Producer Gabe Scott and I are honing in on the final four songs on Far Side Of The Sea. I hinted at this in earlier posts, but now, neck-deep into the recording, I am more aware than ever just how vast a musical departure this album is for me. Production-wise, it is a sharp left turn. The strange thing is that the change no longer intimidates me. Gabe and I have worked very hard on this material, not only to avoid complacency and familiarity, but to be uncomfortably stretched. At Gabe’s request, I committed from day one to, musically, take the road less-traveled. I am glad to have been a part of creating something so far outside my comfort zone.
I habitually present myself as an Eeyore, a gray spectre haunting an otherwise light, pastoral scene. Admittedly, this is how I have introduced the song, “Field Of Failure”: “Hello everybody, I’m a failure at everything I do, I can’t get anything right…you know, like Charlie Brown” [re-insert head into sand]. It occurred to me only recently that my introduction falls short of telling the crucial truth: on my own, in my striving to please and succeed, it is true that I am absolutely not enough. But in the shadowed refuge of God’s wings, and only there, despite my helplessness and failure, am I enough for the very simple reason that He delights in me.
This is a sneak peek at an early mix of the album version of “Field Of Failure,” a song I played for the very first time live at Hutchmoot 2014.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Field-of-Failure-sample.mp3