I am waiting, waiting…

I spent most of this afternoon streaming the full new album from Patty Griffin, one I’ve been waiting to hear since I sat in the very sanctuary where it all happened. Downtown Church was recorded in one of the oldest churches in Nashville that once housed wounded Civil War soldiers amidst its Egyptian-themed murals and columns. I accompanied my friend there for her regular Sunday service when I was visiting in December, and was thrilled when the kids’ Sunday school teacher mentioned to me that Patty had recorded a full album there at the beginning of last year. The presence of the room is amazing, and I could picture Patty belting from the pulpit.

This is a full-on gospel album, with songs written and influenced by folks as varied as Hank Williams, Big Mama Thornton, and Bob Dylan. It’s produced by Buddy Miller, and the formidable Emmylou Harris loans her vocals, as well as “gospel royalty” like Regina and Ann McCrary. There were tinges of this warming, soulful authenticity on songs like the incredible “Mary” (in ‘98) or cuts like “Up To The Mountain (MLK song)” from 2007’s Children Running Through. But this one lays down the folded-paper fans and Sunday dress hats, and just lets it go.

This song knocked the breath out of me the first time I heard it today, and sent all kinds of tingles up and down my spine. I closed my office door immediately and turned it way up, mesmerized. It starts humble, but it’s hard not to be moved by the end — the ache and the grief and the longing in her voice speaks as clearly as any of the words she is singing.

I also first thought she was singing, “I am waiting, waiting, for my time to come,” and to some degree, maybe we all are waiting for something. Waiting for someone to return, waiting for a clear path, waiting for a soulmate or a child or some inspiration.

This is a song for that.

Waiting For My Child To Come – Patty Griffin

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Patty recorded a version of this song with Mavis Staples for the Oh Happy Daycompilation earlier this year, but this new version is even more solemn, more soulful, more absolutely convincing.

When Miller spoke of the genesis of this album concept, he stated that Patty “seemed to feel this would be good for her heart, too.” Yes.

“One of the first things she said was she wanted a room where she could kind of feel her voice coming back to her,” Miller says. “And my place doesn’t necessarily fall in that category. So I thought of this downtown Presbyterian church. I’d just done a couple songs as part of a benefit there. It’s the wildest looking thing, and it sounded beautiful. So I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

And after you finish listening to this, try segueing seamlessly into Joshua James’ “Cold War” in all its boot-stomping gospel goodness, and be sated completely. Perfect.

covered in birds who can sing a million songs without any words

Lately I’ve been hung up on a Patty Griffin song. She’s a songwriter whose waters I have wandered into deeply with a few specific songs, but I know she has so much more out there than what I have experienced. My first introduction to this Maine musician was her song “Top of the World,” covered by the Dixie Chicks on their 2002 album Home – and I just noticed she also wrote the closing track “Let Him Fly” on their 1999 album Fly. Both are astonishing, uncommonly potent songs.

I’ve said for years that “Top of the World” is probably one of of the saddest songs I know of by any artist, just this distilled essence of ache that is so hard to capture in a song. It’s a tale of regret and dead dreams, and not being able to do anything to fix what’s laying before you. You can listen to it here; the line about “I pretend to be sleeping when you come in in the morning, to whisper goodbye, go to work in the rain, I don’t know why…don’t know why” kills me every time. Everyone’s singing, we just wanna be heard.

She’s toured in recent years with folks I love like Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and David Rawlins, and I’d forgotten her contributions to Cameron Crowe’s splendid Elizabethtown soundtrack until I read a friend’s blog post this morning.

In recent weeks the song of hers that I’ve re-discovered is “Mary.” It’s this razor-sharp rumination into motherhood and the beautiful humanity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It’s not a religious song. Griffin takes a look at Mary as a common, complex woman weighted with (and sometimes obscured by) responsibilities, yet wreathed in beauty. I would postulate maybe even the latter because of the former.

Mary – Patty Griffin

Mary
you’re covered in roses
you’re covered in ashes
you’re covered in rain.
You’re covered in babies
covered in slashes
covered in wilderness
covered in stains.

…Mary you’re covered in roses
you’re covered in ruins
you’re covered in secrets
you’re covered in treetops
covered in birds who can sing a million songs
without any words…

For me, the song speaks to the beautiful and complicated ways that caring for another, particularly in this case through motherhood, transforms both the individual doing the caring and the world. Mary is in the shadows of the blazes of glory in the chorus here, but she is doing the work that needs to be done through crippling loss. And there’s so much more to her than anyone knows.

Secrets, ashes, beauty.