I wrote this song while I was in my second year of seminary, way back in like 1999. I re-wrote the music and re-recorded it in 2013 as part of the Black Light/Black Death sessions.
In many ways it's a very naïve song, written at a time of my education when I didn't really know what I was talking about, or how to say exactly what I meant. The lyrics have theological and conceptual holes big enough to K-turn a city bus, and that's embarrassing.
Plus, it's so personal.
Still, I've been thinking about these issues quite a bit lately, and I'm trying to be less perfectionistic about my creative output in general so here it is.
By the way, that line about "the widest man cannot cover the mountains" is from an ancient Sumerian proverb, and I suppose in this context it's also the inevitable result of writing garage rock while attending seminary.
lyrics
The North Shore
A purple sky casts lavender around me,
The last vestige of a dying sunset tempers the western sky.
I stand on a bluff, water stretches below me;
A warm breeze touches my body, cautiously pressing me back towards land.
Cirrus clouds grace the sky, a temporary landmark of the infinite:
Wispy feathers of ice mark the reaches of my awareness--
Impossible heights that would suck the life from my lungs.
Eternity above, eternity below.
God of ages, Lord of health
You lift me up in spite of myself
You hold me, you heal me.
God of ages, from outside time
You soothe my soul, you heal my mind
And I don't know exactly who you are.
"The widest man cannot cover the mountains, the tallest man cannot touch Heaven."
Warm air fills my lungs and again is gone. The breath of life: sky in me; water in me.
Behind me, earth. Before me, eternity.
Heaven is not great. Up here on this promontory it is I who am nothing.
God of ages, Lord of health
You lift me up in spite of myself
You hold me, you heal me.
God of ages, from outside time
You soothe my soul, you heal my mind
And I don't know exactly who you are.
I could shout to the wind; I could cry out to the mountains.
I could stake my claim before all eternity.
I stand silent before my Maker.
And in the silence a still, small voice:
"Today I am giving you yourself."
God of ages, Lord of health
You lift me up in spite of myself
You hold me, you heal me.
God of ages, from outside time
You soothe my soul, you heal my mind
And I don't know exactly who you are.
Come for the '70s Dodge pickup on the cover. Stay for Americana/Folk music played like rock-n-roll (a winning formula if there ever was one). THE GHOSTS THAT I RUN WITH is nothing short of AWESOME. Andy Smash & the Rust Belt Hotrods
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