If you follow the links and have read some of the articles which I have written in catapult magazine, you may know that my relationship with Christian music is somewhat conflicted and distant. It once meant a great deal to me, though, and some albums truly rise above the simple and restrictive moniker of Christian music. Last weekend, as I was cleaning my room (an activity which itself can be both melancholy and invigorating, with each of these emotions competing for preeminence), I listened to Amy Grant’s Lead Me On (1988) and remembered just how much I love that album and how good some of the songs on it are. And evidently CCM magazine agreed, listing it their top Christian album ever. Here is Lead me On on Rhapsody (sign up and get 25 free listens).
I confess that I do not claim to be an expert on Amy Grant’s music as a whole. I checked out somewhere after Heart in Motion, when she headed down a somewhat more pop direction. It was not that I minded, the songs were decent, but in some ways were a step down from what I had heard on Lead Me On. And when she and Gary Chapman divorced and she shortly thereafter remarried Vince Gill, well, I pretty much, angrily, dismissed her altogether. (Whether that anger was jutified or useful or righteous or not will have to wait for another post. My thoughts on divorce are complex, full of emotion, and perhaps evolving). Since then, though, my attitude to her has settled more into disappointment and resignation, not at her so much as to the the prevalence of these sorrows in the world itself, in my life even. What made the failure of her marriage particularly so painful, though, partly was due to what I thought then was the tough idealism of Lead Me On, which evidently was neither tough or idealistic enough.
Here are some quick takes on some tracks that stand out.

The opening track, co-written with her then husband, Gary Chapman, spoke of conversion and hope for the future:
We were young,
And none of us know quite what to say,
But the feeling moved
Among us in silence anyway.
Slowly we had made
Quite a change–
Somewhere we had crossed a big line.
Down upon our knees,
We had tasted holy wine,
And no one could sway us
In a life time.
Next, the title track, “Lead Me On,” written with Michael W. Smith, perhaps comes across as a bit too much of a simplistic take on the world’s ills, like “We Are the World,” covering, as it did, only the old and iconic issues of American slavery and the Holocaust. But, still, it had some powerful images and directed its cries of “How long?” to the right place. Yeah, and though there are some dramatic Michael W. Smith touches, the music is melodic and rocks. Here are her and Michael singing it on Youtube (really low volume and Spanish, or perhaps Portuguese, subtitles). And the original on AOL.
Shoulder to the wheel
For someone else�s selfish gain
Here there is no choosing
Working the clay
Wearing their anger like a ball and chain.
Fire in the field
Underneath a blazing sun
But soon the sun was faded
And freedom was a song
I heard them singing when the day was done
Singing to the holy one.
Lead me on
Lead me on
To a place where the river runs
Into your keeping, oh.
The next song on the album is curious because of with whom Amy co-wrote the song, Don and Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, which is curious both because they are Catholics and I wonder what their reception and relationships were like in Nashville in the 1980’s and because their current music is so different. I am not entirely sure of what to make of this theologically with regards to our nature (natures?) as believers, but it is true that those shadows do pull us away, or at least keep us in the darkness, when we needn’t be there.
There are two of me
One does the right thing,
One cannot see.
Standing back to back,
Who is the strong one
In the last act?
Every path I take,
Roads I go down,
Choices I make,
Take me right between
Patches of light and
Darkness in me.
Oh, we have to keep
A watch on our shadows–
Every move
They secretly make.
We try to be
So close to heaven,
But then our shadows,
They run away.
They pull away.
The next two songs, “Saved by love” and “Faithless Heart,” though, are probably ones about which I feel the most rueful, because, then, they made me feel the most hopeful, that though life was difficult that one could endure. I still believe that, but that belief has been encased in a clearer, harder understanding of just how difficult life can be. Amy and her husband Gary had well publicised (unfortunately) difficulties in their marriage, and it is touching how Amy inserts her own name into “Saved by love.” These songs were also co-written with Smith, who one got the sense was, and perhaps still is, a good friend and brother in Chirst. I quote them almost in their entirity.
This video is a little ironic, in that that is Vince Gill picking the mandolin there, but it is a good recording and, yes, Amy does still have a great, low husky/smoky sort of voice. I suppose it is a good reminder, though, that, no, we really cannot be saved by any other “love” other than the “God is” variety of “Love,” and that is a helpful reminder.

“Saved by Love”
Laura loves her little family,
And she�s the kind of woman who loves them with her life.
But sometimes in the evening,
When the world rests on her shoulders
With four walls closing in,
She�ll close her eyes.
Oh….
It�s not like she misses being younger,
Though she never was in vogue magazine or on tv;
Her husband loves her dearly,
And the morning shows her clearly,
Kisses her little baby girl.
Laura, she�s the queen of the world.
Can�t imagine ever leaving now,
Now that she�s been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
Listen to her quiet heart singing loud.
Laura, she�s been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
I know that she�s been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
Saved by love.
There�s nothing quite like my family�s love to warm me,
And nothing short of death�s gonna ever leave me cold.
Well, still at times it�s lonely,
But through it all it only
Makes me love Jesus more,
And this is what he came here for.
I can�t imagine ever leaving now.
Now that I�ve been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
He�s gone and turned my crazy world back around,
And I�ve been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
I know that I�ve been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love….
Oh, I�m never leaving now,
Now that I�ve been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
He�s gone and turned my crazy world back around,
And I�ve been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love.
Amy, she�s been saved by love,
Saved by love, saved by love….
Saved by love.
I�m saved by love.
That�s right.
And nothing I can say,
Nothing I can do, nothing I can say.
We�re all just saved by love.
Nothing you can say, nothing you can do.
Only love can say, only love can do,
Only love can say.
“Faithless Heart”
At times the woman deep inside me
Wanders far from home,
And in my mind I live a life
That chills me to the bone.
A heart, running for arms out of reach,
But who is the stranger my longing seeks?
I don�t know.
But it scares me through and through,
�cause I�ve a man at home
Who needs me to be true.
Oh, faithless heart,
Be far away from me.
Playing games inside my head
That no one else can see.
Oh, faithless heart,
You tempt me to the core,
But you can�t have a hold on me,
So don�t come around anymore.
(the feelings here, god, the feelings here.)
God, you know my feelings here
Could wipe my world away,
Ravaging the promises
A stronger heart once made,
So hold me, I�m falling so fast,
And tell me that the fighting inside will pass
As I walk away,
And find the strength to choose
The man who waits for me
With a heart that�s true.
Oh, faithless heart, (faithless heart….)
Be far away from me.
Playing games inside my head
That only I can see.
Oh, faithless heart, (faithless heart….)
You tempt me to the core,
But you can�t have a hold on me,
So don�t come around anymore.
Faithless heart!
Oh, faithless heart, (faithless heart….)
Be far away from me.
Playing games inside my head
That nobody else can see.
Oh, faithless heart, (faithless heart….)
You tempt me to the core,
But you can�t have a hold on me,
So don�t come around anymore.
Well, you can�t have a hold on me.
So don�t come around.
The final song on the album, “Say Once More,” is pretty much a straight up love song, but a nice one. I really like the part of it which is more of a spoken part and, in places, is overlaid with the chorus. Here are the first few lines:
Let me say once more that I love you,
Let me say one time, maybe two,
That I love the way that you love me,
And I wish I knew more of you.
Let me say once more that I love you,
Let me say one time, maybe two,
That I love the way that you love me,
And I wish I knew more of you.
Tell me that time can�t erase
This look of love on your face.
Let me say once more that I need you,
One more time or just maybe two.
Oh, my life will always be richer
For the time I�ve spent here with you.
Let me say once more that I love you,
Let me say one time, maybe two,
That I love the way that you love me,
And I wish I knew more of you.
Tell me that time won�t erase
The way that my heart sees your face.
I call your name,
You look my way,
It�s clear you trust each word I say.
When life is long and problems come,
You�ll always be my only one.
So now we�re standing face to face,
And with one look my eyes embrace me.
Squeeze away each haunting fear,
And say the words I long to hear.
My favorite song on the album, though, is a wistful, melancholy one (surprise, surprise), and falls in same category as the wistful “I Will Remember You” on her next album. No, I think why I liked this song, written by Webb (not sure of the first name there), because it made me ache for the intimacy of the boarding school which I had just left a few years earlier, as the second verse is almost a perfect evocation of it. And the simple picture of a “couple in love / livin’ week to week / rooms full of laughter” was also an appealing image, if I am honest. I still love this song, now even more so because it acknowledges and confesses the main thing in us that makes life so difficult, which I have come to realize is a much bigger problem than I could have ever imagined back when I was more of a wide-eyed idealist, our own selfish indifference.
If these old walls,
If these old walls could speak
Of the things that they remember well,
Stories and faces dearly held,
A couple in love
Livin� week to week,
Rooms full of laughter,
If these walls could speak.
If these old halls,
If hallowed halls could talk,
These would have a tale to tell
Of sun goin� down and dinner bell,
And children playing at hide and seek
from floor to rafter,
If these halls could speak.
They would tell you that I�m sorry
For bein� cold and blind and weak.
They would tell you that it�s only
That I have a stubborn strreak,
If these walls could speak.
If these old fashioned window panes were eyes,
I guess they would have seen it all–
Each little tear and sigh and footfall,
And every dream that we came to seek
Or followed after,
If these walls could speak.
They would tell you that I owe you
More than I could ever pay.
Here�s someone who really loves you;
Don�t ever go away.
That�s what these walls would say.
They would tell you that I owe you
More than I could ever pay.
Here�s someone who really loves you;
Don�t ever go away.
That�s what these walls would say.
That�s what these walls would say.
That�s what these walls would say.