Soundtrack #44: May-June 2003

DISC ONE
In May 2003, Christine got to see snow for the first time in her life, during a weekend trip to the Sierras with Kent and some of the other folks from the hiking group. It was a romantic and fascinating experience for the both of us - I'd seen it many times before, but seeing her interact with it for the first time was really interesting. We found out that hiking in the snow isn't so much fun, as it thwarted our attempts to make it to what was supposed to be a good lookout point. But Mark took some great pictures of us amidst the winter (spring?) wonderland, and I had him Photoshop us out of this one so I could just use the scenery for the CD cover.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Tangled Web", Daily Planet (Hero, 2002)
This fun song about being a megalomaniac who thinks he can save the entire world singlehandedly turned out to be the last hurrah for Daily Planet - the last song worthy of selection from their one and only album, and the energetic opening number at the one live show I managed to catch later that summer. The story is that the lead singer shattered his leg during a mistimed jump during one of their shows, and subsequently got buried in medical bills to the point where the band couldn't afford to stay together. So sad.

2) "Sleeping Awake", P.O.D. (The Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack, 2003)
I never saw The Matrix Reloaded - my complaint about the first film was that it was all philosophical and fascinating and existential and stuff, and then, "We need guns. Lots of guns." Like, if nothing really exists, why is all of the carnage necessary to win your war or whatever? Nevertheless, I was excited to see P.O.D. appear on the soundtrack, with what turned out to be a better song than anything that ended up on their self-titled album later that year. P.O.D. was never known for writing brilliant lyrics, but I think it took talent to make the allusions to things like "Zion" in this song fit both the film and the framework of the band members' faith.

3) "Hit the Floor", Linkin Park (Meteora, 2003)
This was one of Linkin Park's "scarier" songs due to the brutal screams during the chorus, but also one of the most fun to "sing" along with, due to the tongue-twisting rap verses and those piercing Chester Bennington shrieks that I could only attempt to imitate when no one else was in the car. I'm sure it must have made me look like an idiot to whoever was stopped beside me at a traffic light whenever this song happened to be playing.

4) "Going Under", Evanescence (Fallen, 2003)
This one will forever be remembered as "that song with the evil zombie music video". I must have been in a rather dark mood when I put this one and "Hit the Floor" back to back, but I'll be darned if it isn't a killer one-two punch. That said, it also reveals the more juvenile side of my musical tastes at the time - I still enjoy this stuff, but I'm not sure I'd still consider Evanescence to be one of the best bands in my personal collection. Then again, this was before the band practically imploded later that year.

5) "Turn the Tides", 38th Parallel (Turn the Tides, 2003)
Take all of the reasons why I had such a blast with that Linkin Park song, and cut and paste them here. Though this one wasn't nearly as ferocious. It was fun ear candy - good interplay between the two rap vocalists. I seem to be having a hard time coming up with deeper personal connections to the songs on this particular mix! Maybe that says something about my tastes at the time; I'm not sure.

6) "2+2=5", Radiohead (Hail to the Thief, 2003)
It almost seems cruel to juxtapose Radiohead with some of the artists surrounding them on this disc, but at the time, Radiohead was the band that I was still developing a healthy respect for. While Kid A and Amnesiac had gotten me curious, it was the leak of Hail to the Thief that really got me excited, especially when it led off with this lopsided little rocker that might just be my all-time favorite Radiohead song now. I majored in math; I remembered that old joke that "Two plus two equals five for extremely large values of two" that only my professors and a few of my colleagues would have actually chuckled at. So I was tickled by the band's choice to actually write a song based on fallacious mathematics and use it as a metaphor for the ignorant herd mentality. Lots of bands tried to offer us hope in the wake of 9/11; I think perhaps Radiohead was trying to offer more of a cautionary tale about how paranoia could turn us into an extremely stupid bunch of people if we weren't careful. But then, nobody really knows what a lot of Radiohead songs are actually about.

7) "Gibberish", Relient K (Two Lefts Don't Make a Right... But Three Do, 2003)
I was definitely being tongue-in-cheek here, following up a Radiohead song with one entitled "Gibberish". But this one isn't only here for the joke - it may be almost entirely comprised of nonsense lyrics, but it's actually still one of my favorites by RK, just because all of the made-up words are so much fun to try to memorize and recite back. "Arg wu sentafiticate, nar dunderford! Bida menti, kosticated interserd!" Et cetera.

8) "Inspiration", Sanctus Real (Say It Loud, 2002)
Sanctus Real was only barely on my radar in their early days - the occasional punchy power pop number like this one caught my attention, but for the most part I lost them in a sea of similar pop/punk and Jimmy Eat World-inspired bands, and didn't regain any interest in them until The Face of Love in 2006. Looking back, I think I enjoyed this song most for the fancy drumming.

9) "Good (I've Got a Lot to Learn)", Dakona (Perfect Change, 2003)
Dakona was one of a handful of new artists that Josh was getting pre-releases of due to his association with some record label or another at the time who he was writing reviews for. I think they were supposed to be one of modern rock's next big things, but it took many months of release date pushbacks and other record label red tape before the rest of the world got to hear the album that I ended up listening to all summer... and I don't recall it getting much of a reaction at that point, so they quickly disappeared back into obscurity. This song was great fun and made a few waves on radio, though - at least, I recall hearing it here and there. It had that whole "white boy rock band being ironic by singing a song's verses as some sort of a faux-rap" thing going on - you know, like "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies. That made it an ideal candidate for the string of catchy songs that almost always takes up the first half of any of my mixes.

10) "The Tower", Vienna Teng (Waking Hour, 2002)
Being a huge fan of Corrinne May in those days, and having used some of her songs to woo Christine from afar, I was delighted to finally have the chance to take Christine to see her in concert now that she lived here in California. So, on the afternoon of May 1, when Khat's boyfriend Mike happened to also be in town visiting, we all converged at the somewhat obscure and difficult-to-find Soka University in Aliso Viejo, a tranquil college campus where Corrinne was slated to open for Vienna Teng, a fellow Asian-American piano-playing artist who we had never heard of before that night. It seemed only fair to stick around for the main act, and when Vienna busted out this song early in her set, I wa struck by how vividly her piano playing and her lyrics could paint a picture and tell an intricate story. I could see that lonely tower reaching toward the sky, standing tall and strong and promising security to all who entered, but having no escape from its own isolation. I fell in love with an artist that night who went on to become my favorite female songwriter of all time. It still ranks as one of the best concerts Christine and I have ever attended together.

11) "White Days", The Juliana Theory (Love, 2003)
The imagery of a flower trying to bloom in snow, which is the last thought expressed in "The Tower", segued nicely into this metaphorical song about the perils of being a touring band in the dead of a harsh Pennsylvania winter. At least, that's what I assume it's about. TJT has this sort of reclusive way about them that made it hard to tell what they were getting at sometimes. In any event, it was one of the "snow songs" that came to mind when Christine and I were on that chilly hike in the Sierras.

12) "Seasons", Steven Delopoulos (Me Died Blue, 2003)
Steven Delopoulos was another "new artist" who Josh was able to introduce me to by way of long-distance CD-burning correspondence... of course, I knew him as the former lead singer of Burlap to Cashmere, but I was utterly unprepared for him to turn out such an exquisitely crafted folk album on his own. This song was the immediate standout, with its bluesy progression and its little bits of synth and banjo and all of those seemingly incongruous sounds that I loved so much. Josh and the other Phorumers were really starting to transform my CD collection for the better that year.

13) "Too Much Food", Jason Mraz (Waiting for My Rocket to Come, 2002)
Another of Mraz's patented smart-assed tongue twister songs. I certainly had "too much food on my plate" that summer - it seemed like there was another crisis (usually involving Christine - our relationship was suffering from a distinct lack of normalcy) every time I turned around. I needed a way to laugh at the absurdity of my life. This song did the trick.

14) "Couch Potato", Weird Al Yankovic (Poodle Hat, 2003)
Three years had been a long wait for a new album since I first became a Weird Al fan thanks to that Christmas gift from Sharon in late '99. I didn't want the surprises ruined this time, so I bought the album without hearing a note of it... and found most of it to be rather spotty. Not Al's best work. But in all fairness, some of the humor wasn't catching on because I wasn't as exposed to a lot of popular music in 2003 as I had been back in college, when I heard pretty much every popular radio hit constantly whether I wanted to or not. So I had never actually heard the Eminem song that this one was based on before hearing Al's version. (Not that this stopped me from whining when Eminem beat out U2 for the Best Original Song Oscar, but whatever.) Now it's one of my favorites, and I've gained some amount of respect for Eminem since the original song is pretty solid, too, though I wouldn't be caught dead listening to most of his stuff. Basically what Al did was an update of "I Can't Watch This" - a rap song about all of the crap on TV that rots your brain. It works because Al had such a keen ear for matching the original lyrics to similar-sounding names of shows and networks.

15) "Adding to the Noise", Switchfoot (The Beautiful Letdown, 2003)
What better to follow up a Weird Al song about TV than a song about how there's too much noise in the world and you should turn off your TV? Actually, Switchfoot fans seemed to be divided on this one - some thought it was a blast, some found it annoying. But it, along with the 9 other songs from The Beautiful Letdown that they played, were definite highlights when Christine and I went with the two Lindas to see the band live at the Hollywood house of Blues in June. That's another concert which still ranks among my all-time favorites.

16) "Believe", Grits feat. Jennifer Knapp (The Art of Translation, 2002)
I loved the idea of Jennifer Knapp singing the main hook for a rap song, as well as (at least I'm assuming) providing some acoustic guitar licks. it was a good bit of synergy on the part of Gotee Records, who clearly had a roster of rather disparate artists. This turned out to be the last new thing I'd end up hearing from Jennifer Knapp - she announced her retirement in the year 2004. I would say that she was a young artist taken far too soon, but it's not like she died or anything. We actually saw Grits at some sort of evangelical musical festival out in Walnut later that summer (this was before I got fed up with going to those things), but they didn't attempt to do this song, since I don't think it would have really worked without the female vocal.

DISC TWO
I finally got over my fear of high altitude in June, when the hiking group attempted a trek across the valley beneath Mt. San Jacinto. Getting up there from Palm Springs required taking an aerial tram that was basically a suspended rotating room - a bit freaky but it was good to face my fear of heights head-on. The trail itself was up at 8 or 9,000 feet, and we did feel a little sleepy after exerting ourselves at that altitude, but I never felt like I couldn't breathe or was about to lose my lunch, so... progress! On the way back, we split up, one group took the high trail (from which I took this picture of the surrounding mountains) and one group took the low trail. Christine went the other way... that was the first of many times when anyone and everyone would bug me about where she was the second they realized that we were apart. No sweat, folks, sometimes couples want to do different things. We're still individuals, right?
Where in the world is this?

1) "Jesus Freak vs. Dismissed", dc Talk vs. ZOEgirl (Smash-Ups, 2003)
Mash-ups were all the rage in the adolescent days of peer-to-peer downloading - a few of the music geeks out there had gotten past the initial thrill of downloading songs they hadn't paid for not that there's anything wrong with that) and started experimenting with "mashing" two songs together, usually by matching the vocals from one to the music from the other, just to show the similarities between the two (or highlight the incongruities in humorous ways). This was an amusing enough hobby for those with the technical know-how, but since it prompted a lot of "cease-and-desist" orders from record labels, some mad genius in the Christian music biz got the idea to do this above the table with a lot of the popular Christian music acts of the last decade or so. Most of the results were horrible, but this unholy concoction of dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" (a Christian rock classic that most fans would probably be loathe to mess with) with the teenybopper vocals of ZOEgirl's "Dismissed" showed how the two songs fit a little too closely together for comfort. I thought it was hilarious, since I loved both songs but it had never once occurred to me that they were anything like each other.

2) "Forward Motion", Relient K (Two Lefts Don't Make a Right... But Three Do, 2003)
All of the stuff about getting kicked out by your landlord in this song is meant to be a humorous metaphor, but it wasn't such a laughing matter when we had to relocate Christine in a hurry twice during one summer - first because it didn't work out too well for her to live with my Mom, and second because a rather odd roommate who she had found in Alhambra and lived with for about a month rather abruptly put her out on the street in favor of another new roommate who actually had a job. Those were difficult days. The struggle with "forward motion" in the spiritual sense, which is what the song was really about, referred more to me. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall, like God kept throwing new obstacles at this relationship as if he was trying to tell me it was more trouble than it was worth. Christine hardly knew anyone else out here, and I didn't know what to do - I couldn't give up on her and force her to go back in Hawaii, but I wasn't sure how long I could honestly stick with the constant crisis mode that we were in.

3) "Who Am I?", 38th Parallel (Turn the Tides, 2002)
The closest thing that 38P did to a straight-up "rap song" - it's almost all drums and bass, and I rather like that, it stands apart from their usual rap/rock shtick. This was a cleverly worded song about judgment and the tendency that we have to pick out specks from others' eyes while not noticing the planks in our own eyes. I had a pretty low opinion of myself in those days, thinking that I had somehow been unfaithful to Christine in my mind, and this served to take away the condescending attitude I had previously had towards certain people who I regarded as "cheaters", most notably my ex-girlfriend. Who was I to judge if I could see how easy it was to be tempted to take the easy way out at the first sign of trouble? No longer could I say that this was a temptation I didn't face.

4) "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002)
This is definitely one of the most depressing and outright weird songs that I've ever loved. It's like the distorted sound of a hangover wrapped up in a bunch of abstract poetry. At my lowest opinion of myself, this was what I figured others would think of me if I called it quits with Christine. If she moved all the way across the Pacific Ocean to be with me, and I turned out to have not been all that serious about her, didn't that pretty much mean I was carelessly playing with her feelings and almost intentionally breaking her heart? But wait... I hadn't planned on starting to fall for someone else. It's easy to be faithful in a relationship when there's no temptation, no notion of any "other options" out there. If I was going to continue to love her, and if I was going to avoid breaking her heart, then it had to be a conscious choice, not a default response to some warm, fuzzy feelings.

5) "Somewhere I Belong", Linkin Park (Meteora, 2003)
One of the posters that I met through my activities at The Phorum and on the CMCentral boards was bloop - he challenged me to see the best in some of the more "difficult" and "experimental" artists like Wilco, and he loathed supposed poseurs since as Linkin Park who he saw as just capitalizing on a trend. We got into a lot of arguments regarding my Linkin Park fandom. Some of them ended with me being rather abusive - not because I was mad about somebody dissing the band (I wasn't that huge of a fan), but just because I adhered pretty strongly to the principle of musical tastes being a subjective thing. I came to see things a little more his way in the long run (and even if I hadn't, I never had the right to be a jerk about it). Anyway, I think I ended up putting this uncharacteristically positive Linkin Park song next to a Wilco song because it amused me to imagine how perverse he'd think that was.

6) "I Feel Fine", Nine Days (So Happily Unsatisfied, 2002)
Nine Days was supposed to have a second mainstream album out in 2002, but it never got released due to some sort of record label red tape that I never really understood. In this case, it turned out to be for the better, because the album sucked, aside from this fun little song about self-denial in the wake of a relationship ending.

7) "Unwell", Matchbox Twenty (More than You Think You Are, 2002)
Nothing says "fun wacky hit single" like the presence of a banjo in an otherwise rather mild-mannered pop song! This one was definitely attention-grabbing, as most of Matchbox Twenty's final full-length album (at least so far?) ultimately turned out to be. Denial played a big role in this one - it was all about a guy who was going crazy and doing everything he could to insist that he was alright. In a morbidly humorous way, I started to feel like I could really relate to this one due to all of the stress I was under that summer.

8) "Green and Gray", Nickel Creek (This Side, 2002)
A clever little song about a performer who was loved by everyone, but understood by no one. This one sort of built off of the denial/insanity theme - this time, the guy's not so much denying that he's crazy, but just trying to pretend he's not absolutely lonely. He's surrounded by tons of friends, people who think he's a great guy, a skilled musician, a poet and a visionary. But he lets nobody in, perhaps due to fear that when they find out what he's really like, they'll disown him. I could relate - I felt like I was living a public life and a private life that were very different. I was neither a celebrity nor a renowned musician nor anything but simply a good friend to a lot of people, but there were worries and concerns and guilty confessions on my mind that I didn't think I could share with any of them at the time. it ate me up inside.

9) "Hold Me", Plumb (Beautiful Lumps of Coal, 2003)
A bright spot in that otherwise difficult phase during my relationship with Christine was our early celebration of our first anniversary. We had become a couple in June 2002, and she decided we should take the last weekend of May and go on a short getaway together, just for one night. I was quite flattered, because before this, she had a pretty strict stance about us not "spending the night" anywhere together. We got a room at a cute little Bed & Breakfast in Santa Monica, and had a fancy dinner at Duke's in Malibu, and I just remember feeling totally at peace as we drove back down PCH that evening, totally on the same wavelength and looking forward to staying up late and watching a silly movie together and talking until some ridiculous hour of the morning and no need for me to drop her off at home. And yes, we behaved ourselves. The point of it wasn't to get away with anything that wouldn't happen in a supervised environment - the point was just that it was nice to find out what it'd be like to wake up beside each other the next day. maybe not something I'd advise for all couples, but it worked for us. Of course, we weren't at all used to the other person being there while we tried to sleep, so we kept each other awake and probably only got 1-2 hours of sleep the entire night, which made us a bit sluggish on the hike that we had planned the next day. But I cherished that little retreat, and I think we might have been in trouble if not for the intentional effort to "rekindle" our relationship that weekend.

10) "Between", Vienna Teng (Waking Hour, 2002)
Vienna Teng's first album brings back strong memories of that weekend spent down by the beach together, but amongst all of the melancholy romantic songs to be found on it, this song lay nestled in between, a captivating piece of music that I couldn't admit at the time how much I related to. it's all about a "third one between" who threatens to unravel a relationship. Vienna wrote it with intentional ambiguity - it could have described a pregnancy, making the baby the "third one" who came between two lovers, or it could simply describe a messy love triangle. In our case, I was the only one who knew about the third point on the triangle - Christine was oblivious, as was this other woman who I was trying to convince myself not to have feelings for, and I was desperate to keep it that way. And hey, if a song was going to remind me of what a shmuck I was, at least it was an ethereally gorgeous one.

11) "Absolutely Zero", Jason Mraz (Waiting for My Rocket to Come, 2002)
A sad, theatrical breakup song about buying into a relationship and having zip to show for it at the end. I love the cleverness inherent in even a serious, downbeat song like this one - both partners "haggle" over who gets the blame and Jason insists he'll sell it back to her for the nothing he paid to get it! I must have been bracing for a breakup when  put these two songs on this disc back to back. Thankfully, that was a false alarm, but man, I sure felt like a heel for dragging Christine into the whole thing when I thought that I might have to end it at some point soon.

12) "Hate", Fiction Plane (Everything Will Never Be OK, 2003)
The aforementioned Switchfoot concert just so happened to have a stellar opening band by the name of Fiction Plane, most notable for their lead singer being Joe Sumner, the son of Sting. They sounded a lot like early U2, though notably more depressing. OK, so their lyrics weren't the greatest, but they put on one hell of a live show (which we got to see an encore of when they ended up opening for Lifehouse not one week later in Ventura!), and this song about hating stuff 'cause that's what all the cool people do was the definite standout track on their first album.

13) "In God's Name", Dakona (Perfect Change, 2003)
This quiet, brooding acoustic song hit like a ton of bricks - "If you want to hate, then please leave God alone". It was the perfect counterpoint to "Hate" - a description of what happens when people let their faith be defined by the things they hate and the people they fight wars against. I can't think of a more convincing way to express the old adage "Two wrongs don't make a right" with genuine conviction.

14) "Twenty-Four", Switchfoot (The Beautiful Letdown, 2003)
Christine and I were both 24 years old at the start of 2003, so this quarter-life crisis song, written on the eve of Jon Foreman's 24th birthday, resonated well with us. It was a beautiful sing-along during their live show, and it brought a sort of coordinated peace to all of the dissonant, disparate voices in my head, all of them singing along, "Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, I am the second man now." I wanted to be a new man. I was afraid of what the old one might do to sabotage all the things that I had dreamed of becoming in my younger, more idealistic days.

15) "Serve Hymn/Holy Is the Lord", Andrew Peterson (Love and Thunder, 2003)
I saved the most peaceful, acoustic songs for the end of the album, including this admirable attempt at modern hymn-writing from Andrew's understated third album. I can't really pick out specific lyrics that struck me or a reason why it directly related to my life - it was just a calming devotional song that spoke peace and order to the chaos, so it fit in well at this point near the end of the mix.

16) "Wedding Dress", Derek Webb (She Must and Shall Go Free, 2003)
This one's another big hint at the way I viewed myself in those days. I wanted to have conviction. I wanted to be holy. I could claim these things and promise to live a Christlike life when it seemed easy. I felt like the whore who put Christ on like a wedding dress, and then ran out the door and promptly got it dirty. I appreciated Derek's candor here - he might have gotten slapped on the back of the hand for using the word "whore", but the Bible itself makes that analogy concerning the children of Israel and their defiance of God's plan for them. A year prior, I was thanking God for another chance at a relationship, for not letting my scarlet sins keep me from experiencing something pure and beautiful that made me genuinely happy, and now here I was, in spite of myself, playing indecisive games and threatening to throw it all away. I didn't really know for sure what God's will for me was at the time - maybe He intended for me to stay with Christine. Maybe He had someone else in mind. Maybe I was meant to be single and this whole relationship thing would be a wild goose chase with anybody. For the time, all I could say for sure was that I needed to honor Christine the best I could for the time that we were together. Looking back now, knowing that God did indeed plan for me to marry Christine, I'm sure glad I was able to muster up some small amount of common sense and stick with it. But what else is there in my life now that I'm defiantly refusing to being faithful to God with? This song hasn't stopped convicting me just because I got my romantic relationship issues sorted out. There's still my money and my time and my tongue and all manner of things that I'm not trusting enough to surrender to Him.

Soundtrack #43: March-April 2003

DISC ONE
I guess the cliché thing to do, if you have a scenic point to name along a hiking trail, is to call it "Inspiration Point". I've encountered a good four or five such places in my travels, but this one, north of Altadena, California near Mt. Lowe, is the one I'm most familiar with, even though I've only actually been there once. It's a tough hike, near five miles from its starting point at the top of Lake Ave., following the trail to Echo Mountain that I've hiked dozens of times, and cutting back and forth along the sides of Castle Canyon from there. I devoted a good half day to finally accomplishing this hike in its entirety in March 2003, and while I pulled it off, I was really short of breath at the top, and the smog that day obscured the view beyond all usefulness. It hurt to move later that day, but at least I could say I finally did it.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Gone", Switchfoot (The Beautiful Letdown, 2003)
This was the closest thing to a "silly song" on the new Switchfoot album - it had more of a serious intent in terms of reminding us about the transitory nature of all earthly things. But I had to chuckle at the sly references to older Switchfoot songs and the response of sorts to Bono's infamous "God doesn't need your money" rant from Rattle & Hum.

2) "Resolution", Phil Joel (Bring It On, 2002)
Christine had expressed concerns that I didn't have enough guy friends who I could go to with my problems. In an attempt to rectify that, I went to Evergreen's Men's Retreat in April, just to get over my own stigma that spending an entire weekend with just the guys would be boring. I also started having informal "accountability" meets with Danny - he seemed like a good choice because our lives were on similar trajectory in terms of us being about the same age and both in long-term relationships that were likely headed for marriage. Danny turned out to be a really good sounding board - he's always been an innately good listener and very patient, never chewing me out for stuff that honestly, I probably should have been chewed out for at times. it's typically difficult to get other guys to open up about their feelings... this was never a problem with Danny, and I appreciated his openness during those meetings.

3) "I'm the Man Who Loves You", Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002)
Since there were a bunch of us music geeks at The Phorum, it soon became common practice for us to display our Top 10 Lists for a given year when December rolled around. Josh, who had influenced a lot of my music decisions in 2002, had Wilco's latest record listed as his #1 for the year, and I'd never taken the time to sit down and listen to these guys, so their highly-acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot seemed like a perfect place to start. Unfortunately, I was almost completely baffled and put off by its excessive amounts of white noise and rather croaky vocals from Jeff Tweedy. And I was soundly ridiculed by a number of Wilco fans due to my vocal insistence that they were doing something wrong. Despite being at odds with a lot of music critics, though, this particular song, with its hyperactive guitar freakouts and horns and its more upbeat declaration of total, unerring devotion, really struck a chord with me.

4) "Mood Ring", Relient K (Two Lefts Don't Make a Right... But Three Do, 2003)
This tongue-in-cheek song about moody omen and how they reserve the right to change their opinion of you at a moment's notice with no prior warning made me laugh. It wasn't so much about women being inconsistent as it was about men not really getting them. In any event, it helped me keep perspective after Christine moved here and I discovered what some of her moodier days could be like. I really couldn't blame her with all of the upheaval that moving to a new state and needing to find a job and all that entailed... but there was definitely an adjustment period before I got used to the way she reacted to stress versus the way I did.

5) "Pitiful", Blindside (Silence, 2002)
Have you ever known in your mind that something was wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, but decided to go ahead and do it anyway? That's what this song represents for me - times when I've tried to get away with something, thinking that somehow I could sneak around behind God's back and not suffer the consequences. I've done this more times than I care to admit. But I guess that's the kind of stuff Jesus died for.

6) "Lying from You", Linkin Park (Meteora, 2003)
Thinking that you can lie to God about what you've done and get away with is really just a form of lying to yourself. One of the things I lied to myself about was the fear of commitment - which I had wrestled with more openly back in 2002, but it was mostly an academic exercise at that point due to my relationship with Christine being long-distance. With her here, I suddenly had to confront those fears, and really ask myself, "Did I encourage her to move all the way out here for me only to discover that sometimes spending the majority of every day with her gets exhausting?" I felt ashamed of myself for asking such questions - I wanted to be the strong, resilient, rock of commitment that she could run to when everything else was uncertain. So I maintained the facade for a while. I lied to her. I didn't want to face the truth and potentially end up being persona non grata in the eyes of several friends if things didn't work out between us.

7) "Shell of a Man", The Juliana Theory (Love, 2003)
I was really struggling with issues of identity and masculinity in those days. I didn't hang out with a lot of other men; I could enjoy their company in a group setting, but I had a hard time getting passed the reserved exterior with a lot of 'em, so I didn't attempt one-on-one relationships unless I noticed an obvious connection right away. I was afraid that I'd find out a lot of men were just a bunch of commitment-phobic, cheating horndogs... you know, like my father was. Like the kind of guy I didn't want to become. I trusted the feminine side of the human race more... soft, nurturing, innocent (comparatively, anyway), openly affectionate. I felt like a guy who was trapped in between the two stereotypes. And honestly, it was pretty arrogant of me to assume I was the only "sensitive guy" in the universe... but it was really just a manifestation of my fear. Fear, bitterness and hatred keep you in the dark. They keeps a man from truly attaining the depth of character that God designed him to have.

8) "Are You a Hypnotist?", The Flaming Lips (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, 2002)
This spacy, percussion-heavy song about a guy who forgives a trickster, only to realize he was tricked into forgiving the guy, is probably just here for fun. At the moment I can't ascribe any deeper meaning to its presence here. I might have needed a bit of absurd levity to lighten the mood after the more intense songs preceding it.

9) "Imaginary", Evanescence (Fallen, 2003)
This song is pure fairy-tale escapism. I remember the first time I heard the more bare-bones version of it on Origin... I was lying in bed reading a book, and it was raining outside, and it just seemed like the perfect way to just forget all of my stress for a little way and let my mind drift off into the ether. The Fallen version was much more aggressive and in-your-face and that almost seemed to contradict the mood of the lyrics... but it was also about ten times more dramatic, with the strings and all. So this ended up being my favorite version.

10) "Hero", Daily Planet (Hero, 2002)
An ode to the dubious nature of celebrity in the Internet age. An artist is only as good as the last thing they did, and information on all of their publicly known flaws becomes instantly available. Perhaps it was easier in the old days for an artist to keep up a "boy scout" facade (especially in the Christian music world) and never be exposed as a fraud. As intrusive and superficial as our constant need to have all the gossip that there is to know at our fingertips can be, perhaps it's a good thing that anybody on stage who claims to know anything about this Christianity stuff can only go so long without messing up in front of people. It sets it up so that only the truly humble can be truly respected. At least, those who can be humble about their failings are the ones I've learned to respect the most.

11) "Legacy", Nichole Nordeman (Woven and Spun, 2002)
Sort of following up on "Hero" was this song from the point of view of the famous person, which was honest enough to admit, "I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me", but to also look beyond that and say that none of this "Christian celebrity" business really matters if not for this one thing: "Did I point to you enough to make a mark on things?" I've never wanted to be famous or to have a career in music or anything. But after a year and a half of playing the guitar and leading worship for small group and so forth, I realized that having an instrument in your lap can draw attention to you. And there were times I was tempted to use that attention as a sort of secret weapon, to make some girl think I was a "really spiritual guy" or whatever. I could be singing a song with the genuine intent of facilitating worship, or I could be doing it with self-centered intent... and people might not be able to tell. That's a scary power to have. It made me stop and ask myself to check my motivations on a frequent basis.

12) "All the While Having Fun!", The Elms (Truth, Soul, Rock & Roll, 2002)
Mas and Linda accompanied me to an Elms concert down in Fullerton in March. It was one of those "pay three bucks and get a really random assortment of Christian bands that really have nothing to with one another" sorts of deals. The opening acts were Radial Angle and some other bands that we skipped because we decided our energy would be better spent getting some dinner before The Elms came on. But The Elms made it more than worthwhile. I'm sure they would have much rather been playing in some Hollywood club than doing their classic rock routine in some church's gym with middle-aged parents carting their three-year-olds around and forth. But I rather enjoyed the "all-ages" atmosphere, and was glad to see that parents would bring their kids out to a show like this even though the music wasn't the obvious Christian radio type stuff. This was also the concert where I first met Thom Daugherty face-to-face, which never would have happened if I hadn't insulted the band's lyrics on a public form that he was participating in (unbeknownst to me) at the time. Once I found out, I decided the grown-up thing to do would be to seek out the member in question and apologize for being a jerk. (Though it's worth noting that it was likely the CCM industry restraining the lyrics - Owen Thomas has written much better songs since the band signed a mainstream deal.)

13) "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)", Jason Mraz (Waiting for My Rocket to Come, 2002)
I owe Natalie for this one. She was into John Mayer and some of those other guys-with-guitars that a lot of the "bloggers" seemed to be into back then. So I checked him out, and was pleasantly surprised by the tongue-tied, almost hip-hop inspired rhyming infused with a more rootsy pop style. Mraz's ego kind of got the best of him later in his career, but I loved the playful tone of many of his early songs - especially this monster hit that never ceased to make my problems seems a whole lot smaller for three or four minutes as I tried to twist my mouth around the rapid-fire lyrics. It was the new "One Week".

14) "Smoothie Song", Nickel Creek (This Side, 2002)
Nickel Creek's second album was when I really became a fan - but it took a while to really appreciate what they were trying to do. At first, they just didn't seem to fit into my music collection at all, with the conspicuous lack of drums and their sometimes sparse arrangements and whatnot. (This became much less of a problem as my tastes started to veer away from CCM and mainstream pop and rock music during the years ahead.) But this killer instrumental piece was definitely a good starting point - I still remember popping the CD in during our trip down to San Diego the first weekend Christine was in town (I had a theme of San Diego bands going that day since I had introduced her to Switchfoot earlier in the drive), and a great number of the songs finally clicking with me as we made our way through the grueling line of cars waiting to get into SeaWorld.

15) "Nobody Loves Me", Derek Webb (She Must and Shall Go Free, 2003)
At long last, the solo debut of Derek Webb! I was really bummed that it coincided with his departure from Caedmon's Call, but I really respected him for being brave enough to say what he needed to say and taking whatever fallout would come from it on himself instead of letting it drag down the band. This twangy little country song about telling the truth even when everybody thinks you're a pain in the butt for doing it provided the first signature quote for my new Earthlink Email account that I had set up when Time and I moved in together: "The truth is never sexy, so it's not an easy sell/You can dress her like the culture, but she'll shock 'em just as well."
* First appearance by Derek Webb apart from Caedmon's Call

16) "Nightingale", Norah Jones (Come Away with Me, 2002)
As much as Norah's "delicate acoustic jazz" motif intrigued me, I had to admit that I responded more immediately to her "folksy" songs at first. The simple, repetitive acoustic guitar melody in this one was what made it my favorite track on the album at first. There was something intriguing about how her simple ode to this bird, wondering where it had been on its long, weary flight that led it to her windowsill.

DISC TWO
Christine's arrival in mid-April was something I had counted down the days to since about February. We did a lot of fun things during her first days here before she had to start settling in and looking for a job. One of the best highlights was taking a drive down to San Diego in order to go to Sea World - it was the first time for both of us. Of course, the crown jewel of Sea World is the Shamu show, and we were lucky enough to snap this shot of the legendary whale in mid-air, right before one of the many times when the front rows of the audience got completely drenched. I've done so many more new things in my own home state since Christine moved here than I had ever done on my own before.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Higher Ground", 38th Parallel (Turn the Tides, 2002)
This is what you get when an early 2000's rap/rock band drops the rap for one song and tries to sound like one of the boy bands of the era that is trying to sound like a legitimate rock band. Seriously, this song could've been on Plus One's final album. Despite all that, I still think it's pretty catchy. It must have been the zippy little acoustic guitar thing they had going on.

2) "Tonight", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
I didn't know at the time that this would be the final Benjamin Gate song to end up on any of my mixes, or that Contact would be the final album of the short-lived band's career. I had just found out that Adrienne Liesching was engaged to Jeremy Camp, and I thought the unlikely pairing was kind of cute, so I put songs by both artists together to commemorate their upcoming nuptial bliss.

3) "Take My Life", Jeremy Camp (Stay, 2002)
And then I decided that honestly, I didn't like Jeremy Camp all that much. Sure, he was entertaining enough when I saw him open for Bebo Norman at APU in March. I liked his personality. But a lot of his music was rather bland. Except on songs like this one where he was loud and boisterous and basically trying to sound like Creed. (And I'm not so sure I still like it now.) Then I found out that his marriage to Adrienne was effectively ending The Benjamin Gate's existence as a band. That's when my ambivalence turned into emphatic non-fandom.

4) "More than Fine", Switchfoot (The Beautiful Letdown, 2003)
My involvement at the Phorum crossed over for a brief period of time to another board that Josh was participating in, and I don't remember the exact name of it but I think it existed more specifically as a meeting place for critics who were trying to examine music and film from a Christian worldview. I thought it'd be interesting to interact with folks like Jeffrey Overstreet whose thoughts on various albums I was also digesting I'd often stumble across, thanks to Josh's consistent ability to find them and link to them from the Phorum. I soon found out that I didn't fit in there as well, after some rather heated arguments with folks who chalked Jars of Clay up as second-rate Toad the Wed Sprocket imitators, and who couldn't take Switchfoot seriously due to the overly poppy nature of their newest album. Thanks to Mr. Overstreet, I can no longer listen to "More than Fine" without the "I'm not giving up, giving up" part reminding me of Olivia Newton-John's song "Physical".

5) "Take Me Away", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
Back in 2001 and 2002, I sort of dreaded solitude. When I lived by myself, I spent very little time at home and filled as many free evenings and weekends as I could with social activities. When I was by myself, I was on the Internet and generally engaged in some form of communication with somebody (usually Christine), so there was little time left for reflection and prayer. In 2003, I began to seek out solitude more intentionally, needing those languid moments where I could be by myself, lie in bed, and journal about whatever prayers I needed to get out of my system. I've kind of fallen out of that practice in recent years... I enjoy my time alone but it doesn't seem as oriented toward spending the time with God. I need to do something about that.

6) "I Woke Up in a Car", Something Corporate (Leaving Through the Window, 2002)
My tangential interesting in Something Corporate - which sounded to my ears like Blink 182 with a piano - came about when I found out that they would be touring with The Juliana Theory. As I often did in those days, I sent out a mass Email to pretty much everyone I knew outlining a list of upcoming concerts, and TJT/SoCo was one of them. Sherwin, then a fellow college advisor at Evergreen, responded rather excitedly about wanting to go to this concert, and he and friend I hadn't met yet turned out to be the only other people who got tickets. I found out the day of the show that Sherwin had to back out due to other commitments (this was classic Sherwin; he seemed to have that sort of energy that put him in about 10 places at once and made his schedule difficult for him to keep track of), so he gave the ticket to another friend, and I ended up going to a concert with two women I'd never met before. They proved to be entertaining company, and apparently one of them was a personal friend of Andrew Schwab (the lead singer of Project 86) and had some interesting stories to tell about the "fringe" of the Christian rock scene. Anyway, both women were SoCo fans but had never heard TJT, so it was an experience of sharing favorite bands with one another. This song ended up being the most memorable performance from the concert... well, at least out of the songs that I considered mature enough to appear on one of my mix CDs (which meant no "iF U C Jordan").

7) "Everything", The Juliana Theory (Love, 2003)
This was perhaps the most pretentious, bombastic, overwrought, generic-in-its-attempt-to-be-universal song about love in existence... but it was a hell of a highlight of TJT's live set. Their brief flirtation with mainstream fame gave them a decent shot at a bigger audience, which meant that the crowd energy at The Glass House that night was pretty high due to the folks who turned out for SoCo. But I can see why it didn't last. The band's pretentiousness could be a bit off-putting at times. Once I learned to negotiate around that, though, I found it difficult to stop listening to Love that year. Hell of a rock album, if you can accept the over-the-top-ness of it all.

8) "My Immortal", Evanescence (Fallen, 2003)
Easter Sunday 2003 was the day that rocked my world. It was Christine's first weekend in town after her big move, and I was running on minimal sleep due to our ambitious trip to San Diego the day before and getting up early to attend sunrise service with my Mom. So I may not have been thinking rationally by that point, but I remember being worried about why finally getting to be with Christine in person didn't bring the "instant euphoric happiness" that I had been anticipating for so many months. Part of it was because we weren't in vacation mode now - we'd had our happy reunion and done our fun little excursions and now it was time to buckle down and deal with helping her find a job and a more permanent place where she could afford to live, and basically catching up on a lot of things that many of my other adult friends had already worked out for themselves. I became impatient and stressed out over it. And that day at lunch, just in the middle of casual conversation with several friends, with Christine by my side meeting many of these people for the first side, I suddenly had this sickening realization: I had become strongly attracted to one of these friends. It scared me TO DEATH. Feelings of guilt immediately flooded me for even acknowledging this to myself in the middle of a serious, committed relationship in which a young woman had just moved 3,000 miles in the hopes of one day marrying me. I tried to deny it, write it off as a "grass is greener on the other side" type rationalization that my mind was doing, but nothing worked. And I knew that if I couldn't get this other person, who was a good friend to me and who would later become a good friend to Christine as well, out of my mind, then everything was eventually going to come to a head and I might have to break things off with Christine if I couldn't honestly say she was the only one in my heart. I felt like my stupid hormones were sabotaging our relationship and I was on the verge of experiencing a tragic loss that would haunt me for the rest of my life. None of this was the fault of the other person, of course - she was just being herself and was completely unaware of the situation - but I spent the better part of 2003 hating myself for playing the "what if" game to escape from the reality of the challenges which lay ahead for me and Christine. Only now, being well past all of that and being happily married to Christine for three years running, am I finally at a point where I'm comfortable admitting this to the rest of the world.

9) "Easier to Run", Linkin Park (Meteora, 2003)
It often feels like it's easier to live in denial, to hide from our problems, rather than to try and stand up to them, take them head-on. When I think of the time I wasted being in denial of the difficult questions that would shape the future of my relationship with Christine, and all of the days I spent with her where she could tell I was emotionally detached but I didn't want to admit why, I feel pretty stupid for taking the better part of that year and throwing it down the drain. Fortunately I learned a lot from the process. It was that last desperate act of finally facing the problem (which wouldn't come for several more months) that began to prove to me that our relationship was a lot more solid than I was giving it credit for.

10) "Closure", Chevelle (Wonder What's Next, 2002)
I went with my brother and his girlfriend (at the time) to see Chevelle at the House of Blues in Anaheim - definitely a weird experience to have in the middle of downtown Disney, what with all of the sweaty aggression and the moshing and the foul-mouthed lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars during their interminable opening set. It's definitely the "heaviest" concert I've ever been to, but it was quite a blast. I guess in those days, I didn't mind getting up early on a weekday so that I could beat traffic and drive way the hell down to Orange County to see a band I only sort of liked. These days I'm much more frugal with my concert choices.

11) "I Am Understood?", Relient K (Two Lefts Don't Make a Right... But Three Do, 2003)
This one's sort of a counterpoint to "Pitiful" from Disc 1 - it represents that moment of opening up and admitting my failings to myself and resolving to no longer make these vain attempts to hide from God. It is embarrassing at times to realize that God knows your deepest, darkest secrets. But the hardest part of having secrets is the fear that nobody would understand you if they were to find out something that ugly about you. "You had a crush on another woman while you were in the middle of a long-term relationship? You chauvinistic womanizer!" I begged God to take these troubling feelings away from me. Not to imply that God had caused them in the first place... I think it was just a classic case of not knowing what I wanted, and needing to figure it out in a hurry before I ended up losing the best thing that had ever happened to me. In any event, I can't say that my prayers during that phase of my life were anything but earnest and desperate. "God, just fix me already!"

12) "Still Burning", Sixpence None the Richer (Divine Discontent, 2002)
"When You break my arms, I'll take hold of You." This was such a vulnerable, pretty song, and yet it described sort of a violent approach to God's mercy - the sometimes painful act of taking away something we love or find security in so that we might grow. It's hard to describe what that's like without making God sound rather sadistic... but if you've been through that sort of pruning process, it makes a lot more sense. I was going through it at that time - I think God was trying to show me the sorts of hard decisions I'd have to make and difficult trials I'd have to stick with someone through if I ever hoped to be able to do this whole "marriage" thing.

13) "Further", Pillar (Fireproof, 2002)
For all of Pillar's loud, militant obnoxiousness, this dark, slow-burning prayer of a song really spoke to me. The biggest moments of clarity come when we are furthest from ourselves, least concerned with our own temporary desires, only wanting to know what God's will is, what is divinely ordained to happen next. I knew that it had to be time to refine what I wanted and try to make it match up more closely to what God wanted. I was confused. I wanted conflicting things.

14) "Untitled #1", Sigur Rós (( ), 2002)
Sigur Rós was the perfect "midnight music". I can recall once or twice when I woke up in the middle of the night, and since I couldn't get back to sleep, I'd just put on a little Sigur Rós and let the warm, ethereal tones of a composition like this one quietly seep into the room as I blogged or journaled. Clarity seemed to come most easily during the hours of the day when it felt like I was the only person awake in the entire neighborhood... when there was no temptation to cut off the solitude by calling or IM'ing someone else to see what they were up to.

15) "Where the Trees Stand Still", Bebo Norman (Myself When I Am Real, 2002)
Despite the mellow, plain-spoken nature of most of Bebo's songs never really grabbing hold with me, I had enjoyed him enough on the Third Day tour the previous year that I decided to go with Linda and a few of her friends to see him play at APU in March. Several of his songs just seemed to "click" with me that night in ways they hadn't before - most notably "The Hammer Holds" and this delicate, vulnerable song about imagining yourself years in the future and longing to just reach out and touch that reality where you have a wife and kids and someone to take care of who will also take care of you. This was what I longed for, too - and yet I also remembered that I was a bit terrified of it at the same time.

16) "Let There Be Light", Andrew Peterson (Love and Thunder, 2003)
Bebo and Andrew always go together in my mind since I first heard them both at my first Caedmon's Call concert many years prior, so I found it fitting to close this rather tumultuous mix with two peaceful, prayerful songs by both of these artists. Andrew's song celebrated the spirit of creativity - the miracle of God's creation being reflected in human beings who were also given the ability to create, to say "Let there be music" or "Let there be painting" or "Let there be woodwork" or "Let there be just legislation for the poor and oppressed". This became a central belief that began to drive more and more of my choices regarding the music I listened to - I figured God had created us to reflect His creativity in some small way, and increasingly, I found myself not wanting to waste time on anything that seemed to stifle creativity instead of rejoicing in it.

Soundtrack #42: January-February 2003

DISC ONE
2003 got off to a great start. Spending the first few days of January in Hawaii with Christine was great fun - on one day, after taking her on one of my favorite hikes to Maunawili Falls, we returned home the long way by driving up and around the northern end of the island. We stopped off at a park near Kualoa Ranch and Chinaman's Hat, where I took this picture of the impressive cliffs above us. Saying goodbye at the end of that trip was difficult as always, but this time, it was mitigated by the fact that she would be moving to California to be with me on a daily basis within the next few months. I had a new apartment to move into when I got back, with my friend Tim from Evergreen, and I was excited to actually live in San Gabriel, closer to the community of random friends I had cultivated at church.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Bring Me to Life", Evanescence feat. Paul McCoy (Fallen, 2003)
I was introduced to my newest chick-rock obsession that year by an online acquaintance known as "Mit the Destroyer", who found on either Xanga or Kazaa or some message board that I used to frequent - I can't remember which - and noted my love for ephemeral female-fronted rock bands such as Aleixa and Chasing Furies, as well as the longer-lived Plumb, and suggesting that I might like Evanescence's Origin album. My exposure to that delectable set of demos opened the door for my complete head-over-heels infatuation with the lead single from their upcoming mainstream debut. I was totally ga-ga over this band - I told everyone about them, I thought this song was the bomb to end all bomb diggitys, and I was proud of the fact that Amy Lee and her cohorts were Christians making on their own terms in the mainstream music world. Then came the endless debates over the meaning of the rather frightening video for this song, the critiques of Amy Lee's choice of wardrobe, and the "Christian charts" controversy that would cause Evanescence and Christian music to disown each other completely. OK, so the actions of the band members and the fans alike were childish at times. But this song, to me, never represented a plea for salvation from God. It represented the danger of asking someone to save you who was not capable of it - someone like a boyfriend or girlfriend. Someone with their own human flaws. I knew what it was like to expect that from another person, and I vowed never to put someone I was in love with on such an unrealistic pedestal ever again. It was for that reason (as well as the fact that the song just plain kicked ass) that it became my favorite song of the year 2003.

2) "Ammunition", Switchfoot (The Beautiful Letdown, 2003)
This was the first song I heard from the album that broke Switchfoot in the mainstream in a huge way, and it remains one of my all-time favorites by the band. I loved the idea of people (probably the Church, but it's never specified in the song) trying to reach out and love, but only succeeding in causing a lot of proverbial gunfire and explosions and carnage, damaging the hearts we're supposed to be healing.

3) "Do You Believe Me?", The Juliana Theory (Love, 2003)
It's easy to see how pretentious TJT could be now that I look back on them, but Love was one of those addictively cool albums that I couldn't get enough of back in those days. Their first single from that album jumped out at me immediately, with their sarcastic "thanks, but no thanks" to well-meaning but manipulative powers-that-be who wanted to shape and mold them into something other than what they wanted to be. The attempts to help them were killing them. You could hear it in Brett Detar's bitter sneer.

4) "Wait", Everyday Sunday (Stand Up, 2002)
Fuzzy, spastic alternative rock music by a bunch of dudes from Texas in a band with a raspy lead singer trying his best to shout out Toby Mac-style rap verses! The 2003 version of me said, "Sign me up!" And I'll admit, it's still a lot of fun to scream along to this one.

5) "Ooh Aah", Grits feat. Toby Mac (The Art of Translation, 2002)
Oh hey, speaking of Toby Mac... This was a hip-hop group's attempt to recapture those intangible, wordless "groanings of the soul" that the Holy Spirit picks up on when all words fail us because we're just that bummed about how far we've fallen. In those days I was wrestling a lot with the gap between who I knew I was and who I figured God wanted me to be... and I guess that dilemma never truly goes away for any Christian who really realizes their status as a sinful human, but I suppose I was more aware of the need for change and recommitment in those days.

6) "Caught a Glimpse", Blindside (Silence, 2002)
I don't think any other Christian band has ever managed to sound so terrified over the prospect of falling in love with God! Oh wait, those are screams of passion, not terror. Something like that. Killer song, but it sure is a whiplash-like experience coming after a bouncy hip-hop track.

7) "Celebrate", Bleach (Again for the First Time, 2002)
And now we're back to fun and bouncy, in the form of this fuzzy little pop song that represents Bleach at their carefree best. "I want to celebrate the day that I met you." Christine and I were fortunate enough to spend the one-year anniversary of the day we met together in Hawaii (it was somewhere around January 6 or 7, 2002 when we first met online - pity that I no longer remember the exact date, but hey, it was near midnight my time!), so this song always reminds me of that little premature "anniversary" celebration. These days we only observe our wedding anniversary, but we do recognize the June 3 "dating" anniversary when it comes around.

8) "Fight Test", The Flaming Lips (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, 2002)
I couldn't think of a better introduction to the wild, wacky world of The Flaming Lips (thanks again, Josh!) than the one I got by way of this song - a playful, punchy ode to the "fight-or-flight" response, in which a guy thinks he's chosen the high road by choosing not to fight another guy for a girl's affection, but then later regrets not sticking up for himself. I was fortunate enough to never be in such a position, seeing as all the other guys Christine ever liked, save for one-short lived relationship that was over and done with well before we met, were kind of lame and apparently never noticed her. Then again, maybe those letdowns were what taught her to stick up for herself when she met me!

9) "Clocks", Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002)
I had known this song for almost half a year, but for some reason, it took that long for it to fully click. And in early 2003, suddenly it was everywhere - the classic triple piano pulse that would come to be imitated for years to come. While almost an idiotically simple song, musically speaking, it was enchanting because of the vision it gave me of a person flying backwards in time, trying to stop the clock and jump out of the timestream and fix past mistakes or something like that. yeah, maybe I watch too many time travel movies. Anyway, this one was definitely one of my top 10 songs for that year - and when I finally got a cell phone, the piano riff to it became one of the ringtones that I figured out how to "compose" on it - this was back in the day of monophonic ringtones, a.k.a. the dark ages. (Other ringtones that I had to figure out how to compose for myself included Jars of Clay's "Collide", Creed's "Higher", and Switchfoot's "Twenty-Four".)

10) "Light", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
A simple, peppy little song about being strong for someone else when they are weak. Christine and I took turns holding that torch for each other when one of us became impatient and discouraged about whether she'd be able to pull off the move to California and we'd truly get the chance to be together again.

11) "Moth", Over the Rhine (Films for Radio, 2001)
A strange little song about trying to be Jesus, and failing fantastically - being a moth attracted to flame and finding that nothing good came from the self-sacrifice. Why is it so easy for those of us whose core beliefs hinge upon the concept of grace to forget about it and try to justify ourselves and play the martyrdom card so easily? Why is it so hard to let God do the saving?

12) "Five", Daily Planet (Hero, 2002)
An upbeat, playful nostalgic song from this short-lived California band, simply about the joys of seeing life through the eyes of a child. "When I get to heaven, I want to be a five-year-old forever." How is it that I sometimes let myself stray so far from the concept of childlike faith that I forget what it's like to experience the simple wonder a child experiences upon learning about the world around him for the first time? "Faith like a child" was once my creed; somehow I started to feel myself slipping away from that as I got older and had to juggle more responsibilities. I could call my own shots, I could "drive all night to see the sunrise" with nobody to tell me that was against the rules now, but the great irony was that  was now too pragmatic to dream the same way that I once did. And along came Christine, still innocent and perhaps a little sheltered in a lot of ways, still living those wild-eyed dreams, and man, part of me didn't want to ruin her ability to see the world through those childlike eyes.

13) "83", John Mayer (Room for Squares, 2001)
Might as well follow up once "nostalgic childhood" song with another one! This was the John Mayer that I used to know and love. He wasn't afraid to sound a little geeky and admit he missed the old days, complete with that old beat-up lunchbox he used to be so fond of, and was distraught when his parents threw it out without his permission. You can go back to the places where you experienced those childhood milestones, and yet it feels like you're playing a different role in the story, and that little kid was somebody else.

14) "I Am", Nichole Nordeman (Woven and Spun, 2002)
A beautiful, heartfelt song about the different ways that "I Am" describes God to you through various phases of life.  was in the exact midpoint between Nichole's list of experiences in this song - I had remembered looking to God to ease the pain of bruised knees as a child, and a bruised heart due to unrequited love as a teenager. I looked forward to God being there to bless my lifelong commitment to the woman I would one day marry, and I still look ahead to God being the sustainer of strength, the creator of green pastures to rest in, during the phase of parenthood when I know we will be too exhausted to know which way's up half the time. God is consistent through all of this, but we understand Him differently through those phases of growth.

15) "The Kingdom", Caedmon's Call (Back Home, 2003)
I loved the swirling, Middle-Eastern feel that this song had going for it - it made it so easy to picture that imaginary kingdom, built somewhere in the Israeli wilderness, that a man had foolishly built for himself and that couldn't withstand the unpredictable fury of od's plans for that person. It's a pity that so much of the rest of Back Home was rather bland by comparison - I really became disillusioned with the band that year. But this song remains an underrated classic.

16) "The Man You Want Me to Be", Phil Joel (Bring It On, 2002)
Phil Joel's second album surprised me - it felt more deep, more devotional, more personal than his first one. Here he took such a simple request - "Jesus, make me the man you want me to be" - and turned it into a sincere anthem that gave me hope at a time when I was feeling really unsure of myself and my ability to succeed in loving Christine the way that God had called me to love her, by actually taking care of her and helping her find her way around this unfamiliar, scary place where she was committing herself to possibly spending her life with me. It's easy to have fun with someone you're attracted to in a "vacation" setting, and much more difficult (at least for us guys!) to actually make some sort of believable commitment to really seeing a relationship through, thick or thin, until both of you can clearly discern whether God intends for it to be permanent.

DISC TWO
Later in January, somewhere around my 25th birthday, Mark took us one one of the best hikes ever. We drove way out into the desert past Palm Springs and Indio and a little town called Mecca, and hiked up into the deep, narrow, but breathtaking Painted Canyon, and then up into an even narrower side canyon, known as Ladder Canyon because several spots required climbing up and down ladders. I've always loved rocky areas that are good for simple "bouldering", or freehand climbing, and some spots of this hike provided great opportunities for that.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Comfortable Liar", Chevelle (Wonder What's Next, 2002)
Not sure what I was thinking by opening Disc 2 with this song - it's a bit jarring and doesn't really sound anything like the songs around it. Probably would have been better next to that Blindside song, but oh well. Really solid groove on this one. And they were one of the few bands my brother and I could agree on.

2) "Na Na", Superchic[k] (Last One Picked, 2002)
This song cracks me up, with its humorous response to an argumentative person, basically telling them that all they know how to do is return nonsense for nonsense, because dude, you totally sound like that teacher from Charlie Brown! Despite the silliness, it was frighteningly descriptive of those dumb message board arguments I kept letting myself get sucked into with people half my age over on the CMCentral boards. Oh, to think of the precious hours I must have wasted...

3) "Understand", Jeremy Camp (Stay, 2002)
Betcha didn't expect to find out that at one point, I actually liked Jeremy Camp. Though vague given his real life experiences, I actually did find a good amount of his first CD to be convincingly heartfelt, and this first song, with its refrain of "I know You understand it all, so why don't I get back on my feet again?" really spoke to how I was feeling at the time. I had spent long enough punishing myself for stuff God had long since forgiven me for. The only one holding me back from believing I could live a better life was me.
* First appearance by Jeremy Camp

4) "Just One More Thing", Sara Groves (All Right Here, 2002)
One thing that I really used to hate was people who acted like they were my friends, but who were always too busy for me. It had been a pet peeve since college - people always overcommitting to ten thousand activities because they never knew how to just say "no". And I never wanted to become one of those people who was too busy with things to really spend time experiencing deep relationships with people. The catch was that it was easier to be all self-righteous about this when I had a simpler life - single guy, no real responsibilities outside of work and maybe a ministry or two at church, never has to work overtime, no dependents to claim on his taxes. These days, I kind of miss the ideals and convictions I once had regarding "quality time" with people. I wonder about friendships that I may have allowed to fall by the wayside - not because either of us ever stopped wanting to hang out with each other, but simply because I went and let myself become a busybody.

5) "How Do I Love Her", Steven Curtis Chapman (All About Love, 2003)
I really admired SCC for having the guts to put out a CD of nothing but love songs. I mean, it was all fairly safe, mushy stuff, but  think it also reaffirmed than a man loving his wife was an act of worship. And this song - the best of the bunch by far - turned the phrase "How do I love her" into an honest question. Instead of "How much do I love her" or "In how many ways do I love her", it became "How do I actually turn the loving emotions that I feel for this woman into actions that she clearly sees as loving?" It was close to Valentine's Day. I wanted my chance to prove my love to my sweetheart. Badly.

6) "I Love You", Cindy Morgan (Elementary, 2001)
There used to be a Christian bookstore called "The Giving Tree" in Pearl City, and during a quick stumble through their clearance racks while I was in Hawaii, I found a demo copy of this Cindy Morgan album that I had overlooked upon its initial release - good thing, too. It was way too poppy and happy to have been appropriate to me during that caustic, post-breakup phase. Now, on vacation, visiting the woman of my dreams in paradise, it was perfect! This song - the album's cute little finale - played like an old jazz/ragtime sort of tune with its playful horns and woodwinds and all that. Christine immediately fell in love with it when I played it on her parents' stereo and did a cute little dance around the room. That was memorable enough to make this CD remind me of her - which, for the first few weeks after I got back to California and had to be separated from her again, made it rather difficult to listen to.

7) "Come to Me", The Elms (Truth, Soul, Rock & Roll, 2002)
A song about a guy knowing a girl's got him right where she wants him, and he will sit out on the porch and wait for hours, and put up with all kinds of worry and uncertainty and just plain old neglect, pining for her attention. Of course, Christine didn't keep herself away from me by choice, but the absence certainly had that consequence of magnifying everything I loved about her and making the heart grow way fonder. April could not come soon enough!

8) "2003", Nina Gordon (Tonight and the Rest of My Life, 1999)
This song was actually on the radio a lot back during that disastrous final trip to Michigan in 2001. Sharon had introduced me to Nina Gordon and after we broke up and were trying to be civil with each other while her parents were shuttling us around the Upper Peninsula in that Rent-a-Wreck van, it drove me nuts to keep hearing this cute song about two lovers preparing to meet each other again in the year 2003. Then Christine happened. And it described our longing to be together in a rather timely manner. Sure, the song had a limited shelf life, but I was reminded of it just in time to put it on a mix CD for her, which she played loud and proud in her parents' living room on January 1, 2003.

9) "Hanging On", Everyday Sunday (Stand Up, 2002)
This one might sound like your average example of a CCM rock band doing a weepy, thoroughly adult contemporary ballad (with rather simplistic rhymes to boot), but it struck an emotional chord with me, mostly due to the subtle but stunning melody. I was still learning new things on my acoustic guitar, and I had become recently fascinated with how easy it was to produce pretty variants of chords by playing in "Open E". This song turned out to be ridiculously easy to pick out on my guitar, so it's a good example of how a song doesn't have to be complicated to be beautiful.

10) "Horizon", 38th Parallel (Turn the Tides, 2002)
When I first heard 38th Parallel, I swore up and down that they were a cheaply produced Linkin Park ripoff. Which was kind of true. But they had their own dynamic charm despite the budgetary setbacks that made them sound rather pencil-thin for a "nu-metal" sort of band. This song had a good melodic kick and a sunny outlook, and another shout-along rap verse that easily grabbed my ear back in those days, when I was a lot more open to the myriad rap/rock acts that were emerging on a seemingly weekly basis. Yeah, I got caught up in a trend. I can live with it.

11) "Sky Blue", Peter Gabriel feat. the Blind Boys of Alabama (Up, 2002)
Thematically, "Horizon" worked where it did because it set the stage well for "Sky Blue" - a song which you'd think would have an optimistic feel to it based on the title, but this is Peter Gabriel, so of course it's a bit more melancholy. What a beautifully understated, soulful song it was though. It was all about the weariness caused by constant movement - probably a common malady for traveling musicians, regardless of whether they travelled by run-down tour van or privately chartered jet plane. It was simply about wanting a place to feel at home. I get the "travel bug" a lot and have these sudden urges to want to go off and visit far-flung places, but sure enough, there's only so much otherworldly beauty and learning new maps and so forth that I can get excited about before I just plain miss my bed, and long for consistency and familiarity.

12) "The Beginning", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
Unlike "Hanging On", this song had a beautiful melody that I never could replicate with my guitar. it jumped around to different keys too much. I suppose this was more of a "restlessly creative" phase for Lifehouse, which might explain why not as many people connected with Stanley Climbfall, but I thought this was the perfect finale to that album - melancholy but hopeful, looking around the corner to a new beginning and a new worldview, with that sort of tune that seemed immediately nostalgic even though you were just hearing it for the first time. This represented the effect that my relationship with Christine had on me - she was my second chance, my "start over after ending". She was the life-changing influence that I was so darn sure I didn't deserve.

13) "Untitled #8", Sigur Rós (( ), 2002)
Fans of Sigur Rós tend to describe their music in such transcendent terms that I was almost afraid to listen to their latest album, which apparently defied description so much that they couldn't even give the songs proper titles. It was like some sort of otherworldly thing that I though would be so mind-altering that I couldn't handle it. But come on, let's get serious - music is just music - it has an effect on our emotions and it tickles that curious part of our brains, but music doesn't cast spells on people. Still, this final track on what turned out to be a sometimes tedious and overly long collection of merely 8 separate compositions was pretty darned exhilarating, slowly creeping its way up from a ghostly but chilled-out groove to a thunderous, drum-heavy finale. First time I heard it, it was like my heartbeat began to speed up to keep time with the drums. Then again, I might have been suffering from a lack of sleep that day, but perhaps a delusional state of mind is the state in which Sigur Rós' music is best appreciated.

14) "The Valley Song (Sing of Your Mercy)", Jars of Clay (Furthermore: From the Studio, 2003)
This was the most intriguing of the three new tracks from the acoustic disc on Jars of Clay's retrospective album Furthermore. Turns out it was a throwaway from the Eleventh Hour sessions - not a song that they were unhappy with, but definitely one that didn't fit the mood or the type of sound they were going for. It was more of an earthy praise chorus, an attempt to put God's uncanny ability to show up in the darkest of places into their own words, and within it, once could detect little snippets of what would eventually be reworked into "I Need You". I think I prefer this original take better, with its quiet spaces and its resounding "Hallelujahs", but both songs are distinct enough that it's really just the shared lyric or two that clues you in that they're in any way related.

15) "Gratitude", Nichole Nordeman (Woven and Spun, 2002)
Most of Woven & Spun was understated enough that i didn't really get the sublime beauty of that album until I picked it up during my Hawaii trip with a gift certificate Lina had given me for Christmas. One morning in early January, when I woke up before anyone else in the Hickman household, I decided to take a walk around their suburban neighborhood in Mililani - just exploring the curving, mazelike streets and looking up at the constantly changing patterns in the sky, while listening to Nichole's album, trying to take it in on a deeper level. This song came right at the end, and it confronted and challenged me with an uncomfortable prayer. It begged for all the things that a rational human would beg for - food, shelter, peace in a time of war. But it also had the resolve to say, "Maybe God doesn't want to give me this, and if that's the case, I pray God will show me what to learn from it." What if the bliss that Christine and I hoped to experience in California was not God's plan? What if it was selfish of us to keep begging and begging for this crazy dream of ours to work out? It was almost like God was saying that not knowing shouldn't stop us from passionately crying out for what we wanted - because we'd either get that or we'd get something that was ultimately even better for us. And yet still, all of these years after that profound little reminder, I still hesitate to pray, hesitate to sound selfish before God. What am I afraid of - that God might actually have bigger plans? It's not like He's gonna be disappointed that I couldn't predict that ahead of time. Sometimes, the things I pray for - like being with Christine, for example - do turn out to be exactly the gifts (and the challenges) that God had in mind.

16) "Come Away with Me", Norah Jones (Come Away with Me, 2002)
Winter brings rain and a lot of grey blah to Southern California. It's not my favorite time of year. And coming back from a trip to sunny tropical Hawaii can really be a bummer at that time of year - especially when you have to leave the woman you love behind. it rains any time of year in Hawaii, but it's a warm rain, one that doesn't make you want to immediately duck and run for cover. It can feel like the gentle touch of a few tears on the back of your hand, coming from the eyes of the one you love, curled in your lap, trying to express how deeply she feels for you but feeling afraid to get into deep, knowing she's going to be torn away from you again in a few short days. Hawaii rain is romantic. Even the cold California rain can be romantic, when I don't have to be outside dealing with the mild inconveniences it causes. It's kind of romantic when you're in bed at night and you hear that soft pattern of it dripping from the rooftops. But that's when it's hardest to be lying there alone. That's when it's easiest to wish you could be whisked away on some romantic locale, reunited with your lover. "And I want to wake up with the rain falling on a tin roof, while I'm safe there in your arms."

Soundtrack #41: November-December 2002

DISC ONE
In November, Mark led us on a hike along a stream in the high desert near Hesperia, which ran for nearly five miles into the back side of the San Gabriel Mountains, to a place called Deep Creek. As he explained, "It's a clothing-optional hot spring, but we're a church group, so we won't be exercising that option." The hot springs proved to be an excellent way to relax and recharge after the long hike, but it was bit bizarre seeing a few naked people walking around. Partway up the trail, this bridge crossed the stream and I snapped a picture of it from a higher vantage point - I think the contrast between the autumn trees in along the streambed and the dry hills above it is rather beautiful, though the shadows do make this picture a little darker than I'd have liked.
Where in the world is this?

1) "Electrical Storm", U2 (The Best of 1990-2000, 2002)
There's something about rain that I've always found romantic, even if I complain when it occurs during the day and I have to go outdoors and deal with it. When it's late at night, and it's pouring cats and dogs outside, and thunder and lightning are making a hell of a racket, there's a part of me that just wants to turn off every light and source of noise in the house, light a candle, and curl up with the one I love. This U2 song isn't really about that - I think the storm is a metaphor for a couple's quarreling, actually - but it became one of my favorites by the band due to the imagery that it evokes. When I heard this, I could close my eyes and be in Hawaii with Christine, with a tropical storm passing through the Mililani sky, safe under the roof of her parent's house.

2) "Do What You Say", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
This song had a rather inane chorus, truth be told, but there ere a few lines that really perked my ears up: We're here to love and not to be manipulated. To each his own, and that should never be understated. It was a good vent for my frustration with the overly restrictive beliefs of some of the other Christians I encountered in my Internet travels, or even in my own home church, who were so hung up on "Only this type of worship is valid", or "Christian singers shouldn't sing songs about (subject)", or "You have to be baptized to be truly saved", etc., that they couldn't get along any more. Guilt trips, manipulation, and shouting the other person down became the rule of the day. Is that really what we Christians want to be remembered for? How we love each other speaks volumes to the world about how we're gonna be able to love them. Not saying we can't have our disagreements, but by this point in time, I had grown increasingly intolerant of intolerance (likely because it reminded me of the person I used to be).

3) "Speaking in Tongues", The Elms (Truth, Soul, Rock & Roll, 2002)
I have Jars of Clay to thank for getting me into The Elms. They did an opening stint for JoC's fall tour that year, a concert that I would have regretted going to all the trouble to attend if not for The Elms, who totally burned up the stage with their short opening set. Charlie Lowell joined them on keyboards for this, their most impressively rocking song at the time, which was the beginning of my admiration for the guitar skills of one Thom Daugherty, who I would later meet and trade occasional Xanga comments with.

4) "Superfly", Supertones (Hi-Fi Revival, 2002)
Pretty silly, and for the most part I had "been there, done that" with the Supertones by this point, but I was amused by the attempt to work a little bit of funk influence into their poppy ska style.

5) "Just Another Name", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
One of those songs on Stanley Climbfall that nobody else seemed to get into, but that I loved. It was good jangle-pop with a moody melody, and eerily enough, every time Jason Wade sang, "Everybody knows your name", I wanted to follow it up by singing, "And they're always glad you came". Weird, 'cause I never actually watched Cheers.

6) "Just a Phase", Incubus (Morning View, 2001)
The long instrumental intro to this song (including the synths that sounded like ocean waves) struck me as a really daring move - Incubus was making a bid here to be seen as more artistic, I think. And I kind of figured the song was about that - they were getting tired of being lumped in with the trendy nu-metal bands that just whined about the same old stuff and, against all logic, continued to irritate us by getting really popular doing it. Maybe Incubus was once one of those bands. Maybe some of my other favorite bands were among the people were chastising and considered as annoying as "a fingernail running down the chalkboard I thought I left in third grade." (Lulu's comment upon hearing this song: "That's not very nice!") Whatever. It was an inventive, and well-executed kiss-off to those who didn't deserve to be riding high on the charts.

7) "Paralyzed", Sixpence None the Richer (Divine Discontent, 2002)
I thought this was one of the more intriguing rockers in Sixpence's repertoire - Leigh sings from the point of view of a reporter interviewing the band about their silly little three-minute hit song, who is internally suffering from the loss of a friend who was reporting in Kosovo and doesn't know how to tell the guy's wife the news. "It's hard to say a healing word when your tongue is paralyzed." I always saw this song as a reflection of Sixpence's unease whenever they were blindsided with the age-old "Christian band" question in interviews.

8) "Echelon", Pillar (Fireproof, 2002)
Heh, you've gotta love Pillar and their cheesy war metaphors. (Well, actually, you don't, but at least this time around, I did.) You pretty much have to ignore the lyrics to enjoy this one (particularly the out-of-left-field potshot at "evolutionists"), but the fluid bass line and the cascading rhymes in that addictive chorus were pretty powerful stuff. In a way, I'm glad that Pillar eventually swam away the rap/rock ship before it sunk... but looking back, I kind of think they had a little more bite back in the day, even if they were also a lot more likely to say something utterly moronic.

9) "Holy", Nichole Nordeman (Woven and Spun, 2002)
Just a simple healthy reminder - more than any of my efforts to do good, what God really wants from me is recognition that He is holy and He is in charge. That's always been one of those things that I understand in my brain, but then my actions betray my true feelings on the subject.

10) "The Body Is a Stairway of Skin", Over the Rhine (Films for Radio, 2001)
A sexy, teasing little song that was unlike pretty much anything on any album I owned before it. It went the poetic route instead of the lewd one, and despite being one of OtR's weirdest songs overall, it grew on me quite a bit, becoming a favorite over some of the conventional "pop" songs on Films for Radio. On one of the many evenings that I got so frustrated with my computer being slow and constantly crashing on me, I decided to write a parody of this song entitled "My Computer Is a Piece of..." Josh liked it.

11) "I John Reu", John Reuben (Hindsight, 2002)
I think Reuben set out to come up with the goofiest self-referential hip-hop song that he could possibly manage. Then again, most of his second album was self-parody, I think. The diary entry that introduced this track was what really put it over the top. It makes me laugh every time.

12) "My Stupid Mouth", John Mayer (Room for Squares, 2001)
It's scary how well this song describes me. Things seem to always go better in my head than they do when I actually open my mouth and verbalize my thoughts. Then, when I should leave well enough alone, I have to ignite the conversation again, because I figure that maybe if I explain myself more, then whatever I said before that pissed somebody off will make more sense in context. Yeah, right - that only makes it worse. Mayer summed up this diarrhea-of-the-mouth syndrome perfectly (and hilariously!) when he came to what we all thought was the end of the song, only to pipe up again, "One more thing!" That, my friend, is where we all seem to go wrong. (And of course you remember his big hit, "Your Body Is a Wonderland", which was the track after this on the album. But how many people noticed that the line "I'm never speaking up again" from this song actually creeps into the background of that one?)

13) "Mess with Your Mind", Everyday Sunday (Stand Up, 2002)
I think this was one of the first CDs that I borrowed from Linda when we started trading music back and forth. (Well, one of the first ones that I liked, anyway - By the Tree and Kutless were in that first batch, and the Kutless CD in particular, I've never let her live down!) I thought the scratchy vocals made them sound like a texas version of Skillet or something. I was amused by the fact that I could never quite figure out what this song was about. Maybe he didn't want to mess with people's minds by making them grandiose promises that he couldn't deliver? Was that a veiled shot at Christian radio or something?

14) "Six String Rocketeer", Daily Planet (Hero, 2002)
A beautifully written song about music being the escape for a young boy who couldn't handle listening to his parents fighting any more. In Jesse Butterworth's case, it was Elton John and Billy Joel and the like - all humorously referenced in the bridge, if you can catch the sly allusions to their work. Man, I wish I had music to help me through the domestic unrest back in those childhood days. I just escaped into my silly Commodore 64 computer games and tried to pretend I couldn't hear anything.

15) "Move on This", Pax217 (Engage, 2002)
Fun, bouncy little faux-reggae song about a boy with dreams, who wants to marry his sweetheart and start a family, but who fears ending up like his own parents, whose marriage ended in divorce. He's determined that they'll be the one to break the generational curse. That was pretty much how I felt, being at this crossroads where I knew that the new year coming up just around the corner might be the one to bring the woman of my dreams to California, which could likely lead to marriage shortly thereafter. I had a lot of dreams... but was I grown up enough to move on those dreams yet?

16) "The Scientist", Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002)
I can't listen to this song without thinking about time travel. The first time I heard it, I was reminded of that terrible Time Machine remake that Christine and I saw together. It reminded me of the better aspects of the movie (and the original story it was based on). You screw something up that involves someone you love deeply, and you want to go back to the start and fix it. Less than a year into our relationship, there were already things like this that I wanted to fix for Christine's sake - ways that I always found myself apologizing for being impatient with her as she tried to figure out her plans for moving here, or that I blew her off by staying out late and missing our scheduled Yahoo! chat or whatever. I wanted her to know she was important to me and that I was going to keep going back and trying again until I got it right.

DISC TWO
I finally got to see Christine again a few days after Christmas, when I flew out to Hawaii to escape California's grey winter and spend New Year's with the woman I loved. We went to Waimea Falls with Christine's cousin Brandy and her fiance, and got to witness a spectacular cliff-diving show. This is a picture of the falls, flowing full force in the winter - it can degenerate to a rather pathetic trickle in the summer. Interestingly, it's one of my few Hawaii pictures that isn't overwhelmingly green. (Lost fans may recognize this waterfall from the episodes Whatever the Case May Be and Exposé.)
Where in the world is this?

1) "The Authority Song", Jimmy Eat World (Bleed American, 2001)
A rather amusing song about a jock who is up to no good, and who uses a jukebox as a tool to distract the women he's attempting to hit on. Sometimes I wonder if there's much difference between that, and some of my nefarious attempts to use the tried-and-true "mix tape" to get a girl to fall for me. Granted, I was never looking for a one-night-stand or anything, but still, sometimes I think I ascribed too much power to music, and some of those mix tape recipients must have rolled their eyes and seen right through it. Thankfully, this all ended when Christine came along, because I could mean every word implied by the song selection, and know that she didn't mind at all.

2) "Cute Boring Love", Blindside (Silence, 2002)
A rather accusatory song that talks about how it's easy and comfortable to let our guard down and blur the lines between lust and love. After all, isn't chastity and long-term commitment just a bunch of cute, boring crap? Obviously, I knew that it wasn't, but I could sympathize with the song's lament. Lots of people get sick of wasting their time trying to find something long-lasting so they settle for whatever can get them attention and pleasure in the short term, and then it becomes harder for guys like me who want something genuine to get someone to trust them that they don't have any ulterior motives.

3) "Anchor", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
This was an excellent power ballad that I still think ranks among Lifehouse's best - it's slow and takes its time to really build up, but it's a blast when it gets there, and the heaviness of the music supports the lyrics, which are about being anchored down by somebody. Does that mean they're your constant, someone who always be there to keep you from getting tossed about by the storms of life, or does it mean they're dragging you down? The song kind of leaves it ambiguous. I think Jason Wade intended the first meaning, but he wasn't opposed to the second one when it was brought to his attention.

4) "Overkill", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
This Men at Work cover is dedicated to my perpetual insomnia, which may or may not be related to my tendency to over-think my worries and have a tough time shutting my brain off at night.

5) "If Nothing Else", Over the Rhine (Films for Radio, 2001)
One of OtR's poppier numbers, with the layered instruments and programming and all that jazz, but it's also one of their cutest, most life-affirming songs. Basically, it says that we're all just a bunch of screwed-up people who still have a shot at seeing our dreams come true. It sounded like that fit me pretty well!

6) "FRGT/10", Linkin Park feat. Chali 2na (Reanimation, 2002)
Venturing into the moodier side of things is this surprising remix of a song that I never cared for all that much in its original version on Hybrid Theory - too much yelling and screaming. Here, it took on a quieter, sneakier sort of introspection, like an ode to life in some sort of a futuristic ghetto or something. I usually hate remix albums, and 'd never hold Linkin Park up as a shining example of artistic integrity or anything, but I think this track breathes new life into an old song in such an unexpected way that I just have to admit, these guys had a good imagination when they got around to applying themselves.

7) "Family System", Chevelle (Wonder What's Next, 2002)
This one's pure aggression, played to the hilt. I found it amusing that a band made up of three brothers could actually write a really good song based on their petty arguing with one another. Now that the tension between them has apparently forced one of the guys out of the band, it's not so amusing any more. Fortunately, the song still kicks ass.

8) "Ný Batterí", Sigur Rós (Ágætis Byrjun, 1999)
Sigur Rós was another one of those bands that seemed so obscure and esoteric from how they were described to me, that I assumed they'd be totally out of my league and I shouldn't bother, but someone's description of their album at Epinions gave me that "so descriptive I could swear I've already heard it feeling", and I got sucked in anyway. This ended up being my favorite track on their breakthrough album, with its melancholy horns and nerve-wracking drum pounding... it sounded like the aftermath of Radiohead's "The National Anthem", after the steamroller had finished running over the marching band.

9) "I Grieve", Peter Gabriel (Up, 2002)
Man, this side of the soundtrack gets rather dark, now that I look back at it. Strange, because I was in a fairly good mood for most of that year. But this was a devastatingly beautiful ballad by Gabriel - reworked from an earlier version that I had heard on the City of Angels soundtrack. it's simply about learning to let go and acknowledging that we came from the dust and will return to it - it's easy to have that knowledge and try to act stoic about that, but when you really lose someone, there's just no way around the grief process. I still don't fully appreciate what it's like to go through that process, having never lost anyone that I was really close to. I've lost friends that I knew sort of well, and family that I grew up visiting a lot but didn't have a super-close relationship with, and I've wrestled with God over why he chose to take those people when He did, but I've never really felt that void of someone super-close to me suddenly being gone, and knowing I wouldn't see them again in this lifetime.

10) "In Your Eyes", Nichole Nordeman (Woven and Spun, 2002)
Bringing the mood back up a bit is this Nichole Nordeman cover of one of Peter Gabriel's most famous songs (nice contrived segue there!), which kind of botches the ending a bit, but I still like the way she sings it and the way that her piano rings out. I like how she doesn't have to change the lyrics, but the song still plays extremely well in the context of Nordeman's album full of songs about God's sovereignty. It's one of those CDs that, despite being underwhelmed with it at first, I had a hard time putting down after a while. It had a worshipful theme without being a "worship album", and I could really relate to it at the time.

11) "Echo", Incubus (Morning View, 2001)
I can hear the old-school Incubus fans crying "sellout", and I'll admit that the slightly Eastern tones of Mike Einziger's nimble guitar playing here are a tad too close to "Stellar" for comfort. But honestly, they came up with a smoother and altogether more convincing love song this time around. It's about looking into someone's eyes (that part probably affected its placement here) and realizing that their love for you awakens you to the freedom to take risks, something which you'd been scared to be acknowledged before. They make you face your fears, and that makes you stronger. Considering what Christine and I were willing to attempt in order to be together, this one fit perfectly.

12) "Dizzy", Sixpence None the Richer (Divine Discontent, 2002)
I just wanted to swoon when I heard this one for the first time - it's a lavish piano waltz, with a deliciously unpredictable melody and a gorgeous string section, and it's all about being so in love that you're completely unembarrassed to do a little dance and spin around the room and not care who's watching. I'm not a guy who dances. I always find excuses not to do it when I'm at a wedding or whatever. But this one made me long so badly for Christine to be in the room with me just so I could gently swing her about in the privacy of my living room, despite not having the first clue how to avoid stepping on her feet.

13) "Bartender", Dave Matthews Band (Busted Stuff, 2002)
This was the indisputable climax of a somewhat difficult record by the DMB that took far too long to grow on me. I had loved this song ever since they brought it out on their Everyday tour back in '01 (it had been around long before that, but hearing it live for the first time really got my attention). This was perhaps a more sincere prayer than a lot of what I'd been hearing from Christian music lately, with Matthews' metaphor of God as a bartender, asking Him for the wine which brought Jesus back from the grave. Leave it to the DMB to mix alcohol and religion! But wine's an important metaphor in Christianity, so this one works as a sort of quirky communion song for me - taking stock of all the bad things I've ever done in my life and remembering that when I sip that wine/blood/grape juice/whatever you want to call it, I'm handing those things over, and should consider them forgiven and forgotten.

14) "Great Light of the World", Bebo Norman (Myself When I Am Real, 2002)
One of my favorite worship songs that year came from an unlikely source - a folk singer whose words and melodies had always seemed too plain to really get my attention. Despite how critical I was starting to become of the whole "modern worship" movement in CCM, Bebo's attempt to write such a song really caught my attention when I first heard it during his opening set for Third Day's Come Together tour much earlier that year. I was delighted to finally get an album version of it, and that turned out to be the song that roped me in and made me give him a fair shot and admit that he had a few other songs that were also really good, even if at the end of the day, bebo's still too mellow for my tastes. I figured this would be a good one to close out the year 2002 with - the hopes and dreams and lovey-dovey sentiments had all been expressed, the frustration and impatience and sadness over changes I haven't yet made had all been vented, and now it was time to give that all to God and say, "Complete this work that I cannot finish on my own. Come fill up my soul."

Soundtrack #40: September-October 2002

DISC ONE
The fall of 2002 was the longest period of separation for me and Christine, and the longest I've ever gone without seeing the other person during a relationship (I only have one other long-term relationship to compare to, and the longest I was ever away from Sharon was a month or so during that summer on Catalina Island in 1999). In some senses, it was agonizing, but at the same time, I was having a lot of fun. During the second year of existence for our neighborhood Sedaqah Group, it expanded and I found myself getting to know a lot of new folks. We celebrated a lot of birthdays together, we went to the beach together, and we went hiking together - including an intended trip to Solstice Canyon in Malibu that ended up being rerouted to Malibu Canyon because Solstice Canyon was closed. That had been a great hike in February, but it was hot and miserable in early September! This is a picture looking back out of the canyon from inside. (I may have cheated and used one of the ones from the February hike; I can't remember.)
Where in the world is this?

1) "1STP KLOSR", Linkin Park feat. Jonathan Davis (Reanimation, 2002)
Seems weird that I'd start a mix from such a happy time in my life with such an angry song, but the slow, creepy build of this remix made too good of an intro track to resist. I could never get into Korn, because Jonathan Davis always gave me the creeps, and he still gives me the creeps in his guest appearance here, but the song was a good outlet for frustration during the times when I was feeling a bit impatient with life, and the bridge of this song in its remixed version now sounded a lot less silly, and much more likely to put goosebumps on my skin and dump adrenaline into my system.
* First and only appearance by Jonathan Davis

2) "Spin", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
This was one of my absolute favorite rock songs of the year 2002. It's pretty much the antithesis of the previous song - this one threw caution to the wind and said, "The world may be spinning out of control, but this is exactly the way my life needs to be". It was an expression of pure trust in the One who pulled the strings and kept the world in motion. Christine was the chaos that I had allowed God to bring into my life that year. I didn't know where things were gonna go next, or what challenges we might have to face, but I knew that the boundary-stretching was good for me.

3) "Fad of the Land", Newsboys (Thrive, 2002)
This might surprise you, given that I work in IT and all, but I'm often rather slow to adapt to new technologies. For a while there, I was convinced that cell phones and PDA's and things like that were "the Devil" - well, not really, but I joked about it that way. I figured that we were just coming up with more and more ways to keep people busy, and at the beckon call of their jobs, their social networks, anyone who might call or message them at any time and interrupt their peaceful alone time - something I had learned was a precious commodity. So I enjoyed this song, because it made fun of mankind's need to always have the newest, latest thing in their palms. (It wouldn't be long, however, before I got myself into a cell phone contract. But I'm pretty sure I was one of the last holdouts.)

4) "Save Me", Remy Zero (The Golden Hum, 2001)
Most people know this song as the theme from Smallville. I actually never watched the show, and discovered the band without knowing that about them until later. To me, this song sort of represents a somewhat pathetic cry from a man to his lover, asking her to save him from his misery or whatever. The sad truth is that she can't do it. He's asking for something that no human has the power to do.

5) "Precious Illusions", Alanis Morissette (Under Rug Swept, 2002)
This one and "Save Me" linked together well, because this time around it's the woman expecting to be saved by a "Prince Charming" who arrives out of the blue and fixes everything in her life. That's the way it goes in the music video - well, in one half of the split-screen, at least. The other half shows the more awkward reality, which doesn't exactly resolve to a happily-ever-after, because he's flawed too, and ultimately, she doesn't need a man to be whole. This was an attitude that I was trying to reinforce as Christine and I made plans to be spending a lot more of our lives together - I wanted to hold firm to the belief that she and I could be whole as single people, and that we wouldn't rush into any deeper commitments just yet, because the intent was for our relationship to augment two lives which were already whole and fulfilling. I didn't want her to be put in the position of "saving" me, nor I her.

6) "Engage", Pax217 (Engage, 2002)
I don't remember the exact sermon, but I remember leaving Evergreen one Sunday afternoon, really jazzed about the idea of engaging contemporary culture. I'm the kind of guy who is usually unafraid to admit he's a Christian, but who isn't really forthcoming with the details, because I figure so many people have been there, done that with the whole Jesus story. I guess a lightbulb turned on in my head that told me, hey, it doesn't hurt for people to hear your story. Personal testimony doesn't change the fundamental spiritual truths that caused things to happen in your life, but maybe it can provide a different angle that allows someone to see Jesus in a way they hadn't before. Similarly, it can't hurt me to hear the stories of others. It's so easy to be wrapped up in the Christian bubble and not be receptive to the struggles and experiences in the lives of others - just 'casue someone's not a Christian doesn't mean God's not working in their life, or that nothing they say has any truth to it. The greatest evangelical tool is probably just listening and forming a simple bond between two humans, rather than emphasizing the differences that put you in different categories.

7) "This Is Not", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
I get easily frustrated with people who seem to behave like they're supposed to live out their whole lives pigeonholed into the role that society has laid out for them ahead of time. I think a lot of people miss out on their potential, on the creative and unique individual that God has made them to be. I guess this song sort of sums up my wish to help people find what's unique about them, in its own goofy, poppy sort of way.

8) "No Such Thing", John Mayer (Room for Squares, 2001)
My jaw dropped when I heard the opening guitar chords from this song - they sounded exactly like the intro that I had come up with for a song I'd written called "I Want to Sing" back in 1999. (The chords came to me in early 2002, since I hadn't learned to play guitar yet, back in 1999, so clearly neither of us copied the other, unless I had heard this song previously and it only registered in my subconscious or something. I later changed my strum pattern, just to be on the safe side.) Once I got over that, I found that I immediately fell in love with John Mayer's songwriting style - he was putting into words exactly what I felt about the so-called "real world" that loomed over me in college, promising that one day I'd be this all-grown-up working drone saddled with responsibilities and no room for playtime. You know what? It really doesn't exist. At least, it doesn't have to if you don't let it. Sure, you have to get a "real job" and take on a lot more responsibility and all that, but there's part of me that still has that wide-eyed wonder, that thirst for knowledge and exploration and experimentation, who still feels like a kid in grown-up-sized shoes. And I think I'd always like to feel like there's still some "growing up" left for me to do; it's the only way life stays fresh and fascinating. Even if I'm working 40 hours every week.

9) "Grey Street", Dave Matthews Band (Busted Stuff, 2002)
John Mayer and Dave Matthews originally got placed back-to-back because I thought they sounded very much like each other. Looking back, the pairing works on a deeper level because this song is about a woman who has given up on her dreams - she's the opposite of the youthful dreamer from the John Mayer song. Dave plays the role of the guy who is trying to remind her of the colorful life she once led - but she treats him like a crazy man who needs to be hauled off to the funny farm. I guess this represents the person I don't want to become - I have to stay on guard and not let pragmatism overwhelm idealism.

10) "Just to Get By", Pillar (Fireproof, 2002)
Say what you want about Pillar (and I'll agree with most of it), but this song had a good "action movie" sort of feel going for it, and it was in-your-face about something that warranted getting all up in-your-face about: Lukewarm Christianity. it's easy to belong to a society where you're good as long as you follow the rules and stay out of trouble, but who's really going above and beyond the call of duty and making a difference? Who's getting over their fears and taking actual risks?

11) "Circles", Incubus (Morning View, 2001)
I was quite delighted to find a theme of forgiveness, or at least the willingness to let go and not hold a grudge, running through so much of Morning View, and that's probably why I played that album endlessly in 2002, because it was something that I had to learn to do that year. This song is about a man who ends up face-to-face with the person who burned him so badly, and he's given the perfect opportunity to run the person down, but he decides to be merciful and drive away. What goes around comes around... until we decide not to perpetuate it.

12) "The Red", Chevelle (Wonder What's Next, 2002)
I suppose that some of these songs would have fit better next to the decompression of anger that was "One Step Closer", but I didn't want to frontload the CD with too many angry songs. This one's about being in that state of "seeing red" and just wanting to punch or break something and somehow get the point across that you're pissed off beyond the point of no return - I have enough of an easily frustrated streak in me to understand how that feels, even if it would never lead me toward physical violence toward a person. Sometimes the verbal explosions that come from it are enough to keep people at a distance - it's a habit I've struggled all throughout my life to control.

13) "Darkness", Peter Gabriel (Up, 2002)
A song about facing the things that scare the hell out of you. The whole reason I decided to check out a Peter Gabriel album (his previous one predated it by an entire decade, which is why I had never thought to check him out before) was because I was so intrigued by someone's description of this song's ability to startle them that I had to hear it for myself. And there's this loud screech after a deceptively calm period which does the trick rather nicely - but looking deeper, it's about the things that happen when you stand firm after the monster rears its ugly had and shouts "Boo!", and the realization that the monster is really just as much of a scared little boy as you are. I suppose there are times when fear is a God-given response that keeps us out of trouble - but sometimes I get so wrapped up in the fear of awkwardness or embarrassment that I allow those timid little monsters to puff themselves up and get me all freaked out over nothing.

14) "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face", Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002)
I was pretty stoked about A Rush of Blood to the Head when it first came out. Part of it was probably because Coldplay was on the verge of becoming immensely popular, and I was presented with the rare opportunity to be the first one to review their album over at Epinions (this used to excite me a great deal; now I realize it's better not to rush these things - no pun intended). I kind of had it in my mind that they were stubborn about playing slow songs, so I was delighted to hear a good number of "rock songs" on their new record, and I don't think I really examined the album more deeply until much later. This song's still solid, though. It's apologetic like many of Coldplay's best songs are - the guy's admitting to his girl that he screwed up, and pleading for grace. Any guy who's honest with himself knows what that feels like. I did this a fair amount with Christine when the long distance between us got the better of us, and I'd fail to be there for her on an evening we had agreed to meet up for a chat or whatnot. I failed to realize how much those little snubs hurt her, because I wasn't used to being with someone who valued quality time with me so much (in my previous relationship, it had been the other way around).

15) "Fly", Jars of Clay (The Eleventh Hour, 2002)
This wasn't one of my favorite Jars songs at the beginning, but as I learned what it was about (a guy offering comfort as he holds his wife's hand while she fights off a devastating disease), I grew to appreciate it as a song of support and devotion, a reminder to be strong for the one who loves me when she is hurting. Even when nothing life-threatening's going on, I learned during those months apart that Christine's mood could be greatly lifted by the simple reminder that I was there for her and that I admired, respected, and appreciated her so much. I tend to just assume a person knows these things and that I don't have to verbally express them all the time. But then, when she reminded me of some positive attribute that I already knew she appreciated about me, or expressed her feelings for me all over again, it wasn't like that didn't have an effect on me. It's amazing how easy it is to forget to say "I love you", and to not realize the effect that such words can have on a person when spoken genuinely.

16) "Less Like Scars", Sara Groves (All Right Here, 2002)
 fell in love with Sara Groves' sweet, homespun style immediately when I heard this song. it's a beautiful realization of how hindsight is 20/20, and how the things that hurt the most and that left some of the deepest scars on our souls turn out in the end to build our characters. if you've ever been so in love with something or someone that God knows is dangerous for you, and God chooses to intervene and basically do emergency surgery to remove whatever it is against your will, it can feel like you were laying awake throughout the entire operation, without anesthesia. That is to say, it hurts like hell. And it only makes sense later that the very thing you were kicking and screaming and trying to resist is what saved your life. This song helped me to look back at the things I'd learn after the break-up, and not only say, "Phew, I'm over it", but to actually thank God for how I had been changed by the stuff that I had to go through.

DISC TWO
To celebrate Winnie's birthday that year, a bunch of us drove out to the Oak Glen area, east of San Bernardino, to go apple picking at Los Rios Rancho, one of the many orchards out that way. It's a beautiful hidden area of the Inland Empire right up under the mountains that I never knew existed - lots of fertile land and green, forested areas. The particular orchard we went to actually closed down the area where paying customers could go in and pick before we had the chance, but we got to go on a quaint little hike that led us by a few streams and marshes, like the one pictured here. Just because of the various shades of green (my favorite color), this is one of my favorite CD covers that I've designed using a picture I took in California (as opposed to Hawaii, where pretty much everything is green).
Where in the world is this?

1) "We Are Tomorrow", Bleach (Again for the First Time, 2002)
Heather I and decided we couldn't get enough of Relient K after their excellent performance at Fish Fest, so we got a few friends together and saw them at the Glass House in Pomona that fall. Bleach was the opening band, and I hadn't really caught up with them since their first album in '96, but this punchy little anthem from their latest album proved to be a highlight. Overall, I couldn't tell the difference between most of their songs, and they left my ears ringing more than any band has in a great while, but they were notably energetic and fun; a good choice to open for RK.

2) "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything", Relient K (Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Soundtrack, 2002)
The day before the Relient K concert, Tim and I managed to convince a bunch of folks from Crossroads and some other random friends that we should go see the new VeggieTales movie on its opening night. it seemed humorously appropriate to go see a kids' movie with a bunch of college students and recent grads, since the series has a sort of cult following among that age group. I don't think some of them found it as amusing as we did, but I'm proud of us for doing it all the same. The next day, Relient K managed to perform their remake of the classic VeggieTales song all the way through (after telling us at FishFest that it was too complicated), which made for a great one-two punch following "I'm Lion-O". You haven't lived until you've stood amidst a crowd of a few hundred teenagers and college students, singing along to theme songs from kids' shows!

3) "Wash", Lifehouse (Stanley Climbfall, 2002)
Lifehouse's second album always makes me think of Linda, because I met her at a game party put on by some Evergreeners who invited both of our Sedaqah groups, and we quickly learned that we had similar musical tastes, with this album being one of the first that we discussed in detail over the many Emails that followed. However, it didn't take long before I started to learn that while we liked a lot of the same bands, we liked them for very different reasons, as evidenced by my infatuation with some of the "weirder" Lifehouse songs like this one, that she had trouble getting into, instead favoring some of the more straightforwardly spiritual/emotional ones (not that those were bad, mind you). So it's kind of developed into a friendly mutual antagonism since then. But it was the catalyst for me meeting one of my best reasons, and for some reasons she still puts up with me after all these years, so I guess I owe Lifehouse one for being one of the seeds of those early music discussions.

4) "Savior Song", Rachael Lampa (Kaleidoscope, 2002)
Well, this one's pure teenybopper guilty pleasure. Not sure I can do much to defend a song whose chorus is "He did it, I get it, and now I'm caught up in it." Once again, I blame Christine for my brief teen pop phase. I was trying to relate, OK?

5) "Breathing Life", Salvador (Into Motion, 2002)
This one had some pretty solid Latin guitar work, for a slick CCM pop song. It's about the last time I really paid much attention to Salvador, though.

6) "Your Kisses Blind Me", The Benjamin Gate (Contact, 2002)
After Christine visited in August, I made two mix CDs to send to her, which I hoped would convey enough nostalgia and romantic feelings to get her through the long wait before we saw each other again. One was called "HeavenlyHawaii's trip to California", playing off of a Yahoo! screen name she had been using when we first met, and that contained songs documenting the concert festival we went to and other highlights of her visit here, and the other was called "Love Songs for My Island Princess", a more romantic-themed mix. This song ended up on the romantic mix. It's much more of a spiritual song than a love song, with its cosmic metaphors and all that, but I figured the title alone would be enough to conjure romantic visions in her head, so I went with it. I've always been liberal about the definition of "love songs" anyway, because when I make romantic-themed mixes, I like to make sure that the music is diverse.

7) "I Pictured It", John Reuben (Hindsight, 2002)
Here's a track that definitely isn't a love song. It's all about being so turned around by a negative influence (in this case, a former girlfriend, so of course I related immediately) that you don't know which way's up, until you look back later and see all of the damage that was done. It took me a long time to appreciate John Reuben's stylistic shift on his second album - I remember describing it to Khat as sounding like Eminem. It didn't really, but the emotions on some tracks (like this one) were more raw, and he definitely amped up the goofiness on the party songs. This one, despite being a bit of an oddity, remained my favorite, especially with its seething climax that rivaled the creepy, claustrophobic approach of "X-Ray".

8) "Your House", Jimmy Eat World (Bleed American, 2001)
A plea from a guy to a girl that he knows he's going to end up losing, for her to stop trying to make him fall in love with her all over again. Nah, I never had anything like that happen to me. I'm actually grateful for that - as much as it hurt to get dumped cold turkey, at least it was a definite resolution instead of the numerous "temporary breakups" that a lot of couples seem to go through before finally calling it quits. Incidentally, I never could figure out the right timing when trying to duplicate the guitar strum from this song. It's tricky!

9) "Damage Done", Shaun Groves (Invitation to Eavesdrop, 2001)
This one seemed appropriate as an apology to follow up on the hurt from the last two songs - a guy who had burned the bridge between himself and a former friend offering to take the blame and rebuild. I seem to recall Shaun Groves himself pointing out that this song was true to life when he got involved in a discussion thread on the CMCentral boards (a place in which I spent far too much of my free time) on the subject of Christian songs that were "cheesy", which somehow escalated into a bit of an argument, which led to Shaun's effort to try to re-build the bridge even though he wasn't really the one at fault from where I stood. I appreciated him for trying to be the bigger person about it, though.

10) "Many Crowns", Jeff Deyo (Saturate, 2002)
This was a pretty rockin' song that wasn't too shabby in its attempt to recast the meaning of the hymn "Crown Him with Many Crowns" in more contemporary language. This, of course, was before Chris Tomlin took over in the "Take a well-known line from a hymn and make a completely different song out of it" department.

11) "Daylight", Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002)
This was actually my favorite song on Rush when it first came out - there was something incredibly hypnotic about the vaguely Middle Eastern guitar line and the sweeping melody. Why it took me so long to give "Clocks" its due, I'll never know, but I still think this one is an underappreciated highlight (if a tad repetitive, but come on, what Coldplay song isn't repetitive?)

12) "Candle", All Together Separate (Unusual, 2002)
ATS met a premature end for unknown reasons after their second studio album, but at least they finished strong with a good slow-burner of a song about a candle remaining lit through the wind and rain and various elements that it was exposed to. It seemed like a good, meditative, after-hours sort of song to put after the last waning rays of "Daylight".

13) "Maybe There's a Loving God", Sara Groves (All Right Here, 2002)
On the drive to and from Winnie's birthday party, I had the opportunity to talk with her younger sister Lulu, who was attending Evergreen on and off with Winnie at the time, but I actually wasn't sure if she was a Christian yet at that point. (I know she is now.) It sort of reminded me that I can't assume anything about people I see at church on a regular basis - they may still be seeking and asking questions before fully diving and committing themselves to a system of belief that I've taken for granted since I was a young child. Part of me wonders what growing up in a "secular" environment for these people, and likes to imagine that God was dropping little hints in their lives that would make sense later - a tendency to question the meaning of the moon and stars in the sky, and the world around them, in ways that the pragmatic adults trying to raise them didn't understand. Sara Groves puts herself in the shoes of a little girl who doesn't yet know God in that song, who insists that there must be something greater out there which she doesn't yet understand.

14) "Dunes", Iona (The River Flows, 2002)
The otherworldly flute in Sara Groves' song led perfectly into this instrumental track by Iona, which is a beautiful, crystalline composition evoking a peaceful landscape of freshly fallen snow (it's part of a soundtrack that they did for a BBC documentary ages ago, which was released as part of their box set, which of course I couldn't wait to get my hands on). Much like the quieter moments from Beyond These Shores, it gave me flashbacks to that trip to Tahoe during our alleged "Spring Break" in my final year of college.

15) "Melody of You", Sixpence None the Richer (Divine Discontent, 2002)
The unbelievably long wait for Sixpence's much-delayed new album finally ended in late October, and I was immediately enthralled by this gorgeous worship song, which deftly weaved together acoustic guitar, piano, and strings in a celebration of God's creative love. Though the language spoke of God as a potent drink or a painting, not your typical words of praise heard on Sunday morning, it immediately spoke to the reasons why I enjoyed leading worship - it wasn't to be made somehow more "holy" or to make other people think that I was, but to simply be a conduit as God tried to remind people of His creative genius transforming their lives into something new and unexpected. "A simple tune I only write variations to."

16) "The World Can Wait", Over the Rhine (Films for Radio, 2001)
This is the first really big influence that I have Josh to thank for - he championed Over the Rhine almost as if they were the Second Coming then (I exaggerate only slightly), and continues to do so today, and for that discovery, I owe him bigtime. I remember the day I sat quietly in my living room, reading a book while listening to Films for the first time. It was September 10, 2002, the day before the 1-year anniversary of 9/11, and I had a lot of melancholy thoughts on my mind due to that and due to a wearying debate I'd been having with some folks at the Rebel Base's forums (which I guess I also have Josh to thank for!) regarding predestination versus freewill. It troubled me to not be able to track down a clear answer to that conundrum, and to have to let go of my previous position that freewill must have been right simply because it felt better. As those words came from the speakers - "If this should end tomorrow, all our best-laid plans and all our typical fears" - I stopped dead in my tracks and wondered if knowing the answer even mattered in this lifetime. Not that it's bad to ask the hard questions, but knowing the answers (when they are even knowable) means nothing in comparison to truly knowing God - and this song was about the simple, beautiful peace of just knowing God and being known. The world can wait. The need to solve puzzles can wait. The constant demands of real life can take a breather, because I need this solitude, this chance to simply be with my genius of a Creator. Why do I so often get this backwards and tell God he can wait in favor of the myriad of other trivial things on my mind?