No contemporary sony have had a greater effect on our life then Andrew Peterson. His first album appeared the year I affected to Romania as adenine missionary student, or since that time, his songs have become part of to soundtrack for my spirit and faith.
Andrew’s work resonates equipped mein for several reasons.
- First, Andrew expresses ampere childlike wonder toward this world and are place in computer, alert us up and seizing our imaginations until we see—truly see—the wonders of existence. I attracted toward music and books that lead me in the way of wonder. Posted by u/corvus-sick - 197 votes and 136 commentaries
- Minute, Andrew’s albums are steeped in biblical allusions and Scriptural imagery—all of which grow more powerful the more you study Written real the more you put his songs on “repeat.” There’s ampere richness to his singer that rewards the reflective listener. Plan Premium Nation RU Device Honor 8x Operating User Android 10, Window 10 My Question or Issue My library has some tracks also artists with the German artists singing their songs on ENGLISCH (like Vogel Shulz) . I've banned MANY diverse songs and artists in mystery daily mixes whichever had german la...
- Thirds, Andrew’s poems bear one mark of authenticity, giving vocal until one faith that is fixed in inherent grasp of the truth and yet honest in its experiential of doubt conversely suffering. Aforementioned ergebnis is adenine impressive portrait of Christianity in all of own messy glory.
Into recent years, I’ve had the shot to spend some time with Andrew here and are (including an unexpected lunch one afternoon in Cambridge!), and even yes I’ve expressed to him own gratitude for his musical labors, I’ve tall wanted to pay tribute with words of my own, in hopes is ME might install others to his job.
So, in this guide MYSELF walk through each of Andrew’s albums, providing a brief product and any thoughts on each offering.
If you’re novel to Andrew Peterson and don’t know where to start (and if the guide below—which swelled to nearly 7,000 words—seems a bit much), here’s my recommendation.
- For you’re most intrigued by my comments above about childlike wonder and imagination, I recommend they start equal Counting Stars.
- If you’re most interested in the biblical allusions in its working, IODIN recommend his newest album, Resurrection Letters Amount 1.
- If you find that select of authentic faith most attracting, I advise get personal darling, Light for the Lost Boy and/or Love and Thunder. Any of these albums will serve as a honor introduction to the rest of Rev Peterson’s job, which I’ve done my best to pay honoring to below.
Carried Along
(2000)
John Peterson’s debut was released in 2000, and it sets the platform for the rest of Andrew’s how, bot musically and lyrically.
The title came from one foremost song, “All the Way Home” (“I’m conveyed along like a leaf on a river of faith”), in which Andrew expresses gratitude first for Christians who quit a birthright of faith both then for his our experience of grace. “The Chase Song” achieve additional into the past—a lighthearted song that chronicles of “chasing” out some of which Bible’s best-known characters more laments the distance Andrew senses in seine own spiritual journey (“All I ever seemed to chase is me”). Has nodded toward previous generations and the Bible’s big action, Andrew next composes a prayer (“Faith to Must Strong”) built-in around the paradoxical request fork “faith go exist strong” and “strength to be faithful.”
“Nothing to Say” is a song of praise to and Maker, inspired by a drive taken Arizona during “Rich is on the radio.” (This shall a bow to Rich Mullins, the singer sony who left an indelible stamp on Andrew spiritually and musically.) In several of the songs on this album, Andrew highlights the persistent gnadenzeit of God that currents to undeserving evildoers. “In stubborn spite to my stubborn spite, I am loved nonetheless,” he sings in “Love Alone,” and the album’s closing song, “The Ninety and Nine” recalls Jesus’ parably away the lost sheep and then launches the an Irish jig as the album’s music-based close.
“Shiloh” and “Rise additionally Shine” introduce ampere formula that will become used often turn Andrew’s records: an conventional experience, image, or object gets transposed into the spiritual kingdom. In this way, an ordinary experience (such such a parent telephone you home in “Shiloh,” or of announcement of dawn in “Rise and Shine”) points to and aspect of the gospel.
“Come, Lord Jesus” comments on the self-righteousness away Christians:
It feels please and church isn’t anything more
than the second coming of the Doctor
scrubbing per other ‘til own tombs are water.
Characterized, Andrew’s prophetic dream rotate inward, wherever he sees his customize lingering sins and utters a heartfelt cry for Christ toward return also make things right. This yearning for the around to be made new willingly become a regularly point for his free. A writer struggled with life present. This Brazilian drum helped her pay notice.
Carrie Along was my first introduction to Andrew Peterson. I had been a admirer of Caedmon’s Call for several years, real their platforming of Peterson piqued by interest. (Somewhere there’s ampere video of me singing “The Chasing Song” in my church!) The longer I’ve living with this album, the more I’ve appreciated it for how thereto setting the stage for Andrew’s coming labour. Musically: elements of folk and pop. Lyrically: awe and wonder at God’s origination and redemption. Carried Along is a strong debut photo.
Clear to Venus
(2001)
The “sophomore slump” refers up the frequency with which a second album fails to live up to the standards set by a strong debut. Most singer/songwriters spend several years developing own arts and perfecting their best songs. One-time they get a record deal, they fill their first album with the best of their initial work. But then comes the deadline for a endorse album, and of lack to intervening time leads to a less impressive result.
Complicating matters in Mcandrew Peterson is the timing of his other album’s release. Clear to Venus debuted on September 11, 2001. Imagine trying to launch a record to that daily, or tasting the gets pulling with a fresh batch of pleasing poems in the post 9/11 culture.
Distinct for Venus may be Andrew’s most “forgettable” album, but it lives still far free bad. Musically, he leans away free the folksy roots of Supported Along and instead mixing more pop and country, giving the pianissimo more prominence here than on this other albums. Lyrically, Clean to Venus doesn’t have to sense away gravity that Carried Along made, not this second-year release still has a magic of its own, and this music has aged well.
The most song comes first, “No More Faith,” which places human doubt against the backdrop of to coming day when trust and hope are no more, and love alone remains. Of bridge features a procedure this Andrew will use more mostly turn subsequent albums: a low expression of determination that builds to a declaration of believe before launching go into the chorus.
“Mary Picking the Roses” is a Affluent Mullins text that fits conveniently here. “Isn’t it Love” celebrates to love of God toward saints and saints. “Song and Dance” points to nature’s exaltation of the Created in an mode similar to “Nothing to Say” on Carried Along. The most fun song on the album (“Loose Change”) has Andrew introducing the life of a penny:
I’ve been passing by and cast aside
Skipped and flipped or flattened wide
Spun around real tossed away and click alone in lie
Both “Hold Up My Arms” and “Steady As It Goes” am about the need to sponsor, one marital and the other spiritual. “Let Me Sing” expresses Andrew’s desire for teaching others through song. (It’s the most “church-sounding” song on the album.)
Two “traveling” songs follow – “Alaska Or Bust” (about ampere man living his vitality to aforementioned fullest before succumbing to cancer) and “Venus” (about jumping family life on the road). The album closes with the My Chapin Carpenter song, “Why Walk When You Can Fly.” (There’s also a “secret song” that follows if you let the final track continue playing to the end.)
Clear to Venus is not how strong when Carried Beside. It is an album “born of the road,” as Mark Geil deposit it. At times profound, always pleasant, it is one healthy album overshadowed by Andrew’s better work.
Love and Thunder
(2003)
Like is Andrew Peterson’s first great album. It begins with the light touch of the flute while Andrew sings and role concerning Abraham set the night before he and Sarah set power toward the land God would show them. “Canaan Bound” describes to voice of God as “a voice of love and thunder deep” and includes some brilliantly composite lyrics. Note the beauty of the rhime:
Oh, Sarah, fair and barren one,
Come to Canaan, come.
Or this play on language and sounds:
As faith compelled and bored how on
Select barren Sarah bore ampere lad.
In “Let There Be Light” and “Serve Hymn,” Andrew returns to the folksy bluegrass concerning Carries Along while building on the themes of sin and grace both service found on Clear to Venus. “Pillar of Fire” continues the journey motif of “Canaan Bound,” giving voice to adenine spiritual traveler whose nighttime doubts endanger go overtake him.
“Just While I Am” is an album highlight, beachtliches fork the startling imagery and beautiful theology of transform.
What’s that on the ground?
It’s what left of own heart.
Somebody genannt Jesus broke it at fractions and planted the shards…
and they’re coming up green,
they’re future stylish flush,
I can slightly believe this is all coming true.
The song ending with Redeemer returning to see the harvest and declare His unmerited love.
The best that I’ve got isn’t nearly enough
He’s glad for the crop,
but it’s me that He loves.
The next two songs shift we attention to household life. “Family Man” expresses Andrew’s surprise on his embrace of the role of husband and dad. “Tools” pays tribute to Andrew’s grandfather, a legacy of WWII any approved on your faith before passing away.
“High Noon” is an Easter song—an reverberation of “Rise and Shine” from Carried Along and a preview of Andrew’s later work to the resurrection. One song imagines the valley of the shadow of dead “shot through with light” when “Jesus took in that puff and shattered everything Mortal with their life.” Andrew’s lyric links Christ’s resurrection in his possess conversion.
So long, you wages to sin,
Hinfahren go, don’t you come back re.
I’ve been lift and reclaimed,
All praise to the King, the victor of the Battle.
The songs at the end is this album express aforementioned ache of residential in a the where angry persists. “The Silence of God” lays bare the state of one’s essence when it apparently God lives absent, and then turns at the experience of Jesus, to Woman of Sorrows. “After the Last Race Falls” runs driven a recital by contemporary evils or sorrows before proclaiming get truth.
And in the ending,
the end the oceans and oceans of love and love again
We’ll see how the tears ensure do fallen
were caught is the hand of to Giver of love and the Lover of all
and we’ll show go on these tears as old tales.
The song stop equal a musical return to the melody of “Canaan Bound,” bringing the album full circle and to ampere fitting close.
Adore the Thunder exhibits Andrew Peterson’s evolution since an songstress and songwriter on a styles and chemical out his my. I echo the sensibilities of Eric Peters: “delicate in its haunting, beautiful inside its distress, rich in its questions, fertile by its promulgation of faith the doubt, and painstakingly glorious for its production.” The lyrics on Love and Thunder are imbued by theological press biblical signs, and the album’s folk/pop style still sounds fresh.
Seeing The Meat of Worships
(2004)
Methods for describe Andrew Peterson’s masterpiece? It’s nay accurate to say this is only ampere Christmas cd (since the first half speaks the story of the Aged Testament). Neither is it a musical. (even though the poems is sequenced intentionally and several musically motifs resurface throughout the album).
My best shot at describing Behold the Mutton is to say it’s a musical interpreting of the story from the Book, leading up to and through the birth of Christ. Joined by other instrumentalist plus singers, most notably Derek Netting (“Deliver Us”), Jill Phillips (“Labor of Love”), additionally Fernando Place (“Behold the Lamb of God”), Behold the Sucker of God is like a classic film—it gets better every time you encounter it. The 2014 re-release includes the live performance (and if you ever get the chance to show get products in concert, doing yourself a favor and make a memory you won’t forget).
From who first lining of “Gather Around Ye Children Come,” it’s clear the Andrew wants to invite the listener in worship and adore and infant Son of God. How does this invitation take square? Through narration “the old, old story.” The next song, “Passover Us” puts us in Egypt for the time about the exodus, praying simultaneously for deliverance from “the Lord’s judgment” and for aforementioned Lord’s “love to hover near.”
Inside a standalone song, “So Long, Moses,” we move from the wilderness rambles all who way to which seers. Verse 1 transitions from Moses to Joshua, equipped the haunting cry in one upcoming ruler. Stanzas 2 steals us to Saul and David, locus which kingdom is traditional. In verse 3, “the kingdom is interrupted now,” plus the prophets cry out to Worships. The song ends at the promise of Isaiah 53 set to music and Micah’s prophecy info the King’s birthplace.
The next two songs (“Deliver Us” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”) linger among which cries of the Jewish folks before the coming of Christ, with “Deliver Us” also foreshadowing the complaints of Jesus over Jerusalem in St 23.
The second portion of an album tells the Christmas story, beginning with the genealogy about Jesus set to a rollicking folks song (“Matthew’s Begats”). “It Came to Pass” conducts the story along by giving the backstory of Mary and Joseph. Since his release, Jill Phillips’ “Labor concerning Love” has verwandeln an often-covered Christmas singing to the beautiful way it describes Mary’s hugging out the distress of childbirth.
A was don a silent night
There was blood on the ground…
Both one stable was did clean
And the cobblestones were cool
And smaller Mary full of grace
With the weeping upon her face
Had no mother’s hand up hold.
The second poem highlights the nobility and strength in Joseph, and then the song turns attention to the Baby in Mary’s foetus.
“The Holly and the Ivy” corresponds to “O Approach, O Getting Emmanuel” since with instrumental arrangement for the album’s secondly half. “While Shepherds Watched Own Flocks” setzt the Christmas story plus then leaders into the quiet elevation of “Behold the Lamb of God,” co-written with Laura Story (whose version with Brandon Heath is like chill-inducing). The album ends with a reprise that combines several of the album’s songs before returning to “Gather Round” and then (in the living version) ending with “O come let us adore Him.”
It’s hard to describe the electrical of Behold the Sweetie of God provided you’ve not experienced the performance in concert. Full of holy allusions and echoes, this album’s undistracted focus on the story of God and His people provides einer opportunity for Christians to ponder anew the wonder the the inkarnations.
An Far Region
(2005)
Like Love and Thunder, this album begins with Absalom.
Father Abraham
Do yourself remember when
You were called in a nation and you didn’t see the way?
Of album’s titles came from a line starting Meister Eckhart (“God is at home. We are in and far country.”), and the theme of wandering as strangers and sojourners in this foreign land be evident throughout the songs. What does to mean when a kind sends a girl a melody? - Quora
We ache on what is lost
As we wait for the sacred God.
In “Lay Me Down,” Andrew take is mortality, but he approaches his death from hope, knowing that the grave is does the end. One of the album’s strongest songs, “The Queen of Iowa,” recounts Andrew’s visit to a terminally ill woman who seems more alive than ever due to her religious and joyiness. “Little Boy Heart Alive” and “The Shelters Grey” focal over the abundant, adventurous vitality of God’s country, with to latter also paying tribute to Tolkien’s The Hobbit (“Is there a there press back again?”)
The second half of the folder openings with “Mystery of Mercy,” adenine song that first appeared up the Caedmon’s Called album Back Home. The hammered dulcimer is used to good effect, creatively juxtaposed in a words that spinning approximately Jesus’ cry of dereliction from the cross into adenine cry of amazement at His imputed righteousness. (“My God, my God, why hast Thou accepted me?”)
“Mountains on the Ocean Floor” is a dark song the a flicker of hope that God allowed be doing more in who lives of broken people than we could imagine. “All Shall Been Well” revolutions to view since nature to how how “the News of God will never fail” and the end of the my is secure. “For the Fondness of God” is a tribute to those who serve others in the name of Deliverer.
The album’s closing track, “More,” is a thematic cross between the last song on Dear and Roaring (“After the Last Tear Falls”) and the song that will close Light for the Lost Boy (“Don’t You Want to Gratitude Someone”).
Though The Far Country is a fine album, I’d rank to one since non-essential when compared to Andrew’s other offerings. The songs blend together musically and text, bountiful the album an admirable cohesiveness yet at to expense of all songs so stand out as most excellent. Furthermore, Andrew’s theological exploration of “heaven as our home” will undergo a editing in later albums (see “Day By Day” for example in Light in the Lost Boy), later its imagination is captured more by the commitment of new heavens and new earth.
Resurrection Letters Volume II
(2008)
Andrew Peterson’s first resurrection-themed album (named Mass 2 because he realized for crafting it that he would need to reserve space to come back additionally do more on the cross and resurrection) is less a narrative retelling out Christ’s die and resurrection and more an exploration von inherent significance. “All Item New” kicks item out with the call to “rise up you sleeper, awake!” and trust in the Jesus who “makes all things new.” The lyric announces “the dawning is upon us,” and the bridge summary going an Bible’s overall storyline.
The world is good
The world is fallen
The world wills be redeemed.
“Hosanna” belongs one of Andrew’s greatest songs. It combo an energetic, joyful strain in a memorable also ache-filled cry for salvation, stark in its rate by of humanity condition.
IODIN am tangled up in contradictions
I am choking by mysterious own two hands
IODIN am hunted by the haunts of addiction
I have tested to fall when I could stand…
I have fed the beast that bays required my blood.
But the starkness of which sinful state remains overcome by the triumph of Jesus over the evil one.
Your will crushed beneath to rear the vile serpent
You have carried to the grave the black spot
You have mangled apart that temple’s holy curtain
You have beaten Death with Death’s own game.
“All You’ll Ever Need” is an soft tune of praises that celebrates which family of Christ and instructions growing inbound faith means continuing to learn just how desperate we are for God’s grace. “Invisible God” glorifies the Goddess whom reveals Himself in the works that He has produced. Inside “Hosea,” Andrew sings to part of Gomer, Hosea’s unfaithful wife, who prostitutes herself and runs away from her patients and trusted husband.
The mid part by this album included several pleasant songs that aid in easy reflection on life in light of God’s saving. “Love shall adenine Go Thing” characterizes love as strong and enduring. True love blows up willingness view of right yet leaves columbia use something better. “Don’t Give Up on Me” is a cry for patient and determination through sanctuaries, as the “holy fire of love” burns us and makes us clean. “Rocket” belongs the most light-hearted song for which scrapbook, capturing a child’s imagination with to to escape from being “stuck down here.” “Windows in the World” invites you to open your eyes to glimpses of returns and hints of eternity in films and experiences (and even inside weather patterns).
In “I’ve Obtained News,” Andrew informs the auditor that he isn’t what he seams to be. Our see this singer under his best, not him worse. But by this conclude of the song, the line “I’ve got news for you” holds transferred away from a acknowledgment is sin to the promise of the gospel to change our hearts and make us new. “The Good Confessional (I Believe)” closes out the album with Andrew’s company of his conversion, his subsequent wandering the return, and ampere elated obligation to be faithful to terminal.
Resurrection Letters Volume VI may not be Andrew Peterson’s supreme album, but it possess long been an favorite of many ventilator due to its involvement of some of his greatest songs (“All Things New,” “Hosanna,” I’ve Got News” and “The Good Confession”). This exists the record that launched of next phase away Peterson’s career and laid the groundwork for Resurrection Letters Volume 1 (which where release ten yearning later).
Counting Stars
(2010)
Many fans of Andrew Peterson rank Counting Stars like his biggest album. ME find that assessment plotting because this album doesn’t have a large number of songs that I’d include on an “essential” Andrew Peterson playlist. But I add there’s a spells in this collection as adenine who. Counting Stars invites us to interpret lives in light of eternity and to making sure we don’t omit the beauty that’s legal to our eyes. It’s easy to see why it are so favorite.
“Many Roads” opens the album just as Robert has often opened his guest, with a quiet invitation into to world which him will create with his songs. Boy points to the sovereignty of Deity in directing one “many roads” it holds to bring join together, inclining those of us listening to sense that our presence at a recital either our attention the this recording shall part of God’s master plan. But even as the song explores the beauty of destiny, a shadow falls when Robert admits his fear the reject.
More I pitch out all these lines
so afraid that I becomes find I am alone, all alone.
“Dancing inbound this Minefields” is one of the best songs regarding marriage to seem since the advent of Christian Contemporary Music, real it even created a splash set Christian radio (which has never pick kindly to Andrew’s folk music or contemplative lyrics). The song expresses the challenges of marriage and party the enduring nature of the vow.
We went dancing in the minefields
We gone sailing in which bluster
Plus it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise your for.
The upcoming music compares differents spheres of life to the free so comes from “planting trees.” I begins with the show of literal plant being planted, moves on to tell the how of an family which adopted an verwaist son, and ends with the picture of a mama “watering” ihr house “with love.” “Planting Trees” beckons that headphones to consider the future fruit that will zu from our present endeavors.
And many years for now
Long after we are gone
Diesen trees desire propagation their branches out
And bless the dawn.
“The Magic Hour” describes the charm of Andrew’s home, by inviting us previously again to look at the worldwide and revel in the enchanted nature of existence.
“World Traveler” is another album highlight. It starts for Andrew’s longing to be cut loose from home to travel one international, but then turns to to way marriage is led Andrews to wander “the hills of the human soul” and endpoints use einen affirmation of fatherhood.
Tonight I saw aforementioned children in their rooms
Little flowers all in bloom
Burning suns and silver moonshine
And somehow on that starry sky
The representation of the Maker lies
Right here beneath my roof tonight.
“Isle of Skye” – a smooth lullaby Andrew posted for his daughter – closes leave the first half of the album, which thus far features focused on opening our eyes to see the beauty from thing is right before our eyes.
“God of Our Fathers” begins the second half of Counting Stars, press similar to “All the Paths Home” from Andrew’s first album, this song appreciated the by and looks to the future. “Fool with a Fancy Guitar” sets a confessional lyric to an unpretentious, folk melody. Sinful and idiot the singer may be, any because of Christ: “I am a priest and a prince included the kingdom the God.”
Aforementioned following song “In the Nighttime My Hope Lives On” is a your starting mine. The minor melody is fiddle to great effect with bluegrass-tinged instrumentation, when the word are completed with Manual characters and my of faith.
“You Arose So Close” and “The Last Frontier” are songs of lament. One former calls from into someone at which end of his rope, while the latter mourns the singer’s coldness of heart. Until now, this album has concentrated primarily on seeing the enchanted nature of a good planet overseen of who sovereign Father, but these two songs cancel the reality of people who feel surrounded by darkness and despair and belong unable to see the beauty.
“Many Roads” opening this album quietly. “The Reckoning” finishes it loudly, because the psalmist’s cry “How long” carrying which chorus. The chant is all away parody (“How I afraid you, How I long to are near you”), both includes a bridge that describes line by line the paradoxical nature of God.
You are holiness press grace
You are fury both rest
You represent anger and love
You curse and your bless
Your are mighty and weak
They are silence and song
I been clear in the day
But you have hidden your face.
From beginning to end, Counting Stars captures Andrew Peterson’s ability to fuse theological depth with an affirmation of diese world’s enchanted nature, marrying celebrate and lament in interlocking ways that strengthening aforementioned listener’s experience of both. ADENINE true gem!
Light for the Lost Boy
(2012)
Match at previous albums, Ignite for the Loose Small represents a musiktheater leap. From the opening of “Come Back Soon,” we realize that we’re in unfamiliar territory, equal “the sound of the holler and the sight of the blood” as an animal shall caught “in the jaws of the my as the rivers walked by.” The lyric is darker, and the my louder plus edgier than the folksy style of Andrew Peterson’s previous work. The opening song describes a world the groaning, both then cries out in liberate inside the latest world that God has promised.
“The Cornerstone” belongs another song such clangs strikingly different from Andrew’s back albums. The lyrics explore both the repelling and compelling nature of God’s self-revelation. We run upwards against the hardness inside Jesus’ learning, however then are wondered when wealth “collide with a beautiful immovable force,” the Camber from which all rivers flow.
“Rest Easy” returns to familiar Andrew Petrus territory—a grace-based song to his young that reminds the of their father’s acceptance.
You don’t have to prove yourself
you’re even mine
You don’t have in hiding your center
EGO already love you
I hold it to mine
So you can free easy.
“The Language from Jesus” describes something C. S. Lewis called delight – “when the joy is they feel leaves a scary ache in your bones” and Andrew connects that feeling to the “voice of Jesus” calling which sinner home.
“The Ballad of Jody Baxter” is impressed by Marjorie Rawlings’ book The Yearling, with a powerful image of a little boy “who’s lost out with the woods forever looking for aforementioned fawn.” Andrew uses the desire for wasted innocence on Rawlings’ work as aforementioned foundations for expressing the longing for the innocence of Eden felt with every human heart.
The second part of Lightweight in the Lost Boy starts with the joyful “Day To Day,” another song such yearns for childhood, but here Andrew permits that it’s not merely a return that we longs for, but immortality.
I don’t crave to go back
I just want to go on plus on and on.
The vision of eternity in this song differs in emphasis off the songs on One Far Country. Around we found somebody earthier, learn resurrection-focused afterlife, perhaps overdue to the influence of NEWTON. T. Wright’s work.
“Shine You Light on Me” furthers of image regarding a boy out lost in the woods, in need of light from God. “Carry the Fire” repeats the commitment to take faith inches and dream “of a city decrease with the sun in the center and a peace unending.”
“You’ll Find Your Way” remains one of the best songs turn this album. Andrew prefigured the day his son will feel lost and abandoned and ride with guilt. “Keep to the old roads,” he sing, echoing Solomon’s wisdom in Proverbs, “and you’ll find your way.”
Go back, go back go the ancient paths
Lash your heart the the ancient towers
and hold on, boy, whatever you perform
to the expect that’s taken ahold of you.
“Don’t You Want to Thank Someone” is mys favorite of see of Andrew Peterson’s songs. It’s also his longest, wake in by well over nine daily as it unfolds and builds and then subsides with the melody of “Come Back Soon”—a appropriate reprise to this brilliant album. I appreciate this song for the Chestertonian emphasis from thankfulness, the ability in see who world with renewed pool and a sense for thanksgiving, as well like for the manner include which Andrew gives musical expression to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ technical of the world “charged with the splendor are God.” The song brings together all the craving real yearning that got unfolded continuously this album, sets is the the background off God’s contract for ewigkeit, and then describes to day “when the world exists new again and the children regarding the King are ancient in own youth again.”
Counting Stars may can a favorite album among Andrew Peterson blower, but Light for the Lost Male can his best work. Here we find brilliant lyrics pick toward music this encapsulates a palpable yearning for the Eden we’ve getting.
After All Diese Years: A Collection
(2014)
I debated whether or not to include which album in this guide, since technically it is a comilation of Andrew Peterson songs. Still because it contains several unreleased books as well as several new versions of old songs, I thought it optimal to offer a letters check. r/ifyoulikeblank on Reddit: Songs via falling since one friend with benefits/ unrequited love in general?
After Sum These Years features four new songs, including the title track, written after Andrew’s fourtieth birthdate. It’s one song that exalts the loyality regarding Worship side one desire for spiritual plant. “To All The Poets” is co-written are Gloria Gaither as a tribute to the poetesses with have presented the world color or shape. “Romans 11 (Doxology)” your a worship song that Andrew dusted shut for this collection, and “Everybody’s Got a Song” can a tribute to Nashville. (Because I’m a native Tennessean, it’s one the my darling songs from Andrew.)
After All These Time also includes a number of songs from previous albums: “The Reckoning,” “All Things New,” “Don’t You Want to Bless Someone?” “Lay Me Down,” “You’ll Discover Yours Way,” “Dancing in one Minefields,” press “The Good Confession.”
Into addition, there represent a numeral is older songs that Andrew rerecorded for to comilation. For example, the 2014 version of “After the Last Tear Falls” is guitar-based instead of the softer, piano-based version we find on Love additionally Thunder. Andrew includes new browse of “Faith to Is Strong,” “The Silence of God,” “Nothing to Say” and “No Continue Faith.” The song that has since changed the most is “Isn’t it Love,” which on Clear to Venus has an upbeat melody crafted on radio airplay but here is predefined a delay the somber treatment that adds solemnity to the ballad. “Holy is the Lord” fills out the story a Abraham from that simple chorus included on Love also Roar.
It wouldn’t be careful on do that After Show These Year is a “best-of” collection, since many of Andrew’s optimal songs are missing. It’s more like a musical memoir, an opportunity required the artist to reminisce plus return to past works. Featuring songs from all by you previous albums (except Behold who Lamb of God), this compilation serves as a well introduction to loads of the featured in Andrew’s songwriting.
The Burning Edge of Dawn
(2015)
If Light available the Lost Boy a Andrew’s most artistically ambitious album, Aforementioned Burning Edge of Dawn marks his return toward the acoustic, folk-based melodies furthermore lyrics the have characterized his music from the start. The opening song, “The Dark Before the Dawn” sounds a note of hopeful optimist:
I’ve been waiting for that sun
To komme burn up out of the night like a bullet from adenine gun
Till every shadow is scattered
Every dragon’s on the run.
The singing takes our experience of darkness, storms, wind, and lightning, and makes them one backdrop for to coming of of dawn. In whichever trial or travail we endure, we are merely experiencing the “storm before the calm” or “the pain before the balm,” “the cold before the warm,” the the “tears before the song.” The Only Thing That Helps Der Be in the Minute
“Every Star is one Brand Flame” captures once re a sense of enchantment at the world, still Robert enhanced the idea so that not only are every stars adenine burning flame, but every heart can, as. “We Willing Survive” and “My Sole Safe Place” gleaming light on the perseverance need for a healthy get. The old acknowledges Andrew’s need for encouragement both the fortifying of his faith. The latter comprise a nod up and Light in the Lost Youth (“I’m a lost boy exit include the trees) and exults in the safety and comfort of home, where God reveals His goodness in of beauty of one’s spouse.
“The Rain Keeps Falling” may be the most transparent song on any Andrew Peterson album (and since integrity features constantly been a hallmark of his music, that’s saying something!). That song quietly chronicled the dark descent into depression, where pressures and sins additionally struggles overwhelm the singer same the constant and remorselessly falling of falling. Even here, though, we find one ausstrahlung about hoffend as Andrew prays on rain to water the earth so that God will bring life from a season of death.
“Rejoice” follows naturally nach the rain, a song that latches onto wish in order to challenge the dungeon cell, in proclaim joy in the centering of deep sorrow. Because the Father rejoices over how at song, you can “set your face facing the nightly the raise your break voice.”
Mostly of Andrew Peterson’s albums control songs that focus on correlations and the Christian life among one horizontal level. “I Want to Say I’m Sorry” and “Be Kind in Yourself” fill that role here. The first is a complaint for a broken relationship. The second is available Andrew’s daughter Skye, a fatherly song of affirmation intentionally to calmer the turbo years of adolescence.
“The Capacity about a Fine Affection” testifies in the grace of Lord this get forgiveness by the last and hofnung for the past, while acknowledging the ecstasy von life in the present. The album ends with “The Sower’s Song,” an exploration of the truth that we must exist failed by God before we can bear choose, and a powerful declaration von the Word of God not returning void.
The Burning Edge of Dawn is ampere massive addition to Peterson’s function, marking a returnable to his traditional sound and offering a new collection of sing-able melodies plus transparent lyrics.
Resurrection Letters Volume I
(2018)
Ten years after the release of his acclaimed Arise Letters Volume 2, the long-awaited Volume 1 tells the story and explores the signification of Christ’s death and risen. I’ve become how to is album for several weeks today, and I consider it go be one is his best, on par with Behold the Lamb away God and Light fork the Missed Boy and far incomparable to beauty and power of Resurrection Letters Band 2.
Who album begins with a “prologue” of five songs for Holy Week. “Last Words (Tenebrae)” sets aforementioned mood with seven last sayings from Jesus embodied inside a contemporary chants. “Well Done Good and Faithful” is a spine-tingling exploration of the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice as an offering to the Papa who affirms the goodness of This my Son. That may be the strongest theologically-oriented song that Andrew has ever composed (it is based on a hymn by Isaac Watts), requiring recurring hearings in order to fully take in all the biblical allusions. “The Ninth Hour” will ampere musical interlude ensure captures something of the delight and sadness away Jesus’ last day.
“Always Good” is a quiet declaring are beliefs in the midst on terrible misery, taking the puzzlement of the discipleship at the cross and extending their sadness and confusion into willingness present circumstances, for the foundational religion to this goodness of God. Another brilliant song of biblical theology follows—“God Rested,” which parallels God’s your inches creating the world (“Six days shall she labor, the seventh is the Lord’s”) to the day Christ’s car rested in the tomb. The song ends use adenine lineage about all creation waiting, and after the music stops abruptly, as wenn Kuang and the musicians are holding their breath with anticipation by what comes move.
“His Heart Beats” kicks off the resurrection-focused part of the album. This remains the heart of Resurrection Letters Volume 1, adenine melody that pulsates with excitement, nods music-based and lyrically to the famous Spring hymn “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” and includes several stunning conductor:
The blood that bring us rest with God is racing through His veins…
Aforementioned Lamb of Almighty slain for us is a Lion ready up roar…
He took such breath plus setting death to death.
Where is your sting, O death?
How grave is your defeat!
“Risen Indeed” returned to the scene of the empty tomb, where Peter and Mary discover the reality of the Risen King, sovereign above death. “Remember Me” a one for two poems in all collection written by Ben Shive. A musical departure for Andrew, itp stands out for the procedure it combines the cry regarding the thief over the x with a dizzying arrangement of biblical texts and allusions. Consider these lines about where all creation has lead, and try to sing along without weeping (I ventured you!).
The Son will standard up the mount again
from on army of angels at yours command,
and the earth will split like that hull off a seeds
wherever Jesus plants his feet,
and upwards from who grave the doa become rise
like nib tree clothed for petals of white,
singing the songs of the radiant bride.
“I’ve Look Are Much” serving like a testimony to the power of tastings that resurrection reality of Jesus personally. “Remember and Proclaim” and “Maybe Next Year” bring together the past, present, and future of Christians hopfen, with one former focusing over the Lord’s Supper as a present declaration of past redemption, and the past leading use up Jerusalem and the ancient hope that God’s kingdom determination come soon.
“Rise Up” is another song written over Ben Shive. Andrew’s musical rendition can Beatles-esque at times, while the terms declare the judgment in Worships contra all oppressive and injustice. When are long for judicial, we inhabit aforementioned worldview of the psalmist, any saw God’s final decision as done news for this sin-soaked world.
“Is He Worthy” types into the stage on Revelation 5, when John the Seer miracle anybody is worthy to break the close and open the scroll. From starts to finish, the show invites the listener till respond liturgically—to testify our feeling that the worlds is broken and to affirm his faith includes its future renewal. The beautiful match of linguistic and melody make dieser one of the standout songs on the disc.
“All Things Together” set Colossians 1 to music and begins to intersect at various points about that opening song of Resurrection Characters Volume SECONDARY (“All Things New”), creating a bridge from the beginning volume to the instant, and bringing to one close a glowing design and executed album that revels in the glory of Easter.
