Justin McRoberts' Blog

Georgia Lee (part 1)

March 10th, 2010 | No Comments »

http://www.vimeo.com/10055443

My first knowledge of Tom Waits actually came by way of Primus; a band I listened to incessantly as a teenager. Wait’s appears on Primus’ dark and quirky 1991 release “Sailing The Seas of Cheese.” He is featured on a track entitled “Tommy The Cat” as the voice of Tommy, who is, of course, a cat. Interesting bit of trivia: Primus backs Waits on the opening track to “Mule Variations,” the same album from which we get the song “Georgia Lee.”

Waits wrote Georgia Lee with his wife, Kathleen after the body of 12-year old Georgia Lee Moses was found off Highway 101 in Petaluma, CA, just north of San Francisco. Discovered on Aug 23, 1997, Georgia had run away and was missing for over two weeks before her absence was noticed; a more common occurrence in low-income or impoverished areas. In fact, just four years earlier, the absence of Polly Klaas, a 12-year old girl from an upper middle class neighborhood in the same county as Georgia Moses, had stirred outrage and action nationwide. Major celebrities and news outlets committed hours of time to finding her. Polly’s kidnapper and eventual murderer was arrested and is now on death row. The man who killed Georgia was never found.

“Not to make it a racial matter,” Waits said “but it was one of those things where, you know, she’s a black kid, and when it comes to missing children and unsolved crimes, a lot of it has to do with timing, or publicity . . . and there was this whole Polly Klaas Foundation up here, while Georgia Lee did not get any real attention. And I wanted to write a song about it.”

Road-Side Monument for Georgia Lee in Petaluma, CA

I don’t at all mean to belittle the time and energy spent searching for, mourning and remembering Polly Klaas. Nor do I believe Waits intended to do so. Quite the opposite in fact; that a child goes missing from their home or neighborhood should be cause for all regularly-scheduled programming to pause.. any child…

And perhaps it was simply “to do with timing” that there was so much attention paid to the finding of one child, while another child’s absence and death can be simply read as the lay of the land. I’m not suggesting that media attention is the most accurate measure of our concern for life but the nightly news is at least some reflection of collective consciousness; some reflection of what things are of value to us; what things we are watching, listening to and present to.

A year after services were held, Waits is quoted as saying about the service “I guess everybody was wondering, where were the police, where was the deacon, where were the social workers, and where was I and where were you.”

So while it might not be CNN or FOX or even the local paper, it has to be someone, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what our hearts demand?.. that someone is watching, someone is listening, someone is there for the other child? for every child?

“Where were her parents? What kind of parent allows their child to run away and doesn’t call the police?” we ask. All the while knowing that parents are not always good parents; sometimes parents are only children themselves, as Wait’s writes: “A lot of kids are raising their parents.”

“So, If not her parents,” we concede “then what about her neighbors? What kind of neighborhood lets one of it’s little ones simply disappear?” At which my own heart sinks because I do not know the names of children who live only a few units away from me.

What kind of world is it, then, in which the in the foundational institutions set in place to facilitate the development of young life so consistently fail?

This progression of questions about the broken nature of things leads us to the One whose world it is… or at least to the places we expect to find Him. The SF Chronicle reported that Waits attended Georgia Moses’ memorial service, “sitting quietly at the back of the crowded church.”

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there?

If not the news networks, the families or the neighbors.. If not the world He made, then must not God Himself protect the most vulnerable among us?

Part 2 coming shortly…

You can purchase the song or the album here
You can also find it at iTunes

The Deconstruction of “Through Songs I Was First Undone”

March 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

In the opening pages of Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow is a notice reading:

Persons attempting to find a “text” in this book will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a “subtext” will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct or otherwise “understand” it will be exiled to a desert island in the company of only other explainers.

Yes.
Sir.
Got it.

By no means do I intend to dismantle Trent Reznor’s psyche or read some kind of tacky, machine-molded, pastel and porcelain symbology into George Michael. I sincerely respect and understand Berry’s warning about our (read: my) propensity to kill something beautiful by cutting it in pieces “figuring it out.” However, I also heed the wise words of Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, who, in “Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies” writes:

Analysis is an act of love. Reading slowly, carefully, looking for pattern considering word choice, the logic of line breaks, figures of speech, pondering the fitness of images– these require a quality of attention that is comparable to the kind of attending a lover pays to the beloved.

It is in this spirit that, tomorrow, I will begin to take a loving look at the songs I’ve chosen for Through Songs I Was First Undone. To write, lovingly, about what is knowable regarding each song and the ways each has ‘undone’ me. In certain cases, I’ll also be sharing about studio process and some intentional decisions made while recording in order to draw something out of these very alive and still speaking works.

I’ll begin with Georgia Lee.

African Eunuchs and The Secret Message of Rock Music (Through Songs I Was First Undone Part III)

March 2nd, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Phillip was headed south. He wasn’t given a destination. Or at least if there was a destination, we’re not told what it was. All we know from what is written is that he was to go south and that the road he was to travel was a “wilderness road.” Most of us don’t travel on “wilderness roads,” so for the sake of cohesive imagery, let’s picture driving on any of the major interstates in PA.

On the way South, along this wilderness road, Phillip came across a eunuch from Ethiopia…

…you know,.. like you do.

Now, if you’re like me and you come across an Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot, you don’t think too much of it. But in this case, something strange was afoot at the Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot. The Spirit of the LORD said to Phillip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

“…go to the chariot… stay near it…”

Not “go and plant a seed” or “go and deliver the message but don’t get involved.”

“Go and stay.”

This is not the language of agenda or strategy. This is the language of proximity; the language of incarnation.

Phillip ran to the chariot and upon reaching it, heard the man in it reading the words of sacred Scripture; words of the prophet Isaiah; words Philip was familiar with which foreshadowed the life and death of the One Phillip had come to know as the resurrected Jesus.

What a strange twist to the story: Phillip did not bring the Word of God to the chariot; It was there when he arrived. In an setting Phillip was unfamiliar with.

It was already there.
Pregnant with life.
Waiting.

Phillip asked the Ethiopian: “Do you understand what you are reading?” To which the man replied: “How can I, unless someone explains it to me.” And then the Ethiopian invited Phillip into his chariot.

Go. Stay. Get in.

To be in the chariot is to for Phillip to no longer have control. His feet off the ground, his “destination” was now wherever this man was heading; Phillip’s journey was now linked with the journey of this stranger; his story now intercepted and invaded by this stranger’s story.

And it is in that setting, unfamiliar and uncontrolled, that the conversation turned to the Story that is both their stories; the Story that is our story as well. A story so deeply ingrained in this world and in our hearts that every story ends up being some shade of it, leaving us only with the option, the adventure, the joy and responsibility of discovering it… where it already is.

What I am doing, in part, with this new project is asking my christian brothers and sisters to approach chariots they might be unfamiliar with; even perhaps suspicious or afraid of… and stay.

… to make a discipline of engaging, listening and seeing… much as we have made a discipline of dividing, discerning and judging.

…to be actively present instead of eager to leave…

…and in that discipline of being actively present, to recognize the story and song of the Divine where it already is rather than believe it only ends up where we take it…

…to know well enough the texts our neighbors are reading that we could ask, knowingly “Do you understand what you are reading?”…

…to get in and see the story from the seat our neighbors are sitting in and “explain” as best we can, as best we know, as thoroughly as possible.. Life. Death. Resurrection. Covenant. Kingdom. Glory. Hope. Loss. Victory… Trusting not to our wisdom or education but to the pervasiveness of the Story Itself and to the Sovereignty of the One whose Story it ultimately is.

You can purchase the album at my web store now.
You can also find it at iTunes.

Evidence of a Colorful Youth

February 24th, 2010 | 7 Comments »

During my first post about the new album, I mentioned my early work as an artist in a neighborhood KISS cover band. I wanted to leave no doubt whatsoever regarding my history with rock music and the shaping that genre has done in me.

That’s me on the right.

It was 1979. I was 5.

I was barely in kindergarten…

… but I was in the KISS Army.

Interview About “Through Songs I Was First Undone”

February 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Last month, I did a short interview with Soul-Audio about the new album. Here is an excerpt from my conversation with content editor Andrew Greenhalgh:

“Soul-Audio: Earlier, in reference to Waits’ “Georgia Lee,” you talked about the subject matter of openly and honestly questioning God, i.e, “Why wasn’t God watching, listening, whatever.” And said that, “I live there a lot of the time. I have a suspicion that many of us do.” Now, I totally concur with that. We do live in that state of questioning, even though we don’t always own up to it. And truthfully, a lot of Christian music doesn’t openly address these questions; rather, they seem to offer up simple platitudes as opposed to tackling the issues head on. Is it important for you to address these kind of questions? And why do you feel as though the industry, the CCM one, anyway, is more reluctant to do so?

Justin: I find a great sense of normality in songs like Georgia Lee; songs that reflect a disconnect between man and God. My experience of faith has been that it is a difficult road to travel on and ‘choosing to believe’ at times is a sacrifice of pride and intellect that I am unwilling to make. To trust God in the face of deep tragedy is most often not as simple or easy as waiting for the tension of minor chords to resolve into major chords which reinforce the soaring, full-throated declaration that “I will praise You in this storm.” While I think that declaration is beautiful and necessary in its place, so is the song that says “My boat sank and I lost everything I cared about.. where the hell were you?”

I would further add that there is something at least equally redemptive in giving legitimacy to these expressions of frustration and doubt. After all, before Job said to God “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand” he.. well… spoke of things he did not understand. It is BECAUSE of his courage to confront God on what he saw as unjust action that he came to really KNOW what he had previously taken for granted.

It’s important for me to voice these things on a few levels. For myself to make my own soul known to me; art serves this purpose in my life.. I am able to read myself more clearly in the things I write, especially as time passes after a recording. I also believe it’s important to create space for the many of us who live here to have a sense of normalcy in our doubts.

As you mention, there is plenty of space provided for those more ‘certain’ about their faith; I am hoping to provide some room for the rest of us.

As regards the reluctance of the CCM to do or not do anything in particular, I can only guess; not knowing very many people working in its ranks anymore. I know that it is that it’s much harder to sell a story that makes people uncomfortable; a complicated or unresolved story. The CCM industry is just that: an industry. It’s not a church and we often expect of them the same principles we do of our local congregation. The job of an industry is to sell things. A Christian industry sells Christianity. A Christianity shrouded in mystery is a hard sell. Certainty? Well, that we can do.”

Read the whole interview here

Marketability and the Good (Through Songs I Was First Undone, Part II)

February 11th, 2010 | 10 Comments »

(You can read Part 1 here.)

“In the beginning,..” there was no stuff. There was darkness and void… it totally sucked.

God knew it sucked and so He went about making it not suck. He did this in a very interesting way.

So, while there was no stuff, God made light by which to see the stuff God would eventually make.

And when God had made the light, “God saw that the light was good.”

The light was “good”…

um…

…good for what? There’s no stuff. Stuff had not been made yet. The purpose of light is to make stuff see-able.. So that we would know what we were buying… and eventually returning or replacing (which is another story). That’s the point of light, is it not?

But before light was good FOR something,.. God called it “good”?

God then went about saying the same thing about just about all the stuff He was making… Even before we were there to use it…

The seas were “good.” The vegetation was “good.” and on and on.

All the stuff was good simply because He saw it that way… simply because He had made it. Creation was (and is) of value to God because it is His,.. not because of it’s usefulness. So that the innate value of all things would rest in its relationship to the Creator. Not it’s usefulness to other parts of Creation nor it’s nearly arbitrary value in the Marketplace…

All Creation has value,
All Creation is good, because He is… and it is His.

I think we have this understanding of value almost entirely upside down, backwards and inside out (much like I do when trying to fold a fitted sheet… it’s a travesty.) The dominant value system is so driven by and distorted by utility and profit that we struggle to find value in the the poor, the developmentally disabled, the unborn, the elderly, the Raiders… the least of these.

This is where I believe art is central and necessary for the human heart: In art, the value-relationship between Creator and Creation is expressed more clearly than just about anywhere else. A piece is not worth what it sells for. Be it 99c to $1.29 for a digital track or $30 to $5M for a painting, the monetary scale hardly tells us anything about a work’s ultimate/inate value. What makes a song or a sculpture worth something or “good” generally has little if anything to do with the money it generates.

I believe we must come to this understanding in relationship to one another. I also believe that embracing this value system as it is expressed in and through art is a key to that understanding.

This is part of why, in a time when the ‘value’ of art is seemingly in constant flux and negotiation…

-“Tweet about it and get it for free!”

-“Tell your friends about it and get it for a deal plus a second copy!”

-“Get your parents to think about tweeting about it to their friends and they’ll get a free copy of it, plus a shirt that reads ‘My parents thought about tweeting about Justin McRoberts’ new album and all I got was this lousy shirt’.”

.. I really wanted to do an album that was simply worth doing. It is not the most marketable thing I could have done at this point and though I hope folks enjoy it and support me when I release it, I honestly would have done the project were there no prospect at all for sales.

Now, don’t get me wrong; i’m not ‘against’ free music downloads and new forms of consumer media exchange. In fact, I (heart) Noisetrade.. I
really do.. But Noistrade is not an end in and of itself. Those behind the experiment are people who value art and are counting on medium of Noisetrade to help create a culture in which art is a good worthy of our social and financial support.

Art communicates value in a way that very little, if anything, in all this world communicates value. My songs are not worth what listeners buy them for. Their value simply cannot be measured in that way. This album will not have been “worth it” if it sells well; it is worth it because the songs are good; and the songs are good because there is something of God in/about/through them…

…just as there is in all art… just as there is in you and me.