The Unfinished Music of Justin Brock

I’ve tried to view myself Biblically in this song - as a hard-hearted criminal, a prayerless saint, an unfaithful wife. Note: Lonely Moses is not a song to record at a 6:30 a.m. concert, but I did it anyway.

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Lonely Moses

I should come like a penitent criminal,
but I don’t know if I could.
I’ve thought to slip out from this place where the shadows fall,
but I don’t know if I should
darken the light with my presence,
ask you for mercy in the faces of all I deserve
still I come, still I come, still I come to you
tiptoeing softly, watching my feet

My twilight songs should be sweet to awake the dawn
but roosters are crowing before I know what I’ve said.
I should lift high with these trees all my praises tall
but look at my weary limbs
I’m one lonely Moses in the desert
sleeping when I should be praying
and pounding these stones
still I come, still I come, still I come to you
sleepy and thirsty, dragging my feet

I should flow to you free like a waterfall
but my damned heart’s a stone
I’ve lifted my skirts till my love is a free-for-all.
It should be yours alone
will I ever wear white in your chamber
lift up my eyes to a lover who’ll call me his bride
will you come, come you come, will you come to me
breaking my hard heart, washing my feet
melting my cold heart, washing my feet

I’ve had a verse and chorus for this one since 2003. On the way home from work one Friday I finished it.

This track is from the first time I played it:

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This track is from the early morning concert at Redeemer:

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You Were Hated

I waited 14 years for a one night stand
and woke to coyote ugly in the morning -
she didn’t want me, she just needed a man
and I’s the only one around
well they call me deceiver, but who’s this consummated sleeper?
where’s the face of her sister when i reach down to kiss her?
sure Leah’s alright - she’s warm in the night -
she just ain’t what i bargained for

And the story of my life is
digging wells of thirst unabated.
and one day they will say i was loved
and you were hated

I remember i was just a child wishing my daddy would smile
without holding something in.
He’d say, “I don’t understand. Your brother’s such a man.
Why can’t you be a little more like him?”
Well I tried in my own way, but in the end i couldn’t stay
You can please everybody else and never know yourself
But with the bridges i’d burned
wasn’t sure i’d be returning

And the story of my life is
digging wells of thirst unabated.
and one day they will say i was loved
and you were hated

When the way you don’t know is the way you must go -
How that can keep you up at night.
I seen angels with wings climbing ladders in dreams
and i wondered at their broken flight.
if i was hungry for your touch, i didn’t want this much -
Now i limp to the morning like a man with a story.
You’ve blessed me with the wounds of love so i understand

that though the story of my life is
digging wells of thirst unabated.
and one day they will say i was loved
and you were hated

2/13/09, sometime between 5:04-5:45 p.m.

This is take one, the first time I ever played it. Download Locust Years - http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/LocustYears.mp3.

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This is from the morning concert at Redeemer. Download Locust Years (take 2) - http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/Locust-Years-final.mp3.

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Locust Years

When I first heard your voice
Your lips dripped of honey
I was young and foolish - couldn’t see what you were doing
Now your words croak like lies
how hollow are your eyes
you brought me to the brink of utter ruin

All the dreaming of my youth
Now like a carcass in the desert
What I’ve given you there’s no way to regain
You seemed fair when I first loved you
Now I’m doing all I can do
Just to leave you great deceiver, tempting shame

So I fly tonight from you false companion
all you ever brought was heartache and tears
And I’m leaving you for a land full of promise
You were my locust years

Once I held you in my arms
Like a man coddles fire
Me a child and yours were Pharaoh’s arms around
But you are cruel and you are plagued
And when justice rolls your way
You will grasp and drink the wine of violence down

So I fly tonight from you false companion
all you ever brought was heartache and tears
And I’m leaving you for a land full of promise
You were my locust years

So I’m here tonight to say I’m leaving
Though every moon your river’s red
Though your skin is soft and seasoned
I’m fleeing naked from your bed

So I fly tonight from you false companion
all you ever brought was heartache and tears
And I’m leaving you for a land full of promise
You were my locust years

“You Can’t Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens” isn’t what it seems, so if you’re Sufjan Stevens, don’t take this song the wrong way. I’d love a Sufjan Stevens album on Mississippi. I just have particular hopes for the writing process. Among them is the hope that he would visit the places, hear the drawl, swelter in the heat and despair - a hope for more than “allusions to maps.” Maybe I’m a jerk for wanting that.

The song is emphatically not saying either

1. that I don’t want Sufjan to do an album for Mississippi or
2. that I think I’m the fella to do an album for Mississippi. No one from a state where Elvis Presley, BB King, Jimmy Buffett, Muddy Waters, Conway Twitty, Kate Campbell, Claire Holley, Caroline Herring, Neilson Hubbard, Sam Cooke, Bo Diddley, 3 Doors Down, Tammy Wynette, W. C. Handy, John Lee Hooker, Blind Melon, Johanny Johanson, Tommy Johnson, Charley Pride, LeAnn Rimes, Jimmie Rodgers, or Britney Spears started can say that.

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You Can’t Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens

This plan brings to mind the day of the wedding;
No one requested objections to hear.
My aunt’s 4th husband kissed her like a cowboy.
They often fought. They divorced in a year.

The minister’s text was the Velveteen Rabbit
And Luke 2:13 where the shepherds saw light.
Reliving such scenes in my mind is my habit –
Some dreams in mid-sermon I step forth and fight.
I was 16, but I could have stopped it all.
Her subsequent pain, I thought it my fault.

Our first agricultural export is pine trees –
Allusions to maps may sound nice for your songs.
But my grandpa lived next to Eudora Welty,
And I eulogize fallen trees in my poems.
I’ve held my tongue too many times to name –
From eloquent dreams awakened to shame.

You can’t have Mississippi, Sufjan.
You can’t have every state in the Union.
What is your federal motivation –
Innocence, hubris or patriotism?

Or maybe it’s more like the time that she kissed me.
She was so free and so fast,
and I was the mute boy from Mississippi –
I’d only wished she had asked.
It couldn’t last; she didn’t know me well.
Couldn’t it last? She was so beautiful.

Come ride with me on the Trace for a day.
What sense of place can be gained where you are?
The Ruins of Windsor are lovely in May –
Reminders that truth, beauty, failure so often are one.

I watched The Elf over Christmas with my wife and some friends. Afterward, the thought occurred to me the the movie was, in part at least, about the awkwardness of public singing. I was only half joking.

Singing, it seems to me, has been shunted to the poles of our social life. Some of us sing in solitude - the shower, for instance. Fewer than that will sing in front of people. But singing with people is an experience that has all but vanished from American public life.

The few remaining vestiges of communal singing, or attempts at it, are primarily religious - in worship services or during Christian holidays that include song as an integral part, Christmas being the one most characterized by singing. Even the public singing of the Star Spangled Banner has religious undertones, as anyone who knows all the verses understands.

Most of us, however, attend to these occasions of singing with, not to or away from, others with a certain sheepishness. Singing together is a vulnerable thing. One’s voice is out there, exposed. We shrink back into our lip syncing. And we almost expect everyone else to follow suit. In The Elf, one of the weird, socially-unacceptable character traits of Will Ferrell’s character, Buddy, is his proclivity to sing loudly in public.

I think it is just this vulnerability that makes singing together such a powerful force for community building. Jon Favreau and David Berenbaum apparently think so, too. Buddy the Elf enters the lives of isolated New Yorkers and slowly brings them together in musical ways. Zooey Deschanel, or Jovie who later marries Buddy leads an odd congregation of New Yorkers in some carolling in order to rescue Christmas. And all would be lost if Walter, played by James Caan, did not join the throng by singing along.

The Elf is about the awkwardness of public singing and its hidden power, when we press through the awkwardness, to be a community-forming force.

Fine, don’t believe me. I still think singing together is an important part of community. When some of my family gathered on my deck this past Thanksgiving, we did a little. My cousin-in-law took the video with his phone.

I started writing this song my last semester at Belhaven, then finished it in the summer of 1999 when I was living in Lafayette, LA. As far as I can remember, there wasn’t anything in particular that inspired its writing. It is pretty-dang Reformed, as far as songs about this type of thing go.

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Salvation

Salvation

I am a bandit, been reprimanded
But I ain’t one to go and change my ways
Some get to struggle and wrestle with angels
My foe’s been these dark and mute tar baby days.
Watch me unravel, dare me to tangle
You see the plain truth? Well I can twist you blind
I am a marvel. I’ll swallow a camel
And do other feats but I can’t seem to clear my mind

I lift up my limp hands - you take hold with a strong hand
This is salvation, this is salvation
I run with a cruel band - you stretch out your long hand
This is salvation, this is salvation

I hide in a corner, I head for the backdoor
But you say “hey kid, come here and sit with me”
I don’t belong here but you bid me draw near
Taste of the bread, drink of the wine you offer me

I lift up my stained hands -You clean me with kind hands
This is salvation, this is salvation
My protest a weak stand - You feed me with firm hands
This is salvation, this is salvation

Can I ask you a favor? “Kid that’s all you can ask for.
And am I not one to give myself away?”
Sir I started to wonder after all that I’ve asked for
And all that you’ve given I don’t even know your name

Your name is timeless - You met me in a moment
This is salvation, this is salvation
Your name makes a rich man - Of the poor who will own it
This is salvation, this is salvation

Oh I am the outlaw - your are the judge
I’s caught red-handed - yours drip with blood
This is salvation, this is salvation
I am the one should swing from a tree
You’ve robbed me of my penalty
Thank you for hanging there for me
Thank you for hanging there for me
I will hang on your words.
Summer 1999

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Internal Criminal is one of those songs that took me years to write. When my little sister first saw the lyrics in the first stanza, she thought it should be a fast song. I couldn’t make it one, though. I think my pulse is slower than most folks’.

I love the historical allusions in this one.

Internal Criminal

Shame your accuser whispers within,
“Won’t nobody touch you now;
no telling where your heart has been.”
Oh, for some strong man to bind up your mind,
break through your bolted doors, tell you that all your thoughts are lies
and let you sleep where willows weep
and no one knows your name.

Down in the shadows you cower in fright,
you’d creep from the darkness
if you weren’t so scared of the light.
scared of exposure, scared to be known
frightened by your own shadow, you’re scared to be alone,
and while you hide, all hope has died,
cause no one knows your name.

Your soul is a city besieged on each side
four bloodthirsty columns surround you
and there’s a fifth inside
cowards and traitors who shoot from the dark,
Benedicts, internal criminals hiding in your heart.
Must you fight alone tonight
where no one knows your name?