I Believe in the Message

 

Studio Saturdays are full days. A six hour session is sandwiched between an 80 mile commute to the studio and an 80 mile commute back home again.

The drive time to the studio is usually a working session: Eli and I listen again to the demos of the songs we are working on that day, discussing in detail what we’ve already rehearsed over and over.

The drive home is more relaxed.  We listen to a scratch recording of what we’ve accomplished that day, maybe a few times, and then we talk.  We talk about the day and about what we’ll work on next and about things that have nothing to do with music.

Conversation usually comes full circle back to the music we make, about production and promotion and playing out.  On the way home from a session in February, something was settled for me.  The conversation from that day replays in my mind, urging me forward, washing my eyes for a clearer vision of why I began recording in the first place.

It’s about the message.  The stories in my songs hold a message of hope and determination I am compelled to tell.  In some small way, I align myself with Paul who said, “For necessity is laid upon me; yea woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 9:16)

I was confessing to Eli how I love the process of recording, but I’m still not at ease with taking the stage.  I was mulling it over out loud, telling him how I’m not interested in being a star; I just want to get the message of my music out there.

“But no one will know about your music unless you go out and expose them to it by playing live.  If you believe in the message, you have to play out,” Eli replies.  Sage advice from a neophyte and it dogs my heels as I prepare for another studio session this weekend.

I believe in the message.  There’s a place we can feel at home.  Everyone cries out for rescue at some time, for comfort.  Everything can be stripped away and yet faith remains, and because of faith, praise arises, hope arises.  There’s a pattern of prayer in this life that ends in a dance. Love goes on.

This is the message to be delivered by this second studio project.  We can each find our way home, coming back from where we have been to where we belong.

I believe in the message.

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