The Unfinished Music of Justin Brock

Justin Brock is a singer/songwriter from Mississippi - the kind of songwriter without any hits, albums or fans. Basically, a nobody in the music industry. These are the unrecorded albums of Justin Brock.

Not All the Blood - A collection of hymn arrangements that I started using devotionally in 1996. Since I have failed to learn how to read music, and since most of the arrangements have no correlation to the original settings, I call them ruined hymns.

Rebuild These Ruins - This album has existed in my mind since 2000. The songs have all been written, I just haven’t recorded it yet. Rebuild These Ruins is full of songs about brokenness, but it is laced with the hope that a devastated life may be rebuilt.

Locust Years - Locust Years spans a decade of my songwriting. The first song was written in 1999 - the last in 2009. The album is a chronicle of sorts. I find myself digging up Jews with all my Old Testament allusions, but the emotions and hurts are nonetheless my own.

400 Years of Silence - 400 Years of Silence is the least finished of all my albums. I have only written the title track. The vision is to create a Christmas/winter album full of allusions to well-known hymns. If I write it like I dream it, the songs will help remove the blindness of familiarity and give the listener a fresh view on the truths in the old songs.

Come Around

November 11th, 2009

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“Come Around” is a song I wrote in the fall 1999. I was living in Louisiana at the time and lonelier than anyone should be. Now, ten years later, I hear in it the foolish commitments of infatuation and naive love – the immature, idolatrous me of my youth.

But, you know, I still like the song even if I do have issues with the guy who wrote it.

I’m just playing around with the effects in this track. This song is from my unfinished album – Locust Years.

Come Around

I sing the rhyme of an aging sailor
with hopes as bright as Noah’s raven
I’ve been speaking and stretching and strained in silent nights
with no hope or land in sight
if you could walk the waves to me
or bear peace across the waters . . .
this silence is haunted with the memory of your love
on the evening wings of a dove.

could you come around
and help me hope I’ll be ok
tell me that you wait/ tell me that you’ll stay?
I wonder what I’d say

through the troubled rage of ocean
in the eerie calm behind
I see the ragged rigging, a charred and broken mast
but I’m alive, the storm has passed
then I take time for reflection
with the sea my looking glass
and I’ve been thinking “if only you could see yourself this way
in the depths of this green grace”

till you come around
I will hope that you’re ok
I will pray to find when I catch your eyes
a quiet place inside

there’s no shade out on these waters
and I’m dizzy with the heat
at morning and evening – time’s sacrificial pyres
day wakes and ends in fire
and the sun a scorching suitor
and love a jealous flame
the smoke of this altar will season sweet the wind
till I’m a scent to touch your hair in

Could you come around
in all your flesh and bone
and not fear the pain and embrace the flames
you would surely know my name

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How You Love Me

November 2nd, 2009

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I wrote How You Love Me when I was 18 – a freshman at Belhaven College. I recorded it late Saturday night. Here are the lyrics below:

How You Love Me

Why does my heart turn to stone?
Why do I turn my back on you?
Why am I numb? Look at what I’ve become.
Can’t you break me in two?

Oh, how you love me
In spite of myself.
Oh, how you love me
Like nobody else.

All of the light fades away
As I turn from your face
And drift away while you call me to stay
In your sweet embrace.

Oh, how you love me
In spite of myself.
Oh, how you love me
Like nobody else.

I run away from you
but every step you chase me down.
I hide behind the walls I build
Won’t you shout and make them tumble down?
Lost in my confusion
Please seek me till I’m found.
Behind a mask I hide myself
Won’t you tell me

Who am I in your eyes?
How can you look on my face?
For my heart is so stained and dark
But you wash the sin away.

Oh, how you love me
In spite of myself.
Oh, how you love me
Like nobody else.

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Played this on Sunday Morning at Redeemer

October 19th, 2009

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I got to lead worship at church this past Sunday. Here’s the special music I did. Lyrics are over here: O Thou That Hear’st When Sinners Cry

Thanks to Donnie for recording it.

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