Daniel Amos Message Board | Print: raised listening to DA...

Posted by jiminy on 05-19-2005 at15:03:

other penny:

to me one of they highest compliments you can get as an artist is for someone to say:

I liked that thought- What did you feel while you were making it?

or -
that grabbed me- explain what you were thinking when you did it.

I think a bit of grab - and mystery - can work together to draw people toward your expression.

DA is masterful at it.

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-19-2005 at15:12:

Amen to that Cricket Cool

You just see so much of the other side in the music industry. You have some people who simply write songs for others to record and there is no heart or soul in it on either side. In fact I heard that many companies are researching technology that will find beats and melodies that will stick in peoples heads and make them buy the CD. Now we all know that a machine can never be an artist because it has no soul. And now you see where I got the ideas for lyrics on 50% of the songs (not to mention the band name) on my first Earworms CD Big Grin

I remember hearing an interview with Out Of The Gray and they said the deadline for the next album was coming up fast as per their contract and they needed songs. They had no inspiration and rushed to create some stuff. I believe Jerry had somewhat of the same experience. True and quality art comes without deadlines and contracts. Deadlines and contracts destroy art in music.

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-19-2005 at15:14:

quote:

Originally posted by dorfsmith
If you are interested I would be curious to explore this more and start a thread in the off topic section Tongue

If you would like to join me it will be called "What Is Art" Tongue

Send this to the next page for those interested Big Grin

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-19-2005 at15:15:

quote:

Originally posted by dorfsmith
Amen to that Cricket Cool

The Waiting had that experience too. They wrote some pretty angry rants in several Christian music magazines.

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-19-2005 at15:27:

I should also add ( to keep this on topic) that Terry Taylor has several great articles on art. They are just hard to find. Big Grin

Posted by Woggy on 05-20-2005 at11:51:

quote:

Originally posted by nomadmike

quote:

The starving artists are the ones on the forefront of true art.

Or they can just be incredibly stubborn hacks. Big Grin

I never looked at what I did as art, and I doubt anybody else would mistake what I did for it either. Big Grin

I did eventually look at what I did as craft and I did come to look at myself as an entertainer. The message don't mean a thing if it aint got that swing.

You're a cool dude, nomad.........

..............am enjoying your posts very much Smile

(from a NEWBIE DA fan! I never KNEW this music existed until about 3 yrs ago, when my brother introduced it to me......he posts here, too, under JimIny Smile

)
Which just goes to show you that, even when the music was popular, MANY of us never heard it...........................I became a Christian in the early 80's, but went right to CCM without knowing that there was anything else out there..........which is too bad.

Posted by jiminy on 05-20-2005 at12:15:

Wog-
well - its not too bad now, is it??

bushnell...bushnell....bushnell...........

Posted by Woggy on 05-20-2005 at12:23:

keep chanting, Beenie...........

if you chant it,
we will go Smile

Posted by jiminy on 05-20-2005 at12:33:

its the biscuits.......

Posted by Woggy on 05-20-2005 at12:44:

most soy-ten-ly!

Posted by Jerry Davison on 05-20-2005 at13:19:

Crap! I hate that I've been working so much that I missed out on much of this conversation. This is a question I struggled with for many years as a songwriter and musician. I will proabably continue to redefine what I think of as art until I'm dead and buried but here is my current two cents worth:

I think self expression and performance are both art. One is focused outward and the other inward, but both are legitimate. To me, art is tantamount to worship. I guess you could almost say I never really make music just for myself. Even when no one else will hear it, it's a form of communion with God for me. So there is always an audience.

I found a quote once by Oswald Chambers and put it in the liner notes to one of our CDs. I thought it really summed it up for me:

"The author (or in this case the artist) who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance...Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God's truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you."

So when I write a song, I always write for myself, trusting that there has to be at least one other poor sap out there who can appreciate what I'm feeling. Smile

)

Beyond that I try not to overanalyse music. It takes all the joy out of it for me. I don't mind music made for 13 year olds because a big part of me is still 13! Big Grin

I like lobster bisque but I can really get into a big bag of pork rinds, too. If ya take my meanin'...

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-20-2005 at14:22:

Tongue

Posted by nomadmike on 05-20-2005 at18:51:

quote:

You're a cool dude, nomad.........

Thanks Woggy, now convince my sons. Pleased

quote:

So when I write a song, I always write for myself, trusting that there has to be at least one other poor sap out there who can appreciate what I'm feeling.

That's usually the best way. I find myself relating more to songs like When Everyone Wore Hats, And So It Goes, and Your Long Year than the older work. I think the movement songs (for lack of a better phrase) were something I enjoyed as part of a group but the newer work I find more personal.

Don't know if this is on topic but for those who play, why do you do so?
For me I never felt that I was called to minister with music but I was a pretty good support player for those who did. I played because I enjoyed playing in a group, entertaining and just being creative, and I thank God that he gave me many outlets to do this.

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-20-2005 at19:01:

I play and record because there is something inside of me that is begging to be let out. Many out there wish I would keep it inside but it is out there driving people to the nut house as we speak Tongue

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-20-2005 at19:04:

I have always liked this Mark Heard quote:

"I think it is important for each of us as
creatures made in God's image to leave our
own individual marks--graffiti, if you will.
Whether that's done on vinyl, ink, words,
paints, actions, whatever, each of us bears
the responsibility to be honest about our
faith. Everyone can be creative in their own
perceptions of life, just to express things
in a new way. Trying to avoid clichés
helps life become fresh again, it helps us
remember what life is about in the first place."

Cool

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-20-2005 at19:17:

Not to fill this up with quotes but I just found an article that Terry did. It is slightly off the subject but very interesting.

Further Up And Further In
by Terry Scott Taylor
Release Magazine 1993

Songwriting is an act of courage. Mark Heard, I'm told, emerged from his studio one day, after writing one of his brilliant songs, and remarked to a friend, "This is either very good or really stupid". Mark of course was incapable of writing anything inept, but in that moment he articulated the dilemma every conscientious tunesmith, worthy of the craft, encounters in his quest to put into words an experience of life. Have I effectively written this in such a way as to enable the listener to participate in the depths of the experience, and emerge from it more human, more noble; in a word "better" than before? This is a tall order and a great responsibility, because, as we all know, there is power in words. Transforming power, (In the beginning was the Word), the power to move us closer to or farther from the Truth.

Many artists today fear poetry and imagination out of some misguided notion that their "message" must be explicit in order for it to be validated or they deem the marketplace too illiterate and fear commercial repercussions. These are sad commentaries on the state of the modern church. Francis Schaeffer once wrote "The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars". I dare say he'd be very disappointed today. In the best prose or lyric, more often than not, there is no specific moral, message or sermon attached. The most effective works are often filled with shadow, ambiguity, questions, doubt and longing, mirroring our own lives and the great unfathomable mystery which is God, in such a way that we are at once troubled, touched, and ultimately moved closer to the light. This is accomplished on an almost subliminal level, striking a richer, deeper resonance within us and putting to shame much of the pap which passes for art in CCM circles. The syrupy sweet, positive thinking claptrap cluttering the gospel airwaves today may provide a spiritual fast food fix and a great sugar high, but the rush doesn't last. Failures, estrangements, contradictions, betrayals and self-betrayals all conspire to bring us to that dark place where only the Spirit of God can reach down and redeem us. Many times the vessel for His Spirit is the courageous, transparent artist. Courageous because, in the end, the true artist must face and overcome doubts about himself and his abilities to accomplish his mission of integrity, self-realization and glory to God. All is certainly not lost, as there are a number of CCM artists who have mastered their craft and have achieved some success, but these are the exception. These artists have learned the power of language and metaphor, and use their words as brushstrokes and chisels.

Frederick Buechner calls metaphor the "language of God". The very fact that Holy Scripture is written in human language qualifies the entire text as metaphor (the Incarnation itself being the grandest of all metaphors- "And the Word became flesh"). Few lyricists speak this language. I count myself as one who is just beginning to learn it's intricacies. Humbled by an artistic landscape rife with failures and glaring lyrical inanities now encoded and preserved in the long life of the CD, I have, nonetheless, learned a little in the twenty years I have been toiling at my craft. I have learned that valid life-impacting music transcends the hit charts, the gospel cheers and catch phrases- transcends the very business of music itself.

The concept for Daniel Amos' newest musical endeavor "Motor Cycle", emerged from my own attempts to cast a mythical sheen over my everyday, sometimes mundane experiences. In this way I was able to build for myself a kind of metaphorical playground in which I could romp and run free, design and sculpt and paint lyrical conceptions that gave weight to it's simple messages of love , faith and hope. In other words, I wanted to go beyond the surface of things, allowing God to breathe between the lines. My desire was to create a partnership with the listener, wherein together we would set out on a personal voyage of revelation, discovery and unity with the Divine. I am often uncomfortable explaining my lyrics, just as a painter would be if asked to explain his painting. He senses that by doing so he diminishes their sublime revelatory properties. The words of Christ were not always delivered on a silver platter of explanation, and some of the harshest and most cryptic of these ("Eat My fleshdrink my blood") left his followers aghast These were and are words of courage that songwriters today can draw strength from. While there may be some merit, at times, to the notion that we must spoon-feed our listeners, we must also be prepared to pay the price for taking the artistic high ground with prophecies, parables, metaphors, allegories, myths and mysteries that much of modern Christianity may be uncomfortable with.

My heroes -- C.S. Lewis, Czseslaw Melosz, Buechner and others-- all bolster in me the courage it takes to risk rejection and failure- that which must be risked if we are to attain the artistic relevance in the eyes of our own listeners and our peers. I, for one, am thankful that Lewis in his grand Narnia fable, called his lion Aslan. He refrained from having to explain that Aslan was really Jesus Christ in disguise. I and my children, and my children's children all thank him for it. We have and will again discover it for ourselves, and in this is it's great and beautiful power to haunt us all the days of our lives.

Poetry has the ability to continually reveal new and fresh layers of illumination with each new encounter. It's truly a grand paradox that with ten words a songwriter can paint a picture worth a thousand or with a haunting melody create a mood which opens up horizonless vistas for the listener to partake of. To use the old adage- to create a whole which is greater than the sum of it's parts. The metaphor is indeed the artist's playground and within it's parameters, further up and further in, we call upon the children of God to join us in the frolicsome celebration of all that is known and unknown about this unattainable earth and the great unfathomable God we serve. Let's occupy it together, until that hour when Aslan returns and carries us away on the back of his wildness and ferocity, to places yet unexplored.

Posted by dorfsmith on 05-20-2005 at19:22:

Wow! I have not read that in a while and I posted it before re-reading it. That does have a lot to do with this conversation. Brilliant...simply brilliant Pleased

Posted by Dr Rich on 05-21-2005 at09:42:

I love that article. Pleased

Posted by wayneb on 12-25-2019 at21:40:

And now, Cornerstone is no more. DA are pretty much no more (but never say never, as someone once said).

I am part of the once dwindling group that still prefers a physical product in my hand....not a download. With the resurgence of vinyl, that group may also now be growing!
How cool is that quote from Terry? Still relevant!