearts to stone, he is able to mercifully reshape it into something redemptive, useful, maybe even beautiful.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite Frederick Buechner quotes:

“But the worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.”
– Frederick Buechner, The Final Beast

Jason Ingram helped me write this song, and later Doug McKelvey joined in to help me with a particularly stubborn section of lyric.  Jason was passionate about the vision for the song and wanted to give it the best chance of finding the biggest audience, so we wrote an anthemic kind of bridge that would lend itself to a congregational kind of moment.

Though I love the way it turned out, a part of me missed the more singer/songwriter styled bridge we originally wrote, and so I was grateful to get to record an alternate solo piano version to be included in the Special Edition.  Both are featured here for you to listen to, I hope you enjoy them both.

Track 7 – Fear Is Easy, Love Is Hard

by Jason Gray

This is a song I got to write with a favorite among Rabbit Roomers (including me), Andy Gullahorn.  This was the last song written for the record – we barely got it done in time!

When we were wondering what kind of sonic distinction this record should have, we decided to focus on drums and rhythms. We brought in Paul Mabury, the drummer for this record as well as Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue, a day before the rest of the band and fleshed out some live loops and rhythmic approaches that would become the backbone of these tracks.

Even when the band arrived the next day and we tracked the live drums along with Tony Lucido on bass and Mike Payne on electric, we asked “what’s your first instinct for how you would interpret this song? Okay, don’t do that.”

So on every track, we reached for something unexpected while also trying to avoid being experimental to the point of distraction. We wanted the vibe to be fresh, and yet somewhat invisible and in service of the song. In most cases, due to the budget, we had basically one chance to make it happen.

This track is one of my favorites. The drum part in the verses is one of the best examples of what I hoped we might accomplish. To my ear it’s distinctive and vibey but still serves the song.

Track 6 – Without Running Away

by Jason Gray

This may be the most personal song I’ve ever written. I wrote it in much same way I wrote “The Golden Boy & The Prodigal” from my last record, giving heed to Leonard Cohen who once talked about how the Lord told the ancient Hebrews to build altars of unhewn stone–stones untouched by craftsman, rough around the edges. So this is an example in which I just sat down and consciously tried to resist my tendency to “over-craft” a song, trying instead to simply receive it, letting it come on its own terms.

That all sounds kind of mystical and romantic, and I suppose when it works it kind of is. But in truth, many of the songs I’ve tried to write this way aren’t very good.  Every once in a while, a song like this or like “The Golden Boy” comes out of the process and I’m grateful.

I can’t say I necessarily understood every line as it came, but I trusted. Understanding emerged after the fact in a way that feels really cool and humbling. It’s a gift to be surprised by your own work.

This song is a snapshot of a moment, written in the early morning hours after a long, sleepless night after a very bad day. As the dawn broke and the early morning sunlight crept into my little writing space, I wrote the last verse.  All told, I wrote the song in about half an hour.

The bridge was inspired by Frederick Buechner’s hopeful reflections on depression in his sacred lexicon Beyond Words. You can read that here.

Track 5 – The Sound Of Our Breathing

by Jason Gray

I wrote about the story behind this song in an earlier rabbit room post. It’s based on the idea that the name of God, YHWH, is comprised of aspirated consonants, or breathing sounds, in the Hebrew alphabet, which has raised the question among some thinkers: “What if the name of God is the sound of breathing?”

Admittedly, it’s a speculative thought–maybe even fanciful. But it’s also quite beautiful and pregnant with significance. And as I say to my audiences when I introduce the song live: it might even be true.