Favorite Albums of 2000s: #7

7.  All Right Here – Sara Groves

 

You’ll notice in these lists that i’m a lyrics guy.  I like music that has something meaningful, perhaps even important, to say, and i prefer these things to be said in non-obvious ways that are an admixture of elegance, cleverness, poetry, passion and timelessness.  Sara Groves is a premier songwriter, and she shines nowhere better than in this 2002 release.

 

My favorite track, and sure to be part of a future slideshow, is You Cannot Lose My Love.  This is a song that will be with us for a long, long time.  Another 5-star tune is “Maybe There’s a Loving God”.  The only track i could do without is Tornado.  But there are so many excellent songs here that i completely overlooked a gem like “Fly” until just recently.

 

Snippets of the lyrics (full listing)…

·       And in your hands the pain and hurt look less like scars and more like character

·       Every heart has so much history.  It’s my favorite place to start.  Sit down awhile and share your narrative with me.  I’m not afraid of who you are.

·       Pause in your busy day, look extra long my way, wink at me across the room.  Kiss me longer.  Touch my arm when i am by your side.  So i can fly.

·       And love to me is when you put down that “one more thing” and say nothing will come between you and me.  Not even one more thing.

·       They have a chart & graph of my despondency.  They want to chart a path for self-recovery.  They want to know what i’m thinking, what motivates my mood, to spend all night in the backyard, staring up at the stars and moon… Maybe this was made for me, for lying on my back in the middle of a field.  Maybe that’s a selfish thought, or maybe there’s a loving God.  Maybe i was made this way, to think and to reason and to question and to pray.

·       Man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief, drug down to the city dump, spread eagle on a cross beam, propped up like a scarecrow, nailed like a thief, there for all the world to see.

·       ‘Cause if you sit at home “you’re a loser”, “couldn’t you find anything better to do?”  Well, no, i couldn’t think of one thing i would rather waste my time on than sitting here with you.

·       You will lose your confidence, in times of trial your common sense.  You may lose your innocence, but you cannot lose my love.

 

Other links

·       Video for Less Like Scars

·       Interview from 2003

 

Next up: a wonderful album from the band that gave us the best album of the 1980s (and perhaps of all-time)