Behind the Song - Unnatural

As always, thanks for reading! I will also likely have a video blog along the same subject as well. This song began decades ago with, as you may surmise, a moment of huge revelation through personal failure. 

I had been working towards advancing in my profession at the time and had achieved what I felt then was impressive success. It was the late 90s and I was playing shows throughout the gulf states. I had been sponsored by a pretty well established label with large plans and felt I was coming of age and unfortunately developing a slight celebrity status. Destruction was looming as pride often does, fortunately no lines were crossed, but the reality of what I could be aside from the grace of God was clear. He brought light, clarity, correction, and redirection. How easy compromise leading to corruption sets it. It was my watershed moment - I cannot not work to build His kingdom and my own at the same time AND any attempt to build my kingdom will leave my frustrated because I am not meant for this place, I have a heavenly destiny.

The song starts almost with whining - I messed up, what now? Then I go to answer the question, remind that where and when I can't, GOD can and IS! Though I hate personal failure, I love HIM there! I also wanted to include the map as well, all very purposeful and vital to the song.

The intro line was the originally chorus and the song moved without much meaningful direction. It played well enough with just and acoustic but was never driven. It was nearly years before I rewrote it to the way it currently.

I was getting ready to minister at an event in NC which had an addiction recover component and I really wanted to use this song so I began to work with it and the new chorus progression came about which gave the song a lot of energy causing me to reconstruct the verses somewhat to fit the new rhythm. I have been told that you can't write songs so revealing because it's too much - but it was my journal entry and I felt and still feel most people can identify with this message. 

It became a household favorite but I was never able to develop it further - I couldn't hear the parts. I would try different guitars, keys, and drums but was never satisfied. I relinquished this song to being only ever an acoustic song and have locked it away as that for years.

You want to hear God laugh? Tell Him your plan. Along came Marko who has been a gift to me in so many ways. During the COVID shut down Marko challenged me to come to his studio and record 3-4 songs and allow him to develop them. We settled on three, this being the first. 

When I heard the unmixed version, I was expecting to be asked to develop a lead guitar line with some riffs and heard this rotary organ. I loved it! I asked him how he thought of it and he said, very colorfully, "you're a musician and you play in churches, you need an organ!" And so it was. Even the touch of the tamborine is just remarkable. The emotion of the song is as you hear it. It starts with almost a whining admittance, it definitely travels through deep confession of the soul, and it announces the only answer, what He did to redeem us, and how I can get my head out of me and into His love for me.

You can enjoy it HERE (or linked below).

Thanks for reading, that's all for now!