August 4-Track A-Side: House of Love (This River)

Art by Billis Helg

This one is certainly a contender for my favorite track I've done this year. It started off as a different progression altogether, with a swinging rock beat, and eventually evened out into a very cheerful pop-rock track. For lyrics, I took inspiration from Psalm 84, as well as many images from the Gospel of John.

"Love" has always felt like a mysteriously vague concept to base a song around. Especially with my own emotional problems growing up, what seemed obvious to everyone else when they used the word "love" seemed obscure and lacking within me.

Reading the gospels has helped me nourish a richer understanding of love, especially with its use of Greek, which has several different words for different types of love. One is phileó, which refers to the sorts of personal affection and warm feelings that usually typify "love" in our culture. But beyond phileó is agapaó, which transcends personal affections. Jesus defines the purest form of agapaó that we can achieve to be such: "to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13).

Phileó is natural; agapaó is supernatural. Few, if any of us, have a natural affection for death. Agapaó often looks nothing like what we would intuitively expect love to look like. In fact, often we have to let go of our natural impressions to move closer into the true power of agapaó. By nature, we want to be comforted, to have some riches and support in this life; but Jesus tells us that it's those who mourn, who are poor in spirit, who are persecuted, that obtain access to God. The more we hold onto our individual points of view and desires, the less we can experience of what is eternal and transcendent of self.

The Gospel of John tells a story about people approaching agapaó. When the disciples first meet Jesus, they are overjoyed to know him, expecting a Messiah who will conquer the foreign powers that control their beleaguered nation. They see his face, hear his voice, and love him with much natural affection. They dream of the thrones and the riches they will gather by his side. Then, all that is stripped away from them. His face is taken away, his body brutalized; his voice cries out on the cross, and speaks no more. Their hopes of seeing their hero conquer the world die with him.

And then, after every expectation is crushed, they find the true agapaó rising up out of the fragments of their phileó. Their hero has not been lost; the conquering of the world has only just begun. The true throne they were promised was not an earthly throne, but a throne of self-sacrifice. And with the sacrifice of the self comes a love far greater, far more powerful, far more essential and eternal than anything their selves could have imagined.

Recording:

I did the overdubbing cheat I did on "The Drum Strikes Back", for an extra track:

1: MIDI drums/bass

2-3: Guitars

4: Vocals

5: Synths

Lyrics:

In my parents’ backyard
I looked at the stars
And listened to promises made

But the games that we played
The victories gained
Were lost in the light of day

Chasing the answers
To all the wrong questions
Waiting for everything
When I first met you
Lightning struck when you
Looked my direction
Your home is what I’m looking for
“Come and see”

This house is not my own
Only by your grace I call it home
this river when I hear your voice
No one will take away this joy
And wherever it takes me next
Sitting like a swallow in her nest
There’s a new room waiting for me
In this house of love

I remember the sounds
As they tore it down
The terrible noise it made
Watched from afar
As they put out the stars
And nobody laughed that day

Searching for answers
To all the wrong questions
Crying to strangers
For what I left there
Something familiar
Got my attention
Your words from a deep well
“Don’t you remember

Just what was promised
To be forever
Rocks will go falling
But they will never
Take what I’ve laid here
When you remember
Nothing was lost, dear
Come and see”

This house is not my own
Only by your grace I call it home
this river when I hear your voice
No one will take away this joy
And wherever it takes me next
Sitting like a swallow in her nest
There’s a new room waiting for me
How glad I am I came to see

This house has been reborn
In the howling rain in the early morn
Every word of hope and fear
Drops running down my face like tears
Hear the sound of a door being drawn
Like a thunderbolt to command the dawn
Beam of light comes pouring out
Like a road that’s leading to your house

This house is not my own
Only by your grace I call it home
this river when I hear your voice
No one will take away this joy
And wherever it takes me next
Sitting like a swallow in her nest
There’s a new room waiting for me
In this house of love