Another favorite of mine is fellow member of the Regent College community Carolyn Arends. There’s a lot of good songwriters up there in Canada, and she’s one of the best. She’s way under the radar at the moment because she went indie and stopped touring a few years ago to give herself time and space to raise her kids, but she’s still writing and singing and putting out albums (which are available through her website); her recent albums are more uneven than her studio work, but still well worth listening to, and better than a lot of the material out there. After all, to say that an album isn’t as good as Feel Free or This Much I Understand isn’t exactly an insult. Here, for instance, is my favorite lyric off Arends’ second album, Feel Free (a cut which reminds me of the late, much-lamented Rich Mullins):
Do We Dare?The prayers that we pray in foxholes and funerals,
The songs that we sing in delivery rooms,
The questions we ask when nobody’s listening
But the man in the moon . . .
The way our hearts beat–faced with a sunrise,
Like maybe they know something we don’t;
But it’s all in code, and we can’t decode it–
Or maybe we won’t.Do we dare pay attention, dare even mention
The mystery we find ourselves caught in?
And do we dare to remember
All that we have forgotten?Each breath that we take, we take for granted,
So if there are clues, we remain unaware.
All the days of our lives burn down like matches–
Vanish into thin air.
But there are dreams that we dream when we least expect them,
And memories that come like unbidden tears,
All the things we believed when we were still children–
It’s been so many years . . .ChorusBridge:
We are battered and torn from the day we are born
In a world that has blinded and bound us;
Is it any surprise we don’t open our eyes
To the truth that’s disguised all around usLike the secrets we keep we don’t know we’re keeping
From before there was time, before there were lies;
Can we find you again, this far from the garden?
Do we dare even try?Chorus
Words and music: Carolyn Arends
© 1997 Running Arends Music/New Spring Publishing (a division of Brentwood Music Publishing, Inc.)
From the album Feel Free, by Carolyn Arends
Reading several of your song of the week posts, I think we have a lot in common as far as our tastes in music go. I discovered Carolyn Arends when she toured with Rich Mullins several years ago, and then lost track of her until recently.
Another Canadian musician that I like is Steve Bell. I especially like his Simple Songs. If I remember correctly, Steve and Carolyn are on the same label.
Thanks for all of your valuable insights over at Thinklings. Although I don’t comment over there much, I am a regular reader and I appreciate the time you take to comment so thoughtfully on the big issues as well as the small. I look forward to hearing more from you.
Sorry to double-comment. I didn’t enter the link to my site correctly when I posted last time. :o)
Thanks much for the good words–they’re greatly appreciated. It’s a good group over there, and no question, which makes for some great conversations.
Steve Bell came through Regent at least once while I was there, and his music was playing a lot at the bookstore; for some reason, I never got around to picking up any of his stuff, but I liked it quite well. I may have to do something about that.
I first really registered Carolyn the same way you did (we saw the Brother’s Keeper tour when it came through Grand Rapids), though I realized later that she’d sung on two cuts of Noël, the first Christmas album Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong put together. My wife and I had the chance later to hear her at Regent–just a small concert in the chapel to tune up for going on the road. This Much I Understand wasn’t quite out yet, so we got to hear most of the album live before it even hit the streets–and then we got to chat with her and her husband (briefly) afterward. That was a good night.
BTW, though I don’t think I’ve commented over there, I enjoy your site. 🙂
Hey Rob!
Thanks for the comments about our site. You must like completely unorganized, random posts about nothing in particular 🙂
Andrew Peterson is another one of those artists that I’ve “discovered again”. We saw him in a concert with Fernando Ortega several years but I just got around to buying a CD of his when I saw it in a used bookstore. I should have got one way before then…
Have a great weekend!