A few months ago I posted the first entry into what will be a running "behind the music" like accounting of all the songs from the band's first album "An Office Job In a Time of War". Since that time a lot has happened, most significantly there was a new member added to the band family by way of my wife and band lead singer Julie.
Little Ireland is doing well now, though I have not had a decent night's sleep in over a month and it's starting to take it's toll. The zombified state that I'm in is useful for such activities as writing but hopeless for things such as driving or doing my taxes. (Long live art!) But enough about me, it's all about the songs from here out. I'll be going from the first song on the album to the last, one per week. I love hearing about the background of a song. For me it opens it up in a way that I can't always explain, but I know that I'm more likely to connect with the song, and that is my hope here. When I'm finished with the songs from our first album (roughly ten weeks from now) I'll start on the ones from our forthcoming second album "What Do You Want" that is due out at the end of the summer.
So on to song number one: In The "Lowlands":
This song was written at a stoplight. I can tell you exactly which one, Belfast Maine, corner of Rt. 52 and Rt. 1.
I t was the winter of 2000 and I had just dropped out of college. The reasons were all the usual suspects, a breakup, debt from poor financial decisions and a general legarthy that I felt the first moment I stepped on campus as a freshman. (You are blessed if you have always known what you wanted to do with your life) But, that was only part of the equation. I had also experienced some highs in the previous years. I had been blessed to be able to do some traveling and had seen the Great Pyramids in Egypt, been stuck in the desert in China, ascended the Eiffel Tower and kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland. I had also run a college newspaper's music section. (A dream job where I received tons of free music each week) It was a whirlwind time, the kind that I wish everybody could be blessed to experience. I made good friends that I still love to this day and I have memories that I will cherish forever. Those times are what made the times that followed so hard to come to terms with. (I believe that the psychological term is dissonance)
When the whirlwind ended (and the money ran dry) I dropped out of school while my good friends were going on to graduation, marriage, real jobs while I had moved home to Maine in the dead of winter. (Thanks for grace and patience Mom and Dad)
Rural Maine is not an easy place to find employment in the winter time, so I worked a series of odd jobs and delivered pizza to try to pay off the debt I had amassed from college loans and a foolish car purchase. (I am perhaps the only person to deliver pizza in a beautiful black Saab)
There were two constants in my life during this time, my family and my church. I'm not sure how I would have coped without these people. I was on my way to Church one Sunday night when I was reflecting on the crazy duality of my recent life, the highs and lows, the good times and the bad, when a lyric popped into my head at that red light...
"In the lowlands, my lips will praise you, and on the mountains I'll raise my hands."
When I got to church, I grabbed a guitar from the stage and with the three chords I knew I wrote the whole song in five minutes before the service. This was my first song. I was so proud of myself that I played it for a friend after the service and he said "you wrote that?" I didn't know whether to be offended or complimented.
I wish songs always came this easy. Sometimes they come like this, but most times its a slow, exacting process. You take an idea and try to work at it. The key for me is to not let an idea go. I try to write down an idea immediately so as not to lose it.
Here is the big thought behind the song: I want to praise the Lord when things are going well, and I want to praise Him when things get tough, whether through my own doing (as in dropping out of college) or if they are mysterious things such as illness or tragedy. God sends the rain and He can withhold it. I don't want to be a fair-weather follower of the Lord. He has sent His son to take away my sins and give me life "to the full" and I want to be the sort of man who trusts Him when the well runs dry.
The Bible says that the Lord is our father, and in the same way that I want my daughters to trust me that I have their best interests at heart when I do something they don't understand right away, I want to trust God that He sees things that I do not. There is a lot of bad theology out there about why the Lord lets the tough times come. This bad thinking is nothing new; in fact it goes all the way back to one of the first recorded stories in all of history, the Biblical book of Job. I want to break out of this thinking, and be faithful to my Heavenly father.
Thanks for reading, next week song two on the album, "I Think I'm Gonna' Go". Feel free to read the archives if you feel so lead.
It's good for migrants to come together.
See you next week.
Alex Caldwell (My Migrant Soul)
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