Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed
Forty years of things you say you wish you’d never said
How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead
I wonder as I stare up at the sky turning red
~ Long Ride Home

These lyrics haunt me. I think of my wife and our marriage and what in the world I will be thinking of after that ride in a long black limousine – what will it be like to return home that evening with no one there? What will I be thinking about the time we had together?

Patty Griffin has this effect on me. She sings to my soul. She sings the saddest songs I have ever heard, ones that connect with my loneliness and yet somehow offer a profound sense of hope and redemption. I’m not sure how she does it.

I grew up without really very good music (sorry, mom and pop). My dad had an awesome record collection, but those seemed like long ago days. We listened to a steady diet of pretty tame classical music like Vivaldi, and then Christian contemporary music – mostly Amy Grant and Sandi Patti. In fact, these were some of the first concerts I ever attended, with an occasional radical Oak Ridge Boys and then Steven Curtis Chapman. I’d say that was rather sheltered. Hey, they did their best.

I can remember hearing Huey Lewis and the News, Madonna, Paul Simon’s Graceland album and some guy named Bob Dillon (so I thought). The Moody Blues and REO Speedwagon were pretty progressive to me.

All that to say, I had to come out of some things. I moved on from there to Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W Smith, John Michael Talbot (what’s the deal with the three names?). I sprinkled in Three Dog Night and a few other *gasp* secular bands now and then. Ah, those were the days. I would never, ever go back.

Enough of my sad musical history. I remember it was at RUF Summer Conference maybe in 2002 or 2003 when I first heard Patty. She was blaring through the loudspeakers before and after our large group meeting of preaching and singing. Who is that? I asked. She was distinctive. She was saying something, I just didn’t know what.

I bought all of her albums and since then I’ve been hooked. Patty is folk. She’s Nashville. She’s Austin. But she’s also soul and gospel (her latest album is called Downtown Church). She sings about the longing of mankind to reach something they just can’t quite make it to.

In Trapeze, she sings of a 17 year old girl who becomes a trapeze artist after her divorce. Her heart aches so much, so visits the lady of the snakes who gave her a potion. She drank it in and then her heart never ached again. Sometimes I want that potion really, really badly.

In Sweet Loraine, she sings of a girl who finally makes it out of her awful household where her mother even threw rocks at her (isn’t that a strange thing for a mother to do?). It’s her wedding day, but Lorraine’s best day is filled with unspeakable sorrow: Her daddy called her a slut and a whore | On the night before her wedding day | The very next morning at the church | Her daddy gave Lorraine away | Lorraine, sweet Lorraine

As a pastor, I have this song on my heart often as I preach. I know that many of our best moments are also filled with unspoken horror. I simply cannot bring myself to reference this song – I weep every time I hear it.

I could go on and on. Patty moves my soul. She is one of the artists I would choose if I could only choose a selct few (Sufjan Stevens, Johnny Cash, and David Wilcox, Kevin Twit’s Indelible Grace albums are in this company)

As Patty sings in Railroad Wings:
And as far as I can tell, most everything means nothing
Except some things that mean everything

I don’t know what that means, but I love to have Patty sing it to me. And I hope to learn someday.

~ Doug Serven