The Song of the Week comes from Eric Peters’s outstanding Birds of Relocation album. Many around here consider it one of the best records of 2012. Here’s what Eric had to say about the “Voices” (and don’t miss his related post from a few days ago, “The Undertaking of Hope”):
In the fall of 2010, having experienced a particularly brutal summer—itself the culmination of years of letdowns, career disappointment, anxiety, an overwhelming sense of defeat and sadness, and a darkness I could not make sense of—I knocked on the door of a Nashville counselor. He and I began a long dialogue about my history of low self-esteem, my insecurities, and the legion of cruel, graceless voices to whom I had long ago ceded power. In my mind, I had always assumed they were God’s whisperings, though I could not at all understand why God would continually humiliate and taunt me in such an audible way. My counselor, Al Andrews of Porter’s Call, noticed that in choosing to listen to those voices, I was giving them power; I was choosing to “love” them. Al proposed a homework assignment. He asked me to write a song about the voices, and suggested that perhaps I was better off listening instead to the very real voices of my very real friends, the saints and angels who encourage and edify me.
“Voices”
by Eric Peters
Voices, when I listen to the voices Every shroud of anger is sorrow in disguise The voices, when I believe the voices That convince me I am worthless, bent on my demise
Hear, oh hear the saints’ and angels’ voices
Everything about my weakness that is strong Everything about the heart that could go wrong Every hope that ever lived there but has since flown I’m finding again, finding again
In the garden, when we lived inside the garden Creatures bright and shining, we were, dust brought to life In the silence, when we lean into the silence We choose the things that hate us most, and rest upon the lies
Everything about my weakness that is strong Everything about the heart that could go wrong Every hope that ever lived there but has since flown I’m finding again, finding again
We choose to love the things that hate us most
Everything about our weakness that is strong Everything about our heart that has gone wrong Every light that ever shone in darkened halls Is shining again, I’m finding again
Oh, the voices When I listen to the voices I listen to the voices Of the saints and angels