What's the deal with 85 + Direct Address? (+ lyrics)

May 30, 2018

I STARTED WRITING THE SONGS THAT WOULD BECOME 85 IN 2014.

I was about to graduate from college and deeply soul-searching as I considered my role in the world and the direction I wanted to go. I was profoundly uncomfortable with the doubt and aimlessness that followed the shattering of my worldview the previous fall, and looking for ways to move forward. But I didn't know what that could mean, or how to do it.

Should I try to find God yet again, my faith rising from ashes? Should I seek comparable freedom and beauty elsewhere? The latter seemed impossible after spending over a decade in the evangelical church, but the ashes were getting cold.

I'd already attempted to use music to work out my problems. In September of 2013 I released my first set of songs under the name Fatal Flaws. It was a way to examine the pain of being gay in a church that didn't accept me, to take it outside of myself and analyze it as a separate object. It was about falling in love for the first time, and the cosmic distance that had created between the God I knew and the future I wanted. It was called Direct Address, and consisted of a 25-minute shout, asking God to restore my joy and confidence. Unintentionally, it followed the emotional beats of many Psalms.

The lyrics of that EP are painfully honest, and you can see how paralyzed and confused I was:

"Is everything so purposed, even a deep-set thorn that keeps on digging? / Does obedience require that a heart be torn or beaten?"

"As the surgeons now reveal me / I will hide my scars by displaying them proudly on my two feet / and I will walk your whitewashed main street / under wooden beams--which marred themselves--have seen a pair of scarred feet"

"And then came the doubt and questions about your name / your goodness, were you real? Were you sane? / Do you care about anything I want? / Why withhold such a common gift? / Love is seeing Your face. Who to see it with? / I will wait here alone"

The EP ends by asking God to reclaim my fate and restore what I felt was slipping through my fingers.

"If you’re there, bring me something new / I am scared, and I need the truth / Bring me back / if you can"

85, this time intentionally based upon a Psalm, follows a similar emotional arc. They are through-the-looking-glass versions of the same story: pain, through struggle, breaking open and releasing me into a new and more true reality. The content of that new reality and the Truth I moved forward with, however, were entirely different.

Only now, looking back, do I see the parallels. In both, I was fighting so hard to accept myself, to grow beyond a flat, compressed existence into a life that would allow breath, space, and love. In both I interrogate and question the moral authority of a system that kept me in a box for so many years. I have so many privileges, and even so, the cage was hard on me. Both works ask how that could be right, let alone the harsher treatments given to those further from the mold?

I wrote the main body of 85 in 2014, but I was scared to release it. I was too sensitive, too close to it, too raw. On top of that, I was still processing my sexuality. (I would publicly come out in January of 2015.) Late summer 2017, the songs resurfaced, and this time they didn't scare me. I began to work, rebuilding the record with new vocals and instrumentation, two new songs, and nine interludes. It eventually added up to the most honest statement I could make about how I processed the faith of my formative years.

TL;DR,

85 is about seeking truth and love at all costs, even if it tears the heavens down around you (which for me, it literally did). And it is about arguing that it's worth it. The album exists to promise that you too can work through pain, shame and poison, that the images of hell will go away, that the fear isn't permanent, and that life is abundant.

"And still today I am working / To love myself as I am / Freer than I’ve ever felt / Ask me to go back I’ll say: No"

Direct Address (Remastered) is now available on Spotify and Apple Music.

85, of course, is available as well. Spotify | Apple Music

 

Lyrics

 

85

I

1 Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

BLOOD AND GOLD

You did so much for this land / Kept us close, brushed back the sand /Gold and blood flow through our veins / What we lost has been regained

Milk and honey / drown our sorrow / we will follow / til tomorrow / You were faithful / let us praise you / We’ll grow fat / forget the days when

Things were bitter, we drew near / Faith from weakness, joy from fear / Measuring your / favor in these /shining things we / pray will save us

II + III

2 You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin. 3 You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.

A YEAR

My God, it's been such a year here  / We hated you / My God, and what you did was fearsome / A burning arrow

Who knows if it would all have happened / Regardless / We were reminded what your wrath was / A withering. / A withering.

You took away the flames you set / Only you could have undone it / A glance aside or rain in the desert / The branding steel is gone forever

An ocean cool that seeks to temper / Will fall from clouds less dense than I remember  / The angry sun in peace descending / Will mercy follow anger’s ending?

IV

4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation,and put away your indignation toward us!

PROMISE

What mystery, what love so cruel / So trusting, are we all fools? / Such favor, it feels naive / That you’d break our slavery

We were wrong, and we know you don’t lie / Please restore our hearts and our eyes dry / Put away your anger and your threat / We are weak, but we will serve you yet

Songs from pain now fill the room / Stones start rolling back from tombs / Life has brought us to our knees  / Simply hoping we’ll be freed

If your love runs as deep as they say / If your hold on our souls cannot break / And if you have chosen us for more / All we ask from you is to restore / Do not keep us in the dark for long / Sitting in the silence feels so wrong /Do not be so deaf to all our cries / Let the world see favor in your eyes

V + VI

5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? 6 Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

MY HAND TO SEVER

What’s there to say? What’s there to do? / Where can we go? Who else but you? / Your silence now, cuts deep as hell / the sinking heart, the dark motel

And will you feel anger forever? Should I make an effort / to prove to you the depths of my re-morse? My hand to sever?

According to the law you gave, we have no power ourselves to save / How is it fair to blame our falls on something we can’t change at all?

And will you give us a pardon? Our prison warden / remains our flesh and bone, Camera obscura, the river jordan

VII

7 Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

SET UP WRONG

Give me everything that I could ever want / Yes you tell me without you I am lost / I’d understand it if I were responsible to / Do the right thing all the time, not mess up / Maybe a few mistakes allowed for good luck / But painting us from the beginning with prison stripes is

Very confusing, dependence is not a strong suit of mine / Within this system we’re infants, so lost and alone / We began with this chronic condition of hubris and death / We’re just set up wrong

Tell me everything that I could want to hear / Reassure me that you’re stronger than my fears / I really like when you turn water into wine / It’s very nice of you to try to save us all / When I am feeling lost then I’ll give you a call / But I think until then I’m gonna do

Every thing that I want to, it’s like thanks but no thanks / I don’t need your help to have fun, you’ve, got so many rules, but / I’ll be back when everything’s done cuz you’ve taught me that my heart is set up wrong

It comes down to whether I trust you, or not, and do I / believe your story about makes humans crazy and broken / and sad, and are you the real solution for everything that / Is set up wrong

VIII + IX


8 Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. 9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.

I AM LISTENING

I am listening I am listening I am listening I am listening I am listening

X + XI

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.

GLORIOUS THUNDER

Everything is coming together / I can see it more than ever / Things falling into place and uh-opening up gates / It’s growing, and I’m glad we’re embracing / The water is awake and the sky is made of lace / we’re floating, surrounded by space, yeah

The world looks dark but still it moves / I feel us going upward / In love and peace all things improve /Hearing that glorious thunder

We’re beaten with our failure / We hear it, every murder / But just because we know all the ways justice is slow / Don’t panic, doesn’t mean the pain’s forgotten / The wear on the world shows, and the icy wind it blows, but / We’ll heal it, though it feels that we’re drowning

XII

12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

MARCHING WEST

When will stop begging for more / I’m tired of marching west / Looking in mirrors, we are not poor / we own the rest / Feeling disaster approach our house / we strike the other / Willing amnesia to erase doubt / we killed our mother

All of this land is mine / God told me / God told me / All of this land is mine / God chose me / get off of it

This is the legacy that we leave / To explain away mass graves / Heaven instructed us to go save / They’re better off this way / Mind splitting open we push it down / We can’t confront this shame / Say to your mirror: “it’s all over now, aren’t you glad times have changed”

All that you have is mine / God told me / God told me / All that you have is mine / God chose me to profit / All of this land is mine / My fathers controlled it / None of this is a crime / a joy to behold it

Give it up, you no longer own the place where you were born, your ancestors are gone and so are you / What are you gonna do? Give it up, give it up, give it up. / Give it up, we do not even know just what we stole, and in the process we gave up our souls / Within us bones corrode, Oh Jesus, our humanity, we gave it up

XIII

13 Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.

NO!

I’m afraid of what comes next / I am tired but I find my steps / I loved my certainty / But even better being and true and free

I used to think that I needed / Someone above holding my hand / That giving up all I wanted / Would open up space to function / At higher planes of perfection / Where I would learn endless lessons / And I would be held forever / No earthly love could be better / That my desires were all idols / That I deserved the tears I cried / That life is just a passing moment / It’s almost better to die

No!

I’ve learned my heart’s not dead / Never was no matter what they said

So fucking glad that I made it / I thought about other exits / But there was still light inside me / I trusted love let it guide me / I worked through pain, shame and poison / Started to feel more alive / Undoing years of compressing / Trying to learn not to hide / And still today I am working / To love myself as I am / Freer than I’ve ever felt / Ask me to go back I’ll say

No!

Direct Address

WE NEED TO TALK

We need to talk we need to talk I need to talk to you I need to talk to you

STORY

The time comes, the figure enters in on the leftmost side. The curtain up, the lights focused below. A childhood not so different from most; learning shame and pride, trying to find a place in a world so wide.

Then confusion, angry prayers, and the wish to be another. Disappointment both from others and yourself. “If you love me as much as you say you do, help.”

So frame it as compromise, as a fatal love. In your voice they rationalize, neglecting their duty of love. But is everything so purposed, even a deep-set thorn that keeps on digging? Does obedience require that a heart be torn or beaten?

Then guided, only chance, the discovery of one I respected. Sometimes life is a dance, a surprise. A decision then, to believe at all cost, the only thing that won’t make me feel lost. Ah.

FEET

My feet are full of extra pieces that collapse under the pressure as I step into the unsure, and I cannot remove them because each is a necessity; so bill me to sustain me till they kill me.

An inheritance of brokenness, a glass of shards of glass, and then a cast, a mold reflecting all the fractures in my past. And as the stabilized mechanics let me throw the crutch aside, I feel the warmth of oxycodone mixing with the rush of pride. Aaaah.

And as the surgeons now reveal me, I will hide my scars by displaying them proudly on my two feet, and I will walk along your whitewashed main street, under wooden beams--which marred themselves--have seen a pair of scarred feet.

I inherited this “brokenness” which silently He passed without a word, though he gave many on our fractures and our lack. Would he welcome these mechanics? Hold a crutch to wounded side? How much can I love my brother? How much have I killed my pride? Aaaah.

EIGHTEEN YEARS

Eighteen years, just thinking I did not deserve love, and satisfied with words from above: I am pleased with you when your heart is clean. Then a time of new life, new growth, and new love, more real than a descending dove. I was terrified. I was mesmerized. Then it broke. He proved all my fears were real. Please, please, can I know? Would you be so cruel to make me do this alone?

Then two more. Both times I thought it was the right choice. Both times I tried to follow your voice. I was confident and I tried so hard. And then came the doubt and questions about your name, your goodness. Were you real? Were you sane? Do you care about anything I want? Why withhold such a common gift? Love is seeing Your face. Who to see it with? I will wait here alone.

I will try to love you, but I’ll need someone by my side to love me. (Your promises are new every morning, every morning.)

BRING ME BACK

If you’re there, if you’re there, if you’re there, bring me something new. I am scared, I am scared, I am scared, and I need the truth. Bring me back, bring me back, bring me back. (You said you would, you said, you said you would.)

I have been with your people so long. I have been with them most of my life. I have seen them do some things all wrong, and I’m not sure that I need a wife. Bring me back, bring me back, bring me back, if you can, if you can, if you can. (You said you would. You said you could never forsake me. You said you would, you said you would. You said you could never forsake me.)

Bring me back, bring me back, bring me back, if you can, if you can, if you can.

SO IT GOES

We are born broken temples waiting for someone to enter and to make us magnificent, to take that sense of loneliness we feel from our childhood. We all want to feel understood by our peers and those we love. What is this barrier between us all?

So it goes around again, it seems a broken man can break a man, and we’re burning bridges that we’ve yet to build. And so we go around again, we’ve learned a broken man will kill his friend. Should we hit the brakes or wait for this to end?

It’s a fight from our first day, things are sad. When they say that life’s unfair, guess they mean it. Things are bad. Will this cynicism kill or protect us? What good will can we expect? What should we give to our neighbor? How naive can we afford to be?

Is there hope? Let’s believe a prophecy we can achieve by love and grace. We make our culture. Let us shape our common future. And I swear, the world is beautiful sometimes. And there is so much we don’t see that we affect positively. Not hopeless after all.

And so we go around again entropy dictates that we have a coming end and up or downwards is what we get to pick. And so we go around. My friends, when darkness overwhelms just do your best to swim. Just keep on breathing; you are not beaten yet.

And so it goes. And so we go.

Singles

WINTERFINE

Yes I’m fine, of course I understand but I’m also disappointed / Had a vision growing in my head and I wanted to enjoy it / Always wishing I could play it cool but I’m never good at playing / Maybe someday I will find the one who will finally let me say it

I love you

Yes I’m fine, I know it’s for the best and I’m happy that you have someone / And I wondered if there was a way I could keep you but it’s all done / I could say to call me a year but we both know it won’t be / Trying to move forward but I fear I’ll wait for you to turn to me and say

I love you

CRUSH

Don’t tell me anymore / I can’t take it, I’m already yours / Don’t wanna push you away / I’ve scared them off before / I used to sail to any shore / Who knows what we will be / No I won’t fight you, I’m just following / I hope you make me a space / to drop anchor in / I hope we’re not a fling

Crush me / underneath those words you speak / If I try to hide find me  / baby crush me

We watch each other close / we gotta balance it out, so there’s no heavy load / I know that silence is death / the space between the spokes / That was just a stupid joke / You touch my leg and hand / and yeah I could but, I don’t wanna stand / For anything except love / forget all their demands / This was never planned

Crush me and take me away, I’ll fall for you / Pull me from my great estate, I’ll fall for you